Bluefail

A spent a few hours being a Capitalist this evening.  Predictably I was too nice in providing jobs and taxes and, equally predictably, came in well behind the Working Class (where E played a great game and only just lost out winning), the Middle Class, and the State.

The game is Hegemony.  It's a 4-player, asymmetric game with each player taking one of those 4 roles.  It's complicated but given the complexity of the Real World economy, it's an excellent simplification that works, despite the very different game that each player plays.

The Working Class player controls the people working at companies provided by the Middle Class and the Capitalists.  They get paid but do have to eat, get education and healthcare from somewhere.

The Middle Class also work, get paid etc. but create some wealth, education and healthcare themselves.

The Capitalists provide private companies and simply try to make buckets of money out of the workers.

The State just tries to make everyone like it, and not go bust (because that hurts everyone).  The State also provides public companies.

It's a fascinating game because everyone is subtly dependent on everyone else - as in real life.   The downside is that only having played it a few times, it took six hours to complete (albeit including set-up, teach / revision and cake breaks).