Thoughts on… Coup

 

 


Suddenly, she was awake. Light from the city below played around the shutters on the window, the muffled sounds of traffic far below still fighting through the night time streets. Heart racing, she lay still while reaching beneath the silken pillows for her – 

“Looking for this?” a brassy male voice shattering the still air. She slowly sat up, turning to face the shadow silhouetted against the window, the cold gleam of a blaster all too obvious in his hands. “You have grown too powerful. I am here to assassinate you.”

“Is that so? I don’t believe you.” 

“Believe me? I’m here in your bedroom with a blaster! Of course I’m assassinating you!” 

“Nope, I’m challenging you.”

“But… but… not just using a Contessa to stop me?”

“You don’t need a Contessa to block a liar!” 

“Damnit! It cost me 3 coins to break in here. How’d you know?”

 

Coup

 

 

Coup is the deceptively simple bluffing game set in the world of The Resistance. As members of the upper echelons of power, you will be vying for control of the city, using your influence and financial resources to ensure the complete destruction of your opponents. While, as you’d expect, money is power, you can also strike from the shadows. This comes down to the cast of characters who will be doing your dirty deeds.

As the richest member of the Coup society, the Duke can control the flow of money in the game, allowing a player to take 3 coins and preventing others from taking foreign aid. On the other hand, the sneaky Captain will steal 2 coins off another player for you, as well as preventing another captain from doing the same to you. For the cost of merely 3 coins, the Assassin will gladly attack another player, removing one of their two lives. The Duke/Assassin combination is particularly powerful as you might imagine! Fortunately for players, the Contessa will throw herself in front of the Assassins blade and block the attack. Finally, the cunning Ambassador allows a player to change their characters.

 

Coup Role Cards

 

From the start of the game, everyone has two of these character cards face down in front of them. These are not only the actions you can perform; they also represent your lives. When you lose a life, one card must be revealed permanently and you no longer have it available to you. The key to this game is that no one knows what roles you actually have in front of you, and you can claim to have anything you like!

Claiming to have a card is not without risk, of course. Anyone may challenge your claim, in which case you must reveal that card or lose a life. If just this once you weren’t lying though, then the challenger loses a life! Interesting strategies immediately begin to appear. Everyone likes to pretend to be the Duke at the start of the game, leading to situations where all 6 players in order claim to have one of the 3 Duke cards. Claiming to be an Assassin can be very effective, as anyone challenging you risks losing both a card to the assassination, and their other card to the failed challenge, putting them out of the game in one go! In the early game there is a good chance they will let it go through, but expect to be challenged if they are down to one life.

Now between the Assassin and challenges we’ve seen two ways to die in this brutal society. But there is a third and most important way: the Coup. Should a player amass a horde of 7 coins, everyone will sub consciously hunker down and try to not look like a threat. Because a Coup is coming soon. That player looks round the table, knowing they have supreme power for that turn. Casually pointing to a player and instantly killing one of their characters. You just better hope its not you. Because there is no way of stopping it!

 

Coup In Play

 

Coup is an exceptionally simple game to teach and learn. Once all the roles are explained, and there are reference cards included to help new players, the game rattles along at pretty near breakneck pace. Money, threats, lies and expletives being thrown across the table like the Assassin’s dagger everyone hopes to both yield and dodge. Before you know what’s hit you, the dust is settling and you’re dealing out new cards to play again.

The battle to survive this game requires cunning. It typically requires outright lying, and it will amaze you how good you and your friends become at lying to one another’s faces. If you’re particularly dead set against lying, it is possible to play this game straight and focus on catching out the liars, but you won’t be experiencing the game to its dark deceitful core!

The feeling of correctly catching a lie or of pulling off an audacious bluff is exceptional. It always feels good to do well at a game, but there is something special about doing well at a game focussed on this simplest of human interactions, bluffing. It’s not surprising that one of the world’s most popular games, poker, is focused entirely on deceiving and manipulating the human across the table. Unlike poker, however, Coup makes you feel downright dirty while making you feel good. It adds a delicious edge that raises Coup above other bluffing games. It’s a game everyone should experience!

 

Rating: A Knife to the He-

 

Wait! Hold on. I’m not finished yet!

If there is a flaw in Coup, it’s the all too painful experience of being ganged up on. It is often important to be forgotten about in this game, and that spoils all the fun! Where you should be manipulating, lying, cheating and stealing to the max, the nature of the all vs all experience means that being marked as someone trying to play the game a little too well puts you in line for some serious Coup-ing from the other players. And given the fragile nature of your characters this can mean you get closed down very quickly.

Now, I know this is just part of the game. That keeping your nose out of trouble, quietly manipulating from the shadows is not only sensible but indeed, thematic! But when the manipulation and bluffing is sooooo good, shouldn’t the game encourage that element, not punish it? Well, while that might be a slight downside to the original game, the story isn’t over, there ‘s reformation in the air!

 

Coup Reformation full

 

Thoughts on… Coup: Reformation

 

Coup: Reformation is the first expansion to Coup. It adds more manipulation, more sneakiness, more of what makes Coup great.

It allows you to play up to 10 players, but the down time really gets to be an issue there so it’s still better with 6. It adds a new role, the Inquisitor, who is similar to the ambassador but also lets you look at another players card. Extremely powerful in the end game, it adds an interesting spice to the familiar Coup flavour.

But the true stroke of brilliance is the addition of factions! As well as two role cards, each player receives a double-sided faction card indicating their allegiance, either to the reformists or the loyalists. Players can no longer attack or harm any member of their own faction, though you can still challenge them (the rightful rulers must be honest beyond reproach). Once one side has been wiped out, the remaining players turn on each other to determine the final victor! You’re still playing for yourself!

 

Coup Reformation setup

 

Not only does this make ganging up harder, the brilliance of this expansion comes to the fore when you discover you can pay to switch your own, or your opponent’s, faction. An action as simple as flipping the faction card to the other side. Alliances in the world of Coup are more for show than for life. What it adds to the game is a whole new level of manipulative gameplay! That opponent ready to coup? Swap him to your faction! Someone a bit too powerful? Leave him on his own against the rest of the group!

The money paid goes to the “treasury” card, and a player can chose to embezzle all the coins from that fund, so long as they don’t have the Duke. Since the Duke’s ability is particularly powerful in the base game, this nicely balances it and allows people to really get into some bluffing mind games. Plus it adds the ever present temptation. Do you take the coins now or hope to get another chance next turn?

 

Treasury

 

The faction rules do make the game more complicated for new players, and can slow things down a bit. They are best with more players too, putting the optimal player count around 5-6. But the shear variety of new strategies that emerge from such a simple addition to the game more than makes up for it. Coup: Reformation is an absolute must have!

 

Rating: Join the Reformation!

 


Credit for images goes to Board Game Geek Users thth, EnderGame, W Eric Martin and NoppaGames.

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