Review of The Magnates: A Game of Power

Blurb from the publisher: 'The Magnates: A Game of Power is a strategic board game for 2-5 players which is fast and full of historical atmosphere and rich interactions. It takes you into the world of aristocratic intrigues and struggles for power which tore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from its heyday during the Union of Lublin, until the Targowica Confederation and the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

Players take on the roles of magnates who seek to develop their own family’s power in a moment favorable to fortune: the prime of the Union of Poland and Lithuania. The most eminent families fight for prestige and landed estates: the Lubomirski, the Potocki, the Radziwiłł, the Sapieha and the Zamoyski.

Each player has a deck of cards depicting well-known personages from a given family. Some of these characters are outstanding people, capable of great deeds. But there are also less useful people, able to spoil any undertaking entrusted to them… unless, thanks to the player’s decisions, even those lesser ones will do much for the family.

During the game, players will manage their deck of characters so that, in competition with others, they can achieve as much as possible on each of the planes of life of the Commonwealth. Players will clash during the creation of the state’s internal policy, as well as in response to external threats and opportunities arising from the international situation. And so, as it happened in reality, the fate of the country will be the result of the sum of actions of the most powerful aristocratic families. If the players lose themselves in a mutual fight for titles and advantage, the Commonwealth will collapse under the pressure of the neighboring powers.

In Magnates, players will face many dilemmas. The most prominent members of the family will ensure beneficial rights in the Sejm and prestigious positions in the Senate. Moreover, they comply with the Monarch’s will easily, and thanks to them the family will gain estates and power. But how will a player handle the remaining challenges? Who will undertake an expedition to Livonia? Will the troops protecting the country against enemy invasion, in the absence of other candidates, be again led by incompetents (like “peryna, latyna and dytyna”)? Will there be enough determination to hasten to the relief of Vienna? Will the players succeed in saving the Homeland from partitioning?

Is your Family ready for a Game of Power?'

What you get: Your EUR 50 or equivalent will buy you The Magnates: A Game of Power, a game for two to five players that lasts around 90 minutes. The box contains the rulebook in English (which can also be downloaded free of charge from the company's website), as well as the following items: the game board, 119 cards (65 Family cards, 4 Senator cards, 25 Privilege cards, 25 Conflict cards), 17 cardboard markers (12 King markers, 5 Advantage/Dominance markers) and 192 wooden pawns (175 Estates, 5 Magnates, 5 Silent Sejm pawns, one Black Clouds pawn, one Fortress, one Monastery, one Palace, 3 Partition Pawns). Like 1944: Race to the Rhine, another offering from Phalanx Games, it also contains the necessary plastic zip bags to store all its components.

Gameplay: The Magnates is a semi-cooperative blind-bidding game using area control to tally points. If behaving selfishly, the players can lose the game collectively. Each player has a Family deck of 13 cards with values ranging from 2 to 14. Each round he will use all his cards in order to acquire Senators in the Senate (3 cards), Privilege in the Sejm (5 cards) and fight conflicts affecting the Commonwealth (5 cards). There are four Senators: the Primate, the Treasurer, the Hetman and the Chancellor. Each card provides a number of Estates, a special ability and a symbol of a given character (the mitre, the key, the mace and the seal respectively). Special abilities range from deciding all ties during a round (the Primate), to adding +3 on your family when resolving a Conflict (the Hetman). The Privilege cards represent opportunities arising from the family's political maneuvering and are the most effective method of acquiring Estates. Each card is different; it indicates the number of Estates acquired (one or two), a description of the action that the card allows as well as one of the four symbols of the King's Policy: the sabre (military), the chalice (religion), the ducat (finance) and the crown (power). When a player wins a Privilege card it remains face up in front of him until he uses it. Conflict cards are the enemies that the players will collectively face. A Conflict card contains the colour of the attacked province, its force as well as the effect of winning or losing against it. The King's markers depict individual rulers of a given period, along with a King's Policy symbol. This symbol has an impact on the number of Estates received by the players when gaining Senator and Privilege cards. They also have the colour of the game's round, which marks the successive rounds of the game.

There are three concepts that are basic in the placement of Estates as well as the final scoring. Presence indicates a Province where a player has already placed an Estate. Advantage on the other hand is when a player has more Estates in a Province than any other player, but still holds less or equal Estates to the other players combined. Dominance on the other hand is when a player has more Estates than all other players combined.

The game lasts four rounds (the golden, the silver, the bronze and the iron). Each round contains four phases, in which players play in turn.

During the Electio the King gets elected, namely a random King from the appropriate round's colour is revealed. This also reveals the King's Policy for the round.

In Senatus, each player places one of their own Family cards face down below three of the four Senator cards, in order to show which ones they want. After simultaneously revealing the cards and starting from the Primate's office, players declare whether they will also use Privilege cards. The player with the highest modified scored wins the office. Ties for the Primate are in favour of the players later in the turn order. Upon winning a Senator a player immediately places an Estate in a non-partitioned Province. If the Senator has the same emblem as the King, two Estates are placed. All the Family cards used for this bidding are retired for the round.

On Sejm on the other hand five Privilege cards are revealed. Each player then simultaneously bids a Family card face down for each Privilege card. The cards are revealed simultaneously and resolved after all players had a chance of influencing the outcome through Senator and Privilege cards. Like before, the highest modified total wins and the winning player places the specified Estates in a single non-partitioned Province. If the card has the current King's symbol, it allows for the placement of an additional Estate. All the Family cards used for this bidding are retired for the round.

During Conflicti players reveal the first five cards from the Conflict deck. Each card is placed in one of the two spaces of the appropriate color. If this can't happen a new card is drawn. If Conflict cards were already on the board from the previous round fewer cards are drawn. Each player then places one Family card face down next to each Conflict. The Conflicts are then resolved by revealing the cards played and after all players had a chance of influencing the outcome through Senator and Privilege cards. To win a Conflict the players must put down a force equal to or higher than the force of the conflict. In that case, the Player that played the highest modified Family cards benefits from its prize (either acquiring a Fief or an Estate). If the Conflict is lost however the results range: in Invasion, in the Province of the card's colour each player loses one Estate, while the player that played the lowest modified Family card loses two; the Black Clouds pawn might be placed in Prussia, making all its future Conflicts harder to defeat in future turns; the Silent Sejm makes any conflict in any Province harder to resolve until the end of the game; finally, the player who played the lowest modified Family card might be required to lose a Privilege card. The undefeated Conflict cards remain in the game. The Provinces that contain them will be victims of Partition, in other words the Province cannot receive Estates due to acquiring or using Senator and Privilege cards and the Treasurer cannot be used on them. Estates may still be placed due to winning a Conflict but a Fief may not be gained. To eliminate Partition the players must defeat all Conflicts in a Province.

The Interregnum is the final phase of each turn. The King dies and if the players have allowed three Partitioned Provinces on the board they immediately and collectively lose the game. If a total defeat does not take place, the players can play Senator and Privilege actions, if possible. They then count their Estates on the board (both on Provinces and Fiefs) to determine the starting player. They also get all their Family cards back, while the Senators are returned to their spaces to be reclaimed in the following round. At the end of the Interregnum of the final round the players count their Estates. Each is worth one Wealth. Then they add bonus Wealth as follows: +3 for each Province where they have Dominance, +2 for each Province where they have Advantage but not Dominance, +1 for each Province with Presence but no Dominance or Advantage and +1 for every Fief they own. If they hold Privilege cards that provide Wealth at the end of the game this is added as well. The player with the most Wealth wins. Guess this wasn't about being a good patriot only after all!

The strong points: It was the aesthetics and the outright gorgeous mounted map board that prompted me to find out more about Magnates; its designers couldn't have done this better. I understand that at least on the side the game aims to be historically educational for those interested in Polish history. Thankfully it does not force it down your throat. To achieve that result it uses existing, historical art and real people in the five families that the players incarnate. Even though it is not necessary in the course of the game, each of the 13 Family members gets a couple of lines as well as his year of birth and death. This results in an extremely good result when it comes to theme. No matter how you camouflage it, blind bidding is still blind bidding. Here, however, the cards and the mechanics create a sum that is better than its parts; in a tightly contested game the players will try to not ruin the country just because of their own need to get ahead. There is a sense of personal involvement in Conflicts; at least in the beginning of each game players will bid cautiously early on in order to have the resources to eliminate the threats.

Setting aesthetics aside, component quality is also extremely high. Sleeve your cards and the game will last forever.

All this however relate to the looks of the game, when Magnate's winning aspect is its feel. Games feel tight and tense, playing very fast and without any downtime whatsoever. Player interaction is very high, do not expect advanced diplomacy or conspiracies however; the Magnates mostly uses bluffing, positioning and cunning, purchasing the right cards and playing them at the right time. You will rough others up and they will do the same to you, it's all part of the game. You will also care when and how you bid, seeing how limited your options are. You will have to use every single Family card you own, thus hard choices are to be made. Which Senator posts are you desperate for? Which will you omit? Do you have control over the outcome? Even if you have high memory skills (and remember what everybody played), control is probably not as tight as you would have liked; I do not see this however as a weak point.

Making Magnates a semi-cooperative is a stroke of genius. There is always this quaint feeling when choosing cards during the Senatus and Sejm phase holding you back from bringing all the big guns out. You need to keep some good cards for Conflicti. This is not about losing face only however; repercussions can be severe if a Province of your interest is hit. Don't count on others coming to save your hide if you keep on sabotaging the war efforts in the Provinces they care about. From the first round already you will be able to identify which of the other players will be your primary opponents, both due to the placement of Estates as well as military aid during the Conflicti phase. Constantly fucking up somebody is really not recommended. Partitioned Provinces are harder to get a foothold into and remain in a kind of stasis. The winning players there have now every reason to heavily invest Estates in other Provinces that they wouldn't necessarily consider before. Seen from the other side, this prohibits the players that are doing extremely well from doing even better. It is not guaranteed that the game will end in order for you to win it; it falls upon your opponents and yourself to make this end come forth.

I enjoyed the fact that the 10 value family cards have effectively two values; the 10 applies to Influence only while for Strength only a 1 is calculated. I actually see a missed opportunity here; this could have been done with far more cards per family, or even with asymmetrical families. As it stands, value-wise the families are totally identical.

I also give bonus points to the designers for making all the Privilege cards different. That's really how cards in boardgames should be, both unique and interesting. You can see all sorts of effects: remove Estates from a Province of your choice when losing them, increase your influence by +10 (!) when resolving the Treasurer post, or increase your Strength by +2 when resolving conflicts. There is also the Veto, canceling other cards, or the Constitution of 3 May which grants you 5 Wealth if all Provinces are unpartitioned.

The rulebook is extremely well-written. I particularly enjoyed having the whole game in one single page (namely the last one), while the remaining 14 pages explained everything as coherently and analytically as possible, with a gratuitous use of examples of play. Even though you might need 10 minutes to explain the game, its rules and mechanics are extremely simple and streamlined.

Plastic zip bags for the proper storage of a game's contents are always a welcome addition. I am wondering myself why this isn't standard practice.

The weak points: Magnates requests just a bit of good faith and the willingness for a slight suspension of disbelief. If one is convinced that there is no theme, he might find the game extremely dry. I do not necessarily agree with this assertion, I can see however where it comes from. Broken down to its components the game can give the impression of being repetitive, an exercise in arithmetic. I wouldn't necessarily agree to that, I observe however that it is rather hard to play multiple times (more than two or three) in the same evening.

The aforementioned good faith also applies to advancing your goals and not ending the game on purpose. If players feel that from the first two rounds already they are out of the course they might start actively sabotaging the game in order for nobody to win. This will not occur often, it is however an eventuality. I do not register it as bad outright, it demonstrates however the lack of control you might feel you have over a game. Do splendidly and the others might collectively force a game end. It is my impression that at any point in time most players must be convinced that they have a chance, no matter how small, to claim victory, in order for the rules concept not to break down.

Even though this is not the most space-demanding game I own (Cthulhu Wars destroys all opposition), it does not mean that you can play it on a small surface. Even more so, the game is facilitated if each player can actively see the open Privilege cards in front of his opponents. I really wish that Magnates did better in this domain. Privilege ards should have been designed differently; their effects should have been stated both upwards and downwards for everybody to see them even across the table.

I admit I would have felt somehow more comfortable if the price was around EUR 5 to 10 lower seeing the components. Yet, I cannot discount the fact that the existing components are of a very high quality. A tough call for those who do not easily decide on impulse purchases. I suppose Phalanx games is consistent in that, seeing how I felt the same for 1944: Race to the Rhine.

Conclusion: Since Essen 2014 when I played with one of the first copies ever produced, I have enjoyed every single game of Magnates. Simple and easy even for the less hardcore amongst us, yet with a passion and nerve that very few games possess, it has a staying power and an irresistible attraction to cover your non-war confrontation needs. Who knows? After all this nerve-wracking bidding I might have learned some real history in the process.

To find out more about The Magnates: A Game of Power and Phalanx Games, take a look at http://www.phalanxgames.pl/en.

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