Greed Incorporated

EvEvanstar5,9

In this game players are in competition to get the most victory points by bidding on one of two VP cards of increasing value each round. The starting bid on the VP cards is equal to what the winning bid was in the previous round, so points start out cheap and get much more expensive as the game progresses. The trick of the game is getting money into your personal supply to be able to participate in this action. The way this happens is that each player is given a company to run. They put their marker in the CEO position on that company, and while they have the CEO spot, they make all decisions for that company. The company bids for new asset cards which give it some resource production or conversion. What comes along with that asset card is another player's worker token which goes into the topmost available slot of your company hierarchy chart. Cards then produce their resources, and then a trading phase happens where players can have the companies they own trade with each other. Then, goods get sold at their rates as defined by the central chart. Finally, the most important phase of the game happens. If a company made less money this round than it did last round, then each of the players who have markers in the top three positions in the company can blame one of the markers, even themselves. Every marker blamed gets removed from the company and brings with them a nice chunk of the company's earnings as a severance package. This is the only mechanism by which players get personal money to bid on victory point cards. Then, any remaining markers in the company structure get promoted up, which might hand control of the company off to another player. Then the new CEO discards one of the asset cards from the company. Like most Splotter games, this game has medium euro weight rules, yet very deep decisions. You can run multiple companies trading between them to your personal advantage. You can set up combos for companies where you aren't in control of but your markers are there so you can get payouts from them. The way the valuations of the various goods rise and fall on the track is interesting. It has a similar feeling to an 18xx game without the logistical elements that tend to add downtime. The game does run a little long. With 4 new players, it took us about 3 hours after rules were complete. Regardless, I'm a fan, and I hope to play it more in the future. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment

anandyctedstar8,9

Quite good even in 3 as the trading is more strategic and less chaotic, entering a company has more focus than cutthroat trading. But the game becomes a tad too long. The best spot is 4, more trading opportunities, right tempo, quick ending (perhaps even too quick!) If you like negotiations and interaction, it will work for you. You have to factor in some heavy randomness impact at times but the game is relatively short and it doesn't matter. Needs more plays…the usual great decision space, multiplied by the heavy interaction…craziest splotter I've played Feels a bit like 1830 on LSD