• Designer: Hiroyuki Sadamatsu
• Artist: Ryo Hirata
• Publisher: Studium Mundi
• Players: 2-5
• Time: 45-60 min

Hegemonia Senki aka Epic of Hegemonia was initially released in 2018 but a new version will be coming to Kickstarter Oct 22 (I am not affiliated with the project). In the game you take control of different lands to get resources with your meeples then spend the resources to make advancements.  The goal is simply to build all your bases and control Hegemonia.

Game Play:

Each player will control one of 10 different factions. 5 of the factions have more advanced rules. 

The recommended starting factions are the Humans, Slime, Aliens, Dragons and Elves. Each faction has the same basic actions with faction specific abilities. For example the Baby Dragon counts as a value 2 piece, the slime pieces are allowed to stack and the Alien bases are mobile (normally bases can’t move once they are built).

The board consists of several lands or territories, the number dependent on the number of players.

On a player’s turn, they reveal resource cards equal to the number of players and place them in their respective lands. Then the player may spend movement points to move a meeple or spend it to move another ration from the land where the player has meeple presence. Then every land’s resource is distributed to the player with the majority of meeple power (not plurality) of the land. If no clear majority exists the resource stays with the land until the next round. Players are allowed to trade with other players as well as trade 2 for 1 random resource from the deck. There are also “snatch” cards in the deck which allow players to take a random card from another players hand or the top of the deck.

Then players are able to develop advancements including new bases or bring in reinforcements in a land with one of their bases.

The game ends when a player has built all of their bases.

Thoughts: 

Hegemonia Seki has elements of area control. I seem to hear a lot of gamers say they dislike area control. I can empathize as I really dislike games where you spend a whole game building something up to have an opponent destroy it in one turn. In Hegemonia Senki  with the basic factions control is the result of manipulating the pieces which is more satisfying on the care bear scale and focusing more on building rather than destruction.

Hegemonia Senki is an easy to learn and fun game that is short and sweet. You control very few pieces but each move is interesting. For example choosing to move your opponent into a different country to prevent another opponent from having majority while allowing you to gain a majority. Choosing to increase your meeple number/strength vs gaining more movement points in the development phase. Different factions provide a lot of diversity to the game play. I haven’t played the advanced factions but they seem to add an additional faction specific action with a bit more player interaction for gamers that like that style of play. I really enjoy the differences in the base factions. Lately shorter games with lots of nice decisions have worked out well for after work game play and Hegemonia will fit perfectly for me.