Cost: $30 From: FX Schmid Players: 3-5 Playing Time: 60-90 minutes Type of game: Family Strategy Complexity: 4 Skill level: 9 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 3.1, Winter 1994
Take Diplomacy and get rid of all the niggly bits about moving armies, issuing orders, and taking over Europe. Set Junta in renaissance Italy and remove the coup phase, locations, and voting. Take Quo Vadis? and nix the board. Create a game where bribery, negotiation, and greedy self-interest aren't merely sideline interests but the very core of the game and you've got Intrige, FX Schmid's delightfully wicked scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours game.
Each player receives a colorful, thick playing area representing their palace and exterior courtyard. Palaces are divided into five offices worth 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, or 100,000 to the advisors hired to fill them. Everyone gets 10 "relatives" (in the form of discs comparable to the laurels in Quo Vadis? or the money in Modern Art), two in each of five professions. And of course, everyone starts with some cash in their coffers.
Unsurprisingly, the goal is to parley this initial stake into more money than your opponents. Turns are divided into three phases. In the first, a player collects income for each of his relatives employed in other lands. In the second phase, foreigners seeking employment in the player's palace are either hired or turned away. Finally, the player sends two relatives to other palaces to apply for advisory positions there.
When a relative journeys to another land, he waits in that palace's courtyard until the resident noble's turn. A palace can employ only one of each type of advisor. Once an office is filled by, say, a scholar, that office may only employ scholars for the rest of the game.
When a player enters the second phase of his turn and there are applicants in his courtyard, he must consider them for employment. If the professions seeking employment aren't yet represented in the palace, they will automatically be hired. A new advisor can be assigned to any vacant office. Which office— and thus, which salary— he is given is entirely up to the employer. Of course, each job-seeker hopes for a high-paying office, and will try to convince the noble to put him there. But talk is cheap. A concrete show of loyalty and appreciation is far more effective. In fact, it's obligatory. Before a noble decides which office to give, everyone in the courtyard must slip him some cash. "Bribe" is such a nasty word— think of it as a token of esteem for the wise and benificent noble. These gifts are made publicly, and the noble pockets all the cash offered to him. He may then proceed to place people into whichever vacant offices he chooses, regardless of the bribes— er, gifts— given him.
If two members of the same profession seek employment simultaneously, only one can be hired. The other is banished to a secluded island and is out of the game. When an applicant is of the same profession as an adivsor already employed at that palace, he is in effect challenging the advisor for that office. Both the incumbent and the newcomer must offer up cash to the palace noble who may then decide to keep the experienced incumbent or recruit young, eager blood. As before, the one not chosen is banished.
Each turn, players collect salaries for all their relatives from the players employing them. By the end of the sixth turn, all relatives are either employed or living out their premature retirements on the island. Players collect salaries one more time and then count up their cash to determine a winner.
These is no random element in Intrige at all (unless you count capricious actions by opponents). The outcome of the game is entirely dependent on how well you convince other players to pay you money. Many people dislike such psychological games, so caveat emptor. I tend to really enjoy them, despite the fact that people in my group are always inclined to team up against me in them. Then again, I frequently win despite this inclination, which probably vindicates their instinct.
Knowing when to offer large payments and when to cut your losses is crucial. People will often pay you large sums of money in the hopes of obliging you to employ them well. Offering less when your relatives seek employment ensures that you keep a positive cash flow. Players often expect their opponents to offer them as much as they forked over when situations were reversed, but relying on quid pro quo is a mug's game here.
Be sure to maintain a tight rein on your generosity. If you offer a bribe of 100,000 to get the 50,000 office, you need to stay in that office for two turns just to break even, and a third turn to make a profit. In those three turns, odds are good that your position will be challenged by someone else and you'll have to pay another bribe to protect your job, thereby sinking you even further into the red. Far better to let others foolishly pay you a king's ransom for offices in your palace, then accept lesser offices in their palaces for a pittance.
Another factor to consider is that the longer you leave your most valuable offices vacant, the greater the competition for them is likely to be. Competition naturally means higher payments. But meanwhile, you should encourage the belief that every applicant has a shot at the big time. Also remember that once an office is filled, you'll be paying its salary every turn for the remainder of the game. That in itself is a good incentive to save your 100,000 office for later.
As the game goes on, however, offices become inherently less valuable because the maximum term they can be held diminishes. This is biggest problem with the game. Nobles have little incentive to give applicants jobs towards the end, except to oust incuments they fear are winning. Large payments aren't cost-effective at this point unless players are immersed in the spirit of the game rather than considering strategy and tactics.
Money isn't the only thing to fly across the table when seeking a job— threats, pleas and promises are common. Nothing is binding, of course, but good will can go a long way. Getting into the spirit of the game with a little role-playing dramatically enhances the fun. "Did His Grace promise you that position? I'm terribly sorry, sir, but His Grace is quite senile. He promised me his best horse this morning, and we don't even have a stable."
Intrige has fine production values and, despite the somewhat flawed endgame, is terrific fun. We had a rollicking good time injecting a smidge of role-play into the proceedings. I'm told that at CMU, the catch phrase for this game is "Vile knave, you'll get nothing from me!" That pretty much sums up the spirit of the game.