/pic4143114.jpg)
China, 1570. China is under the reign of the Longqing Emperor, of the Ming Dynasty. He inherited a country in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. He resided in the Forbidden city, which was the seat of many emperors under the Ming Dynasty. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 ha (over 180 acres). It is also under the Ming Dynasty that the Great Wall of China was rebuilt, fortified, and expanded. Around this period, China was under heavy attack from the Mongols, so maintaining the Great Wall was essential. Most of what we now have left of the Great Wall, we owe to the Ming dynasty.
The country was already famous for its very intricate bureaucracy, but this also led to a lot of corruption. Even though the penalties for corruption were very high, the highest Officials of the Forbidden City would pretend to uphold the ban on corruption, by accepting gifts of petitioners, and returning one of seemingly lower value.
Gùgōng uses this extraordinary custom as its basis. Players take on the role of powerful Chinese families trying to gain influence and power by exchanging gifts with Officials. The gift cards you offer as a player have to be of a higher value than the one you receive, forcing you to make strategic choices regarding which actions you want to take each turn. You will travel around China, sail down the Grand Canal, purchase precious jade, help construct the Great Wall, secure advantages through decrees, influence the game through intrigue, and ultimately, receive an audience with the emperor. If only 1 player succeeds in doing so, he wins. If several players succeed, the player with the most VPs among those players wins the game.
—description from the publisher
- Innovative worker placement
- Beautiful production
- Strategic decision making
- Modular board setup
- Engaging campaign
- Requires emissary track advancement to score
- Can be complex to learn
- Building a dynasty and influencing the court
- Imperial China
- DO
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Building on ancient sites on a modular board.
- Hand Management — Players manage a hand of cards that represent their workers.
- Set Collection — Collecting jade tokens for endgame scoring.
- Track Advancement — Advancing on various machine tracks based on adjacent terrain when building factories.
- Variable player powers — Each tribe has different starting abilities.
- Worker Placement — Uses cards as workers, replacing cards at action spots with higher values to take the action.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's not much of a looker.
- this is a two-player deduction game where you have two demi gods that you draw from a deck
- Orléans, you know, was one you showed me a long time ago.
- this was my really kind of my first bag builder experience
- This game is not intuitive in any way.
- this game has theme.
- this game feels really really video game like.
- have your family be a glor glorious and famous family is kind of what you're working towards.
- if you like perfect information 1v one fighting games, then BattleCon is probably the best
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we're really just going to be trying to show you the mechanics of the game we're not going to go into heavy strategy and the things that we do probably aren't the best strategy this is really for mechanics demonstration
- we hope this gives you a flavor for how the game is played
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Players play the role of influential families in Ming Dynasty China attempting to gain the most influence across four rounds of play.
- any player who fails to reach the top of it by the end of the game automatically loses
- this really is the essence of this game
- servants are tight and particularly early in the game it may have taken you one or two actions to gain those servants in the first place
- the key to the game is about getting the right actions done at the right times rather than simply trying to focus on one of these areas
- your discard pile becomes your hand for the next round
- the player with the highest score wins and in the event of a tie the player who is furthest up the intrigue track wins the game