Author Topic: Coup  (Read 1774 times)

Offline danisthirty

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Coup
« on: January 05, 2016, 06:19:59 AM »
We played Coup at work today: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131357/coup

It’s a very simple game involving cards, coins and bluffing. Each player is dealt two cards from a 15-card deck and these cards determine what actions the player may take during his turn. To some degree anyway. We played with the basic game which included the Duke, the Ambassador, the Captain, the Assassin and the Contessa.

The range of actions per character seemed quite limited but included stealing coins from, or even assassinating other players as well as various "blocks" which could be carried out in order to prevent the active player from carrying out their turn as intended. For example, any player with the Duke in their hand can prevent anyone else from receiving "foreign aid" (taking two coins from the middle). Similarly, the Captain and the Ambassador can be used to prevent other players from stealing coins from their owners, and the Contessa foils assassination attempts. For 7 coins, any player can initiate a Coup with the effect being that a player of their choosing loses a life.

However, since everyone’s cards are kept to themselves you can bluff and do pretty much whatever you like as long as nobody calls you on it, including blocking other players from taking certain actions even if you don’t hold the card required to do so! If someone does call your bluff (i.e. challenges you) and you are bluffing then you lose a life/ card. If they call your bluff incorrectly then they lose a life. And so it continues until only one player has any cards left.

I played with three others and we all felt like it would have been better with five or more players, but it was still quite good fun even if it didn’t feel very well balanced. In the first game I got dealt a Captain and a Contessa which turned out to be a very good combination and I won with ease. The next two games were more of a struggle though, especially for someone who couldn’t bluff his way out of a paper bag.

I don’t know if we’ll play this game again or not. It was short enough that we played 3 games in 45 minutes which included the time taken to explain the rules before the first game. It just didn’t feel like there was a lot to it though, although perhaps this would change by introducing an expansion or two.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2313.0


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