Hegemony means leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others. Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory, as the definition suggests, is all about class struggle. Released in 2023, it has earned many accolades for its design, including nods to innovation, theme, and strategy. It was even featured as the winner of our 2023 Board Game Award for Best Euro/Strategy Game.
Designers Vangelis Bagiartakis and Varnavas Timotheou have created an economic and educational simulation for the modern day. It features four different class roles in a fictional nation in crisis and asks players to lead their class to victory above all others. It is quite a feat, distilling academic principles such as Socialism, Neoliberalism, and Globalism into game mechanisms. Consider me intrigued.
Gameplay Overview:
Hegemony features heavy asymmetry as players take on different classes in a fictional nation all vying to produce the most points. It features a five-round structure that rolls through phases of preparation, actions, production, elections, and then interim scoring. The majority of player agency happens during the action phase where players take turns playing a card for either a basic or card-based action. After each player has played five cards, the action phase ends.
All four class roles are intertwined, and whether the game is played at two, three, or four players, there are specific roles that must be played in each. Ever present are the Working Class and the Capitalist Class, whereas the Middle Class and State appear in three- and four-player games respectively. Each role features its own set of basic and card-based actions, as well as specifics for each phase of the game.
Each role is highlighted below:
- The Working Class centers around workers looking for good wages and jobs. They need to make money to cover their needs, and they seek healthcare and education to increase prosperity for points. They want to form trade unions by having four or more workers in the same industry type and can apply pressure on job creators by striking and demonstrating.
- The Capitalist Class wants profits, and scores based on their capital value each round. Their entire engine runs on sweet, sweet coin. They build companies, make business deals, produce goods and services, and sell these on the market. They control wages and prices for these areas.
- The Middle Class is a mix of the previous two classes. They have their own pool of workers, can build their own small businesses, and produce goods and services. They increase prosperity for points like the Working Class and must be mindful of where they are employing their workforce and producing enough to cover their population needs.
- The State is unique in that they are policy-based and almost omniscient in comparison. They seek to appease each of the other classes in a balancing act for legitimacy points. A well-balanced nation is important to them, though policy agendas and world events may make this difficult. They also maintain the state treasury and try to remain solvent throughout.
Classes must remain flexible within the game’s policy system. There are seven policy agendas that change based on voting results. These dictate public services, taxation, wages, the prices of healthcare and education, as well as foreign trade and immigration. Each player can propose new bills that shift policy over time and each of the seven policies can become a battleground for impactful change.
The voting phase is where the dust eventually settles for the round. Over the course of play, the player’s color cubes are added to a bag via specific basic and card-based actions. The more voting power, the more chance to enact change when cubes are drawn to determine the outcome. This is also enhanced by separate influence cubes that can shift results from one side to the other.
Each role works within a set framework boosted by its card engine. Cards can be played for enhanced actions, but only if the current policy allows access to this. For example, a card may provide a state scholarship, but only if education is not free at the moment. If it is, the card’s powerful action can only be used for a basic action. Finding a way to efficiently balance basic and card-based options is the test of the actions phase.
There is much more to discover with Hegemony. Roles have taxes to contend with (to boost the state treasury), and there’s constant population monitoring, goods and services pricing and oversaturation, job availability concerns, and IMF intervention. Each role’s decisions impact the board state and require others to take advantage of new opportunities or overcome policy oppression.
Game Experience:
If the overview hasn’t shed light on it yet, Hegemony’s simulation excels at asking players to buy into their roles. It’s also an element of the game that emerges during play—each person at the table must embrace their section of the nation to not only help themselves but help each other. The State provides benefits. Capitalists provide jobs. The Middle supplies workers and jobs. The Working is eager for a role in your company.
However, as benefits dry up, companies close, middle-class workers stay in their small businesses, and working-class demonstrations begin, the system is illuminated by the and their struggles of certain sectors and their inability to thrive. Hegemony’s mechanisms inform the theme at every level. Players who want change must take action to apply political pressure. Workers not being paid enough can strike for higher wages. Companies can embrace automation and require less employment.
Everything that’s happening is connected by an invisible string to everything else. And there is no tangle, only a lengthening or shortening of the distance between two points. This is highlighted by the policy system, which provides every class the power to propose change. Even the State can influence voting after the results have been drawn. I’ve played games where a narrative emerged from the battle over healthcare, where public sector jobs caused capitalist grief, and where worker demonstrations forced others to come to the table to discuss opening more companies.
The mirror to real life is visible at every angle. And while Hegemony revels in that reflection, it provides plenty of gameplay ingenuity to keep players engaged and strategizing. The mechanisms provide enough flexibility within the framework to keep sessions dynamic, especially with the amount of change that asymmetry, voting outcomes, and card draw provide. As an example, immigration may lead to a mass of unskilled workers, asking players to purchase education to replace them with skilled options. Or another player at the table may take a run at policy change, only to find votes not going their way.
None of these elements are frustrating. The gameplay is solid. To get to that point though, there is a lot of rules overhead to consider. Learning up to four roles, different sections of the system, and card effects can take time. There are also minor rules hiding in the depths of the rulebook that players must keep in mind. Mistakes are going to happen when learning this beast. Diligence can only improve each session.
Hegemony has one major issue: length. This can be an event game taking multiple hours to complete. And as such, it can overstay its welcome even though there does not seem to be an area that I can pinpoint to edit out. The tax phase seems to be the area where the biggest slowdown occurs, but it is truly essential to the interconnectivity between roles. As such, Hegemony takes a lot of buy-in to streamline.
I do wonder if I prefer the three-player game over the four-player game. It lessens the play time, and the State role is the least exciting of the bunch. The system allows for three players without the impact of the state influence by keeping the state treasury and the threat of the IMF in place. It also allows for the public sector to be managed by all. Another consideration would be to only draw five cards into hand each round instead of seven (with two carrying over) to provide less to review for each turn.
Final Thoughts:
I thoroughly enjoy Hegemony. I even look forward to trying the expansion that includes automa and new events and hidden objectives. Well-designed asymmetry with emergent narrative is my jam. Yes, it does require commitment to learn and play. Yes, it may remind you of the class systems that are a part of your everyday life. Yes, it is going to educate you in a broad and meaningful way. But I recommend that if you ever get a chance to try this out, don’t pass up the chance to experience one of the best simulations in recent memory. Just carve out a good chunk of your day. Hegemony goes for broke and profits in the end, even if it falls a few votes short of gaining my unwavering support.
Final Score: 4 stars – An in-depth simulation both thematic and engaging that needed trimming to become a classic.
Hits:
• Produces excellent simulation
• Asymmetry shines
• Dynamic policy mechanism
Misses:
• Playtime is too long
• State role not as engaging
• Rules overhead takes buy-in
