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Step into the heart of the Conclave, where tradition, intrigue, and ambition collide. In Habemus Papam, players take on the roles of Cardinal factions, each representing distinct interests within the Catholic Church. Your mission? To influence the election of the next Pope by supporting a candidate whose traits align with your faction's public profile — covering their stance on the church, age, personality, and origin — while secretly pursuing a hidden agenda that might conflict with your stated goals.
Strategic use of influence is at the core of the game. This resource serves dual purposes; influence is the currency for playing powerful cards and swaying the vote, but it's also your points, so spend it wisely. Each round, you gain more influence by advancing your interests through candidates who garner widespread support, but negotiation is crucial.
Forge alliances, eliminate threats, and outmaneuver rivals to secure your faction's dominance. Deduction plays a vital role because uncovering the hidden motives of others can shift the balance of power.
At the end of each of the first four rounds, the Conclave may declare a "Fumata Blanca" — crowning a Pope and triggering final scoring — or a "Fumata Negra", signaling another round of intrigue. If no Pope is elected after five rounds, the game concludes with or without a Pontiff, and the final score is tallied.
Will your cunning and diplomacy lead to the rise of a Candidate who embodies your ideals — or will your secret ambitions remain unfulfilled? The path to power in the Sistine Chapel is yours to navigate.
—description from the publisher
- Fascinating and underexplored theme
- High potential for tension and backstabbing
- Focus on negotiation
- Selection of a new Pope
- Papal conclave
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Negotiation — A key element of the game based on the conclave theme.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- hey everybody and welcome to my top 10 most anticipated board games for 2025
- this is a snapshot in time but there are 10 games here that I'm really excited for and cannot wait to try this year
- so this one I can imagine is going to be featured on quite a few people's most anticipated games list um because it seems to have this gear mechanism that is reminiscent of a game called zulin which is one of my favorite Euro games of all time
- the main again feature here that Drew my attention was the the theme because this is Set uh in I think it's Victorian London I might beuda London um where you are trying to to profit from kind of cleaning the streets because this is before the know the sewage system came uh into place
- so if you watch my content regularly or even see my icon you might know that I'm quite a big fan of the the medieval genre I love the kind of aruan Legends probably my favorite theme in board Gaming Full Stop
- so this is actually um based on a conclave which is a theme that I think is so fascinating and I'm surprised this hasn't been explored at least in depth before
- so it wouldn't be a chairman of the board list without some stefen Feld
- normally Fel games are of course a bit more Care Bear friendly a bit more Point salad style games this one it seems a bit more confrontational
- so I'm really into my card games and this one sounds right up my alley
References (from this video)
- Influence the election of the next Pope by supporting a candidate whose traits align with your faction's public profile
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area influence — Players take on the roles of cardinal factions each with the mission to influence the election of the next Pope.
- Negotiation — Forge alliances, eliminate threats, and outmaneuver rivals.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Thieves Market is an eye cut you steal game
- energy Empire uses worker placement table building and Resource Management mechanics
- Mares is a large Euro game and is probably my favorite of the Stefan Feld City collection
- Formaggio is a standalone expansion for Forage
- Widget's Workshop features an Innovative blend of card crafting and set collection within a real world spatial game environment
References (from this video)
- Interesting historically themed game
- Great with six players
- Thematic
- Simple actions
- Area majority is not a favorite mechanism
- Not as fun with fewer players (e.g., four)
- Not played often because the group doesn't always play with five or six players
- Papal election
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — It is like an area control game where the candidate you want to be Pope, you're trying to make that person Pope.
- hidden objectives — But then you also like people know kind of what you want, but you had a hidden uh objective that's going to change might change completely what you want to do in the game, and you're trying to hide that.
- Influence placement — You can put influence on candidates that you want to influence.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Hello everyone, this is Senan.
- And this is Johannes.
- Welcome back to Keep or Cull, the series where we play all the games and decide whether we want to keep them or cull them right out of the collection.
- It's a double keep.
- Double cow.
- It's a call for me, a keep from you.
- It's a double kick.
- It's a keep count from you and a count from me.
- It's a keep from me, a call from you.
- It's still a keep.
- And those are 10 more games and we did like a 50/50 this time. We kept five and we culled five.
- My favorite, I think actually Inside Job.
- My favorite is either Wild West or Inside Job.
- And that's going to be the end of the video. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Johannes and you've been watching Board Gaming Ramblings and bye-bye.