Review Summary: A tight, extremely contemporary bluffing and negotiations game that deserves more love than it currently gets.

Blurb from the publisher: 'Money makes the world go down.

You check your reflection in your limo's rear-view mirror as you are driven to the climate conference: your suit and smile look impeccable, presenting a perfect image of environmental concern. But soon everything could change, as voices from climate research are getting louder: global warming, rising sea levels, CO2 emissions, air pollution, animal deaths.

You are all for saving the world, but can't someone else do it? Isn't your main concern the prosperity of your country? Maybe you could persuade other nations to reach common climate goals? Or can the earth cope with small rises in temperature after all?

Either way, when you sit down to negotiate, all that matters is winning. But what does winning mean, when it comes to the future?

Kyoto is exciting, unusual and revealing. It plays like a political thriller, reaching too often the conclusion that money rules the world, and will eventually ruin it.'

What you get: Your EUR 30 or equivalent will buy you Kyoto, a negotiation, bluffing and hand-management game that can accommodate from 3 to 6 players in just under one hour.

In addition to the 12-page small format English rulebook which can be also downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the game includes the following: one board, 5 Animals, 6 Thermometer Levels, 6 Clouds, 48 Affluence cards, 24 Study cards, one Lectern, one Speaker card, one Central card, 20 Agenda cards, 63 money bills, 6 Flag tokens, 6 Flag cards and 6 Flag holders.

The game requires a timer but does not include one; any device that can be set to ring after 90 seconds will do.

Gameplay: In Kyoto each player controls either a state (like the US or Canada) or a union of states like the EU. Depending on the number of players, each player starts with money (from 10 to 20 million), Affluence cards (from 8 to 15), and two semi-random Agenda cards. The Affluence cards help the players implement the studies that will be conducted during the game, while at the same time reducing the value of certain lobbies (agriculture, oil, automotive, steel, nuclear power, chemicals). The Agenda cards remain secret until the game's end. They provide secret ways of gaining points at game's end, e.g. by rewarding the non-dilution of the value of a particular interest. A game lasts from ten to twelve negotiation rounds, depending on the number of players. Each round consists of four phases.

In the Speaker Allowance Phase, the current speaker gains 2 million and takes back Affluence cards that were put under his flag during previous rounds.

In the Study Reading Phase the current speaker draws 2 cards from the Study deck. Study cards relate to the contribution and effects of different industries to greenhouse emissions, how to reach explicit climate goals etc. They state a shared reduction goal (e.g. X tons of CO2, or damage), a shared funding goal between 2 and 5 million, a visible impact, and zero, one or two hidden impacts. One of these two cards (the one the Speaker wishes) is placed on the lectern in such a way that its elements will be visible to everybody, with the exception of the hidden impacts. These are only know to the speaker who placed the study. The other card is discarded face down.

The Contribution Phase starts by pressing 'start' on your 90-second timer. Within this time, players can participate towards meeting the goals of that study by offering money, up to two affluence cards each, or via bribing another country. These are all straightforward actions. You simply put the money under your flag, and you can even add up to it; you cannot however take money back. Idem with the cards, yet there lies the catch. One can bribe another player to either play or retract one or more cards. During these 90 seconds, players can bargain to their hearts' desire. Bribes must be different than zero, and are fully binding. Affluence cards that are thus retracted are placed under a state's flag. Haggling and bribing is important because of the icons on the Affluence cards, since used Affluence cards reduce the profitability of certain interests at the end of the game. You might want more of some and less of others, or you might want that particular negotiation round to fail. Alternatively, you might want to promote your hidden agenda, or give an impression that you have a different hidden agenda to the one you actually have. Negotiations can be terminated before the end of those 90 seconds if both shared goals have been met and all players agree to do so.

In the Impact Phase players assess the outcome of the Contribution Phase. If during the Contribution Phase the players fulfilled the research goals, the Affluence cards necessary to match the reduction goal (and no more than those) are placed in the reduced affluence area of the table. From the money that got contributed, the precise amount of money needed is put in the environmental fund. The Study card is retired without the players seeing the hidden impacts. Cards and money that were pledged but which were not ultimately used return to each country's flag and coffers respectively. If on the other hand the Contribution Phase didn't lead somewhere (i.e. either there isn't enough money on the table or the goals have not been met, the following transpires. Pledged cards and money return to each state's flag and coffers. The speaker then implements all the environmental impacts that the study forecasted, first the known ones and then the hidden ones. These include one species going extinct, global temperature rising, and air pollution worsening. The latter two cases might create a cascade of events, since pollution can lead to more animals becoming extinct, additional pollution or additional global warming; idem with increasing temperatures. At the end of the Impact Phase the speaker checks whether an end condition has been met, i.e. whether the Study deck is empty or whether one type of environmental damage has become critical. The latter happens when it receives a fifth hit, i.e. the fifth animal becomes extinct, temperature rises for the fifth time, or air pollution worsens for the fifth time. If not, a new negotiation round begins, with a new player as the speaker.

If the Study deck empties without any type of environmental damage becoming critical, the conference succeeds. The country with the most points wins.

If on the other hand any type of environmental damage becomes critical before the end of the conference, the game ends immediately. The country or countries with the most points at that moment is immediately excluded from all scoring, since it is considered to be one of the main reasons the conference failed. The non-excluded country with the most points wins.

Points are won from Affluence cards (one per card you didn't use), money (depending on how much money you didn't use), and agenda cards (per its instructions).

The strong points: Did you think that contributing the most resources and money towards saving the environment would win you the game? What naïveté! This is about winning, about being king of the hill even if you end up being the one-eyed man amongst the blind. In some cases you will do the least possible so that the conference does not collapse, and if you are wondering why you would want to do that the answer is that you might be winning by that point; it'd be silly to sit down and lose. If you are not winning on the other hand, you might want to take a step back and let the greedy bastards sort the mess they made, while furthering your cause. The planet might be destroyed, but at least your country will be the richest one standing upon the rubble.

I love this thematic premise. I really do! It doesn't look good on paper only, it delivers. The game doesn't try to convince you that you should do something to save the earth. It merely asks you to do the best for yourself, while you allow the earth to burn. Wait a second; there might be a hidden message there.

I have extolled many times the virtues of Dragon's Gold, one of my most beloved games ever. Kyoto uses the same timed negotiation element, but with a twist. Nobody wants to see the game end prematurely, yet you do want to see you country come on top. What better way to it, than saving the planet while you shaft the interests which might be supported by other countries? If you are beholden to the oil and chemical industries, you want to ensure that the implementation of the studies will not involve these companies (and harm your interests at the end of the game). Who gives a damn however about the other ones? You'd be thinking that in the first round everybody would be tight-fisted when it comes to contributing Affluence cards, in reality however the first rounds are a bait. You are using cards thoughtfully in order to figure out which interests the other players are promoting. Nothing happens haphazardly, or out of your coplayers' good internsions. Nothing!

It is important that you don't allow your opponents to surmise the interests you answer to. If they do, solutions to studies will be inundated by Affluence cards that are detrimental to you. You can offset some of damage when you are the speaker, first because you choose which study to discuss, and second because even if both were bad for you and you had to choose one, in case of ties the speaker chooses the exact Affluence cards to use. Apart from that however you will face an uphill battle. There's a balance to be found when using money. Money used means less victory points at the end of the game, and just because 1 = 1 at the end of a game, does not mean that the equation is true during the game as well.

Kyoto is very easy to learn and teach, even though the rulebook appears hefty when you first handle it. It also doesn't require a dedicated gaming crowd, even though such crowds will immediately see the appeal.

The artwork fits the theme very well. It is not obvious at the beginning, yet almost every image shows money in one way or another. Storage-wise Deep Print Games went for the same solution they used in Savannah Park, namely a foldable box to hold the cards. It came out as slightly tight, ultimately however it works.

The biggest player-oriented improvement however is the short summary of what each card does on its upper left corner. This allows you to hold your cards in a rather standard way, yet know everything about them, taking into account that each of them is multipurpose. If I were printing games I'd copy this approach wholesale.

The weak points: This is a great thematic little game, yet its best feature is potentially an anchor. I am convinced that with a different theme, the game would have fared a lot better. The truth is that this is the theme that suits it best, yet it won't surprise me if some shun it due to it being too political (which is isn't). On the other hand, and in line with the game's cynical tone, the number of flags should have been bigger than the number of players in a 'choose your own polluter' exercise.

The game requires all players to be involved and competitive. If you sit in your corner without trying to influence the 90-second discussions and without paying attention to what the others are doing, Kyoto can fall flat.

This is a standard case of the more the merrier. The game is fantastic at six, great with five, starts being quiet with four, and I wouldn't bother that much with three. That was expected, to be fair.

The cards and the money are extremely thin. Sleeve immediately. If you believe that this game will see a lot of table time in your group, use premium sleeves from the get-go. I am not kidding; The paper is wafer-thin and bends easily. The lectern on the other hand is rather fiddly and needlessly overengineered.

Conclusion: Kyoto surprised me very pleasantly with its heavy involvement and interaction, its fast pace, the fast and furious diplomacy and the bluffing, as well as the nuance behind card selection and use. It might be small, shortish and easy, yet it overperforms. If only the Kyoto, Glasgow and whichever other assembly delivered as much.

To find out more about Kyoto, Deep Print Games and Pegasus Spiele take a look at https://deep-print-games.com and https://pegasus-web.com respectively.

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