Publication | 1986 |
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Genres | strategy |
Kremlin is a board game satire of power struggles within the pre- glasnost Soviet Union government of the 1980s. The game takes its name from the Kremlin in Moscow, the location associated with the central Soviet government offices. The original German-language edition was designed by Urs Hostettler and released in 1986 by the Swiss board game company Fata Morgana Spiele under the name Kreml. An English translation of the game with slightly modified rules was published by Avalon Hill in 1988. Kremlin won a 1988 Origins Award for Best Boardgame Covering the Period 1900-1946.
Each player controls a number of politician cards depicting caricatures of Soviet politicians. These are arranged in a pyramid on the game board, representing a hierarchy of power. Players promote, demote and exile these politicians in order to maneuver their own politicians to the top of the pyramid. Each turn, the Party Chief "waves" from the rostrum during a military parade in Red Square. If a player's politician waves during three non-consecutive years, that player wins. Additionally, politicians age and each year there is a chance they will die. If no player is able to wave three times, the player with the highest ranking politician at the end of the health phase of the 11th turn wins the game.
In the October 1988 edition of Games International (Issue 1), Brian Walker reviewed the Avalon Hill version as the magazine's "Game of the Month." Walker thought the production values of the components were "quite superb", and admired the game rules. He concluded by giving the game a perfect rating of 5 out of 5, saying, "It is difficult to determine the skill/luck ratio in this strange game, but who cares? The important thing is that it is such fun to play." [1]
In the December 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue 200), Allen Varney reviewed Avalon Hill's 1988 edition and the 1989 expansion set favorably, saying, "Makes for backbiting, double-crossing fun, and Avalon Hill’s advanced rules work well." [2]
Kremlin was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 book Hobby Games: The 100 Best . Lester Smith commented, "Kremlin invites us to look back on the Soviet era and put it in perspective through laughter. The humor in Kremlin is gallows humor, of course, as anyone who lived through the 1980s would attest. But the satire isn't constrained by its ties to the past, or to one political superpower; with the minimum of imagination, Kremlin can easily be seen as a pointed jab at any corrupt and treacherous bureaucracy populated by ambitious old men." [3]
At the 1988 Origins Awards, Kremlin won the award for Best Boardgame Covering the Period 1900-1946. [5]
Acquire is a multi-player mergers and acquisitions themed board game. It is played with tiles representing hotels that are arranged on the board, play money and stock certificates. The object of the game is to earn the most money by developing and merging hotel chains. When a chain in which a player owns stock is acquired by a larger chain, players earn money based on the size of the acquired chain. At the end of the game, all players liquidate their stock in order to determine which player has the most money. It was one of the most popular games in the 1960s 3M bookshelf game series, and the only one still published in the United States.
Richard Channing Garfield is an American mathematician, inventor and game designer. Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). Magic debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations. Garfield oversaw the successful growth of Magic and followed it with other game designs. Included in these are Keyforge, Netrunner, BattleTech(CCG), Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, Star Wars Trading Card Game, The Great Dalmuti, Artifact and the board game RoboRally. He also created a variation of the card game Hearts called Complex Hearts. Garfield first became passionate about games when he played the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, so he designed Magic decks to be customizable like roleplaying characters. Garfield and Magic are both in the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame.
Civilization is a board game designed by Francis Tresham, published in the United Kingdom in 1980 by Hartland Trefoil, and in the United States in 1981 by Avalon Hill. The Civilization brand is now owned by Hasbro. It was out of print for many years, before Gibsons Games republished it in 2018. The game typically takes eight or more hours to play and is for two to seven players.
Cosmic Encounter is a science fiction–themed strategy board game designed by "Future Pastimes" and originally published by Eon Games in 1977. In it, each player takes the role of a particular alien species, each with a unique power to bend or break one of the rules of the game, trying to establish control over the universe. The game was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame in 1997.
Kremlin may refer to:
History of the World is a board game designed by Ragnar Brothers and originally published in 1991. It is played by up to six players in seven epochs, each player playing a different empire in each epoch.
Hacker is a card game for 3–6 players published by Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in 1992.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards is an annual award for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby. It was named in honor of Charles S. Roberts the "Father of Wargaming" who founded Avalon Hill. The award is informally called a "Charlie" and officially called a "Charles S. Roberts Award". The Wargamer magazine called it "very prestigious". The Award is managed by the Charles S. Roberts Award Committee which has no commercial sponsorship, made up of designers, writers and hobbyists. It is a "people's award" with winners chosen through votes submitted by fans.
Battle Cry is a board wargame based on the American Civil War, designed by Richard Borg and published by Avalon Hill in 2000.
Empire Builder is a railroad board game originally published by Mayfair Games in 1982 that underwent several editions and eventually branched out into international and fantastical locations.
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Dune is a strategy board game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, published by Avalon Hill in 1979. The game was designed by Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge and Peter Olotka. After many years out of print, the game was reissued by Gale Force Nine in 2019 in advance of the 2021 Dune film adaptation.
Gettysburg is a board wargame produced by Avalon Hill in 1958 that re-enacts the American Civil War battle of Gettysburg. The game rules were groundbreaking in several respects, and the game, revised several times, was a bestseller for Avalon Hill for several decades.
The Fury of Dracula is a board game for 2-4 players designed by Stephen Hand and published by Games Workshop in 1987. Fantasy Flight Games released an updated version in 2006 as Fury of Dracula, and a third edition in 2015 by the same name. WizKids Games released a fourth edition in 2019.
Britannia is a strategy board game, first released and published in 1986 by Gibsons Games in the United Kingdom, and The Avalon Hill Game Company in 1987 in the United States, and most recently updated in late 2008 as a re-release of the 2005 edition, produced by Fantasy Flight Games. It broadly depicts the wars in, and migrations to, the island of Great Britain in the centuries from the Roman invasions to the Norman Conquest.
Diamant is a multiplayer card game designed by Alan R. Moon and Bruno Faidutti, published in 2005 in Germany by Schmidt Spiele, with illustrations provided by Jörg Asselborn, Christof Tisch, and Claus Stephan.
Agricola is a Euro-style board game created by Uwe Rosenberg. It is a worker placement game with a focus on resource management. In Agricola, players are farmers that sow, plow the fields, collect wood, build stables, buy animals, expand their farms and feed their families. After 14 rounds players calculate their score based on the size and prosperity of the household.
RoboRally is a board game for 2–8 players designed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1994. Various expansions and revisions have been published by both WotC and by Avalon Hill.
Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in the United States in 1959. Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases and the absence of dice and other game elements that produce random effects. Set in Europe in the years leading to the Great War, Diplomacy is played by two to seven players, each controlling the armed forces of a major European power. Each player aims to move their few starting units and defeat those of others to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units. Following each round of player negotiations, each player can issue attack and support orders, which are then executed during the movement phase. A player takes control of a province when the number of provinces that are given orders to support the attacking province exceeds the number of provinces given orders to support the defending province.
Elric: Battle at the End of Time is a board wargame published by Chaosium in 1982, an update of the 1977 game simply titled Elric. It is based on the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock. There have been three english language editions, Elric (1977), Elric: Battle at the End of Time (1982), and Elric (1984), published by Avalon Hill.