Idioma: Inglés

Dificultad: Alta

Precio: 109 € 

Mr. President is a solitaire game about governing as the President of the United States in the early 21st century. It's not an election game. It begins after you've been elected. It's about sitting in The Chair and trying to advance your agenda while navigating ongoing crises, political enemies, public opinion, your relations with Congress and the press, and keeping your country secure in a world of rival nations and agendas that just seems to keep blowing up around you. Mr. President is a resource management game, where you never have enough resources to achieve your entire agenda, and the path you take through an always unpredictable storyline rests on the choices you make. Depending on the results of those choices, and on the unfolding of a "different every game" story, you'll either be thinking "POTUS? Piece of Cake!" or "Why was it that I WANTED this job?" many times in each game.

Like the actual Presidents during this period, you'll have an array of allies and resources to help you as you navigate both the corridors of power in the nation's capital and the uncertainties of international relations. These allies and resources will vary from game to game, but you'll always be able to rely on your Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to help you with foreign policy and with the use, where you deem necessary, of the combat power of the U.S. military. You'll also have your Vice President, Chief of Staff, and a bevy of domestic advisors and friends in Congress to help you navigate the many challenges in Congress and domestic life and politics. And you'll always have access to at least one truly exceptional talent (this, too, will vary from game to game), someone who excels in their particular job and is a "force multiplier" for you in their own unique way. How you lead and utilize this mix of talents and experience at your disposal will go a long way toward determining your success or failure during your shot at being Mr. President.

Game Play

The Map. The game map allows you to see and track the domestic and world situation that the game creates. It is divided into sections:

1. Congress. This is where you track the progress of legislation, the level of Bipartisanship in Congress, as well as keep track of your Congressional close Friends and strong Opponents.

    

    

   2. The White House, Advisors, and Priorities.

    

   3. Rogue State Nuke Development Tracks and Strategic Competition Section. 

    

   4. Tracks for World Opinion of the US, Relations with Congress, Media Relations, Homeland Security, and the State of the US Economy.

    

   5. The World portion of the map (about half of the map) is divided into eight world regions, with additional sections for Russia and China (your key Peer Competitors in the game). The regional displays are designed so that it's easy to glance at a region and be able to quickly determine what areas might need your attention therein.

   Here's a look at the South America Region, as an example of the regional displays:

    

    

   5. The map also contains a detailed Turn Sequence Track that details the anatomy and progress of each game year.

    

    

   There are also two 8.5 x 11 off-map Player Aids. One is the War Progress Track that keeps track of the current status of all of the world's major conflicts. The second is a card full of holding boxes to hold all of your various Terror Groups, Rogue States, Sanctions, and Tensions counters until you need them on the game map.

    

    

   Crisis Cards.

   At the heart of Mr. President are the 180 Crisis Cards that help create the storyline for each game. These cards - see the 12 sample cards on this page - are a mix of cards representing Domestic or World Crises, Terrorism Events, Unexpected Benefits, and Opportunities. The Crisis Cards help drive, but do not completely control, the storyline in each game. Here's how it works:
   
   

   Each game of Mr. President is divided into four one-year turns. There are a variety of ways that you can "auto-lose" the game, but if you survive to the end of your four-year term, your level of victory (including whether you were re-elected) will be compared to the great Presidents in U.S. history. 
   
   

   At the start of each turn, you get to perform assessment and planning actions during the Special Activations Phase. This is where you get to lay out your rough plan, re-examine strategy, re-evaluate the threats and opportunities that were presenting as the previous turn ended (or at game start). So there is definitely a proactive strategy piece to the game. Unfortunately, though, your plans are not often going to survive intact once the turn gets going. The world stage is a dynamic platform.
   
   

   Once you have your plans made (and the Mr. President gods laugh at you!), you perform the core Turn Sequence, which is made up of four quarterly Activity Phases. During each phase, you will choose your actions, which are intermingled unpredictably with chit pulls for the game's "opponent" actions to challenge you in unexpected ways. Many of the challenges will come from the game's Crisis Cards, which represent the main world or domestic events that happen (these are usually bad from your point of view, but occasionally they are events or resources that help you) during that quarter. The events on the Crisis Cards (usually) present you with an urgent problem that may immediately alter the board state. They can also introduce lingering or cascading issues that may cause you pain down the road.

2. You are in control of the actions you can choose, and to some degree when you can choose them, during each round. Actions allow you  to make progress on your legislative agenda, attempt to address any new crises presented by the round's actions cards, deal with any lingering world or domestic issues, fight terrorism, perform diplomacy, and attempt to better your situation in the world or in the eyes of the American people.
   
   

   Once you finish your each Activation Phase that  quarter is finished, and you move on to the next Activation Phase, repeating this process until the four Activation Phases for the year are finished. Then you perform the Final Activations Phase, wherein you update and evaluate the board state and calculate potential auto-Victory or Loss, perform mid-term elections (after Turn 2). At that point, the turn is complete.
   
   

   Seeded within the "enemy" activations during the Activation Phases, there are chit selections for Russian and Chinese Actions, Terror Actions, War Progress, Chaos!, and a variety of Crisis cards. You know that each of these chits (enemy actions) will likely show up sometime during each turn, but you don't know when. The variable timing of these chit draws each turn adds uncertainty and spice to the game, while ensuring that major players in the game present challenges for you every single turn. Russia and China offer deeper challenges, with two possible postures (aggression levels) for each country, Relationship with the US tracks, and a country-specific Action Booklet for each. Postures may shift in-game in response to your actions or to storyline events, making dealing effectively with each Peer nation an evolving challenge all game.

3. Please note that Mr. President is NOT a "beer and pretzels" surface-level game. This game is intended to be deep and immersive, one that will both frustrate and delight the solitaire player. Playing time is eight to twelve hours (depending on your experience level) to play an entire 4-year term. I've tried to pack as much fun as possible into each yearly turn, so that even if you only have time to play one turn on a weeknight (or even a couple of quarters worth of Activity Phases), you'll be engaged, frustrated, challenged, and immersed throughout. That said, I hope you're going to find it difficult to stop playing after each sitting. I've designed Mr. President to be an experience that will wrap you up in each new game's story, and beckon you back to the game table after each round, turn, or completed game.

    

   Mr. President is also great fun to play with friends. There are no cooperative rules per se, but the game lends itself very well to 2-4 players playing together to forge your way in the world. You can break up your roles to handle different aspects of the game, or just play together for the shared experience and additional ease of play (it cuts down on the "look-up and die-rolling time" to have multiple people involved).

    

   Components

    

   • 4" Deep Game Box
   • One 22 x 34” mounted game board and one 22 x 17" mounted game board
   • 180 Cards
   • 500+ counters and markers      
   • "How to Play"rulebook 
   • "How to Play a Turn" FlipBook
   • Scenario Book
   • World Chart Book
   • Domestic Chart Book
   • Peer Competitor Action Books for Russia and China
     
   • six card stock player aid cards
   • One ten-sided and one six-sided die