Steve Jackson's Revolution!

After seeing enough to pique my interest, I picked up Revolution! at the game store just in time to be played.

With Steve Jackson's games you pretty much know what to expect.   Revolution! is a departure from the usual "completely random happenstance" that makes up the majority of the company's titles.  It's rated for 3 or 4 players and plays in about an hour.  Each player takes the role of a subvesrive leader in an unstable colonial-style environment.  The object is to end the game with the most victory points support meaning you're the faction that ends up in charge after it all goes to hell.

 Gameplay is very simple.  You have a selection of tools to intimidate locals with.  The most powerful is Force, followed by Blackmail, then Gold.  You use these on a board with twelve leaders on them, each of which give different benefits.  Some give support and directly add to your score.  Some give you  extra tools to use in the next round.  Some allow you to influence organizations, represented by one  of the buildings (Harbor, Market, Fortress, Town Hall, Cathedral, Tavern and Plantation).  Round order is as follows:

1 - Espionage:  Everyone sees what everyone else has to start the round.

2- Bidding:  Place your tools on the leaders you wish to influence.  Two restrictions on placement are you can't use a tool on someone immune to that tool (i.e. the General doesn't respond to Force, the Inkeeper doesn't respond to Blackmail) and you can only influence a maximum of six leaders per round.  All tokens must be played. 

3-  Resolution:  After everyone is done,all players move theirscreems aside and show how they bid.  The process is done one leader at a time, left-to-right top-to-bottom.  High bidder gets the effects.  In case of a tie, nobody gets the effects.  All tokens played are discarded back into the supply piles.  All tokens gained are gained.  Influence are placed on the buildings unless that building is full.

Two special spots are the Spy and Apothecary.  The Spy substitutes one of your tokens for one belonging to your opponent.  The Apothecary allows two swaps of cubes - one of yours changes locations with one belonging to an opponent.  If not for these two spots the game would be worthless because an early leader could never be caught up to.

4- Sympathy for the SuckersPatronage: After processing the round, any player with less than 5 tokens gets 5 gold from the supply.  This happens mainly because it's damned near impossible to have more than 5  just because of how the game is set up.

The game continues until every influence square on the board is filled up.  Then you score.  Tokens you gained on the last round are cashed in (Force is worth 5, Blackmail 3 and Gold 1) and the points for the buildings are given to the player with the  most influence cubes in it.  If an area is tied, nobody gets the points.  Most support wins.

The game played pretty quickly.  I ran away with it primarily be focusing on the middle row, particularly the Priest and Printer, while everyone else fought over the Rogue and Mercenary.  Lots of matching wasted bids.  it can get frustrating if it happens a lot.  The player who finished second made some shrewd plays at the end to take control of the Fortress and Town Hall (the two biggest scoring buildings) and massively leapfrog third and fourth.

 All in all it's not too bad as a quick game.  Might be a bit pricey for some tastes at 40 bucks US.  I don't mind it - it's kind of a neat guessing game.  Using the BGG scale I'd rate it 6 out of 10, or a weak seven.

 Rulebook is here.  It has pictures of the gameboard and bid boards for you to peruse as you see fit.

Hopefully next week I can have a write-up for BSG: Pegasus and how it feels to be the first player out the airlock.