Kremlin

robartin wrote:

MattDP wrote: The trouble is that I don't feel up to the task of being that person, getting it wrong and potentially screwing up the game for everyone

When in doubt, PURGE.

I don't know if you had heard, but Leonard Cohen is a big fan of Kremlin and one of his songs is based on that. If you can ever get into a game of Kremlin with him, listen for "It's Purgin' Time"...

I was going to start a new thread but then I found this, so I'm bringing it back from the dead.

Kremlin got a nice-looking rerelease through Jolly Roger Games. I haven't played it yet because I found the rulebook difficult to follow and pretty unclear in places. So I printed out the original Fata Morgana and Avalon Hill rules to fill in the gaps. Then I just decided to go whole hog on all the rule material I scrounged up and consolidated all off it into one doc covering five different rulesets to be played with the Jolly Roger edition ( available here ). It probably has some typos and minor errors.

So now I'm wondering which is the best ruleset and why? I like the way the original Avalon Hill advanced rules look, but Jolly Roger has changed them up a bit and I'm wondering whether that's for better or worse.

Any input?

Any rules about drinking vodka are automatically better.

Oh, is the new edition out? Doesn't seem to have hit the shelves in the UK yet.

I picked up a copy yesterday at my FLGS.

I played the "Standard Game" and it's a bit too clean. Not enough nasty in it, and the penalties for being purged or found guilty or condemned aren't severe enough. I wouldn't recommend it, and I hope to give one of the other versions a try soon. If they don't floor me I'm going to play the old AH rules.

I don't think the standard game is really very different. I think the only thing they changed is that for some reason you can't age a politician more than one year during the cure phase at the beginning. We switched that back and it was basically the same as the AH version.

Ah, you're right. I was mixing up my rulesets. I think I like the harsher penalties for being sent to Siberia in the 1928 and Modern rules. I haven't played them yet so I'll have to see how that works in play.

We found it hard to kick out the Party Chief in the Standard game as well, as he doesn't start with a sickness marker and can only age 1 yr per turn under the Standard Rules. The Party Chief made good Health rolls in our game. Resilient bugger.

Question 1: Does the Party Chief attempt to wave during the parade if he's active (not at the Sanitorium / taking a Cure) but has no declared Influence on him? As I understand it only active politicians with declared Influence take their actions, otherwise the phase is basically skipped. The exception being the Foreign Minister who has rules for selecting a new Party Chief if the Party Chief position is empty and the FM is uninfluenced.

Question 2: All politicians 2nd level and up make Health rolls even if uninfluenced, correct?

If the person has no influence declared on them, then their action is skipped. I assume that's how it would be played with the Party Chief as well. Keep in mind that in a 5-6 player game, you can actually put influence on the guy who starts there.

Health rolls are made on the nine members of the Politburo and no one else, I believe. I'd have to glance at the rules to make sure.

It's a nice reprint, but parts of it bother me. The rules leave a few gaps in there, like what happens in a successful purge in the Standard game. Also, the use of color to set off the different office title is very confusing, since they are all colors that correspond to the different phases of the game. The font is also tough to read.

Geez, now I sound like dragonstout.

Yeah the design really looks nice, but some of the choices they made aren't doing any favors for playability. I still like the look of it though.

The rules are really more confusing than they ought to be. The old Fata Morgana and AH rules are very clean by comparison.