Tsar

 

Tsar reimagines the reign of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Players occupy the center of his regime, advising and influencing him while competing to advance their own factional goals. The game captures the interplay of public opinion, war, diplomacy, culture, internal order, the economy, and the personal traits of Tsarist leaders and the imperial family. Through this simulation, Tsar explores the inner workings of autocratic regimes, with a realistic portrayal of official corruption, the cult of personality surrounding the Tsar, the violence of oppression and resistance, and the conditions that led to revolution.

In real life, Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until the February Revolution of 1917. Tsar begins with his accession to the throne, and his fate depends on you. The game’s narrative may follow historical realities or may diverge from the historical record into alternate histories. Players may experience actual events such as the Russo-Japanese War, the Zemstvos movement, or the Franco-German alliance, or they may encounter historically-based hypothetical events such as a war with the British Empire in central Asia, the construction of the Moskva-Volga Canal, or Russian control of the Turkish straits. Depending on your decisions, Russia may pursue liberal reforms or maintain a strict autocracy, experience victory in war or defeat, industrialize its economy or stagnate, stabilize its political regime or witness the collapse of the Romanov dynasty.

Tsar is mostly card-driven, with other mechanics including resource management, worker placement, and a hybrid system of action points and bidding. You may play using a built-in solitaire system or in a 3- to 4-player multiplayer game. In multiplayer mode, the game is semi-cooperative with shared resources and a single hand of cards. Although there is a player order in some actions, there are no player turns. Overall decision-making is handled collectively, with different decisions allocated to different players; for key decisions, a “Council” procedure allows all players to bid for their desired outcomes. With a simple automation system for non-player Factions, Tsar easily transitions to solitaire play, with no extra components and minimal rule adjustments.

Factions & Characters

Each player controls one of four Factions in the Tsarist regime: Dynasty, Autocracy, Pragmatism, or Reform. Each of these has distinct but overlapping policy goals and multiple Characters based on historical politicians, generals, members of the Romanov family, and others who were close to Nicholas II. The Tsar himself is not a playable Character, but his simulated reactions are a key part of gameplay, and you will continuously track his movements and state of mind.

Players earn their decision-making capacity through the placement of their Faction’s Characters. Any of your Characters who are on the game board earn Influence Cubes, which you may use to persuade the Tsar. You may also attach Characters to Office Cards representing key posts in the Tsarist government, allowing you to make decisions assigned to your Offices. One space on the board is reserved for the Tsar’s current “Favorite” Character, to whom he turns for advice on appointments, scheduling, and routine governance. Tsar uses the Russian word for Favorite: Фаворит (Favorit), abbreviated as Ф.

Eras & Scenarios

In its standard version, Tsar is divided into four multiyear Eras played as separate games in a legacy style, with a winner for each Era and a partial reset of conditions between Eras:

• Era I: Fall 1894-Summer 1898
• Era II: Winter 1904-Fall 1907
• Era III: Spring 1909-Winter 1913
• Era IV: Summer 1914-Spring 1918

Each year is divided into quarters corresponding to the seasons, and each seasonal quarter is played as one round in the game. Many aspects of the game revolve around the seasons, with different conditions and events at different times of the year, reflecting Russia's dramatic seasonal changes.

The game’s playbook will also feature shorter scenarios that can be played in a non-legacy style, covering both peacetime and wartime situations.

The Card Decks

Tsar uses several decks of cards to create events and drive its simulation. The cards draw from a rich collection of public domain artwork and photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with iconography that closely links the cards to conditions tracked on the game board. As in real life, some events happen unexpectedly, while others are foreseen.

Random events are generated by shuffled “Era Decks,” which combine “All Era” cards with Era-specific cards for different time periods and conditions. For instance, if Russia goes to war with Japan in Era II, players will use a wartime Era Deck with cards that include randomly-timed Japanese offensives.

While randomly-drawn event cards are a common feature of CDGs, Tsar enhances the realism with an unusual “Coded Deck” of unique numbered cards, programmed to appear at specific times or in response to specific conditions. Some Coded Cards appear at fixed intervals–for example, you can send the Imperial Family on a Baltic cruise every summer. Other Coded Cards are set in motion by prior decisions–for example, if players take out a loan from France, a Coded Card will generate annual interest payments and the possibility of default. Other Coded Cards represent specific events tied to conditions on the board–for instance, players draw Coded Card 10 (Mutiny) when the Navy Morale tracker on the game board falls to zero and reveals the “10” code. This card presents options for resolving a naval mutiny, based on the Potemkin mutiny of 1905. Coded Cards 56 (The Tsar Takes Command of the Army) and 9 (Revolt) (also shown above) are additional examples of cards triggered by conditions tracked on the board.

Coded Cards govern most choices that directly advance scoring goals, to ensure that all players receive regular opportunities to pursue their factional objectives. There is also interplay between Character Cards and the Coded Deck. For instance, placing the Autocracy Faction’s Goremykin Character on the board triggers Coded Card 13 (The Tsar’s Enemies Are Sentenced to Hang). Finally, many Coded Cards are seeded by other playable cards, creating event chains. If players create a Duma through the Constitutional Reform Coded Card, a new Coded Card will enter play to enable the Duma’s legislative activities at regular intervals. And each year begins with a Fabergé Egg card that seeds new Coded Cards for the year, including fixed historical events.

Separate Unrest and Famine Decks simulate resistance to the regime and food shortages, respectively. As with many other cards, outcomes and available options depend heavily on game conditions so that players’ decisions and events build on each other cumulatively. For instance, the regime can easily counter the Unrest Card Anti-Tsarist Handbills Are Reported if its grip on the country is strong enough, as tracked by “Order” on the game board. Lower levels of Order lead to worse results, and the Tsar’s physical location (as tracked by a token on the board) may affect his reaction.

Victory & Revolution

Players take Era-specific Scoring Cards for their Factions with goals that relate to conditions on the board, such as industrialization of the economy or the form of government. In multiplayer mode, you share each of your VP objectives with one other Faction. These overlapping goals support the semi-cooperative nature of the game, with limits that keep the game competitive: no more than two players can share a common goal, and the VP shared between two players is always unequal. This means cooperation is a strategic decision for the players, not a predetermined arrangement. Players can also acquire Gold by using Offices for corruption.

As long as the regime remains in power, the game proceeds until the final quarter of the Era, with players scoring VPs as they advance their factional goals, and their Gold (if any) is deducted from their VP scores at the end of the Era. But if the regime is overthrown by revolution, solitaire players immediately lose, while in multiplayer mode, the player with the most Gold immediately wins. Accordingly, players in multiplayer games assess the regime’s stability to decide their focus on either VP or Gold.

Finally, your ambitions for VP or Gold often clash with Russia’s need for responsible government. This conflict is especially important for the Favorite: you have to keep the Empire running smoothly to retain the Tsar’s Favor, which means carefully balancing your factional objectives and the Tsar’s expectations.

Components:

• One Mounted Game Board (22" x 34")
• ~400 Playing Cards in Poker and Tarot Sizes
• 150+ Wooden Pieces
• Two Punchboards
• Nine Mats
• One 20-sided Die
• One Rulebook
• One Playbook

Game Length: 2-3 hours solitaire, 3-4 hours multiplayer
Players: 1, 3, 4

Game Designer: Paul Hellyer
Game Developer: Jason Carr