Aug
16
Session Report: Politix
Filed Under General
Year 2009 is going to be very interesting for the Finnish games scene. We have already seen one solid board game released and more is coming at Spiel fair in Essen in October. I had an oppurtunity to try out the newest addition to the list of Finnish games, Politix.
Image by Touko Tahkokallio
Politix is a game by Onni Games and Tuoko Tahkokallio and it’s a card game of Finnish politics. I got a chance to try it out with my friend as a two player game while we could have had up to six players. The first thing that one notices when getting hold of olitix is the great graphics in the game. Illutration is witty and fun and creates humorous atmosphere for the game before it even has started. Cards are of good quality but so thick that they are hard to shuffle but fortunately you don’t have to shuffle cards too often and you can get rid of the problem with card sleeves.
Politix is a game where players are members of a Finnish political party and play the role of well known member of the parlament. What you try to do is to attract voter groups by playing politicking and/or special cards. There’s six different voter groups and there’s seven cards in each group and game ends when all voter cards have been taken out by parties. Winner of the game is the one who has best worst group after all cards have been divided among the players and thus the game reminds me of many of the Rainer Knizia games.
In our game I was Center Party and my friend Right Wing while I took the role of Paavo Väyrynen and my frined was Sauli Niinistö (both of whom are currently active in the Finnish political scene). Game started slowly while we were figuring out how one should play the game but I soon realised that my friend did not quite get the winning condition of the game and let me collect votes from farmest too easily. This was basically due to the fact that Center Party got bonuses for attracting farmers. In the end I secured all seven farmer cards available and since I also got at least one card from every other voter group I knew that I had won the game.
Image by Touko Tahkokallio
We both enjoyed our first play even though my friend did not quite grasp the rules of the game. With two players Politix is tense game where you really have to keep track of what your opponent is doing and count the voter group cards. I suppose that with more players it’s more work to keep track of the cards and you just try to balance your own game. It’s also interesting but realistic how it’s very hard to attract some voter groups when you belong to wrong party and your character doesn’t have the right attributes.
Interesting game and I hope I’ll be able to try it out again soon.
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