Gandhi: The Decolonization of British India, 1917 – 1947

Gandhi: The Decolonization of British India, 1917–1947 is the newest COIN, and from the first encounter it struck me as quite strange. I would definitely place it among the more “advanced” games in the series. This is not the one I would bring out to introduce someone to the genre, nor for a first or second encounter with COIN: the rules are knotty, and its balances follow a very particular logic that does not reveal itself immediately at the table.

The game’s central challenge is getting into that logic. It is not enough to know broadly how a COIN works; here you need to follow the rules closely and understand how the different sides coexist within these unusual balances. Its flow does not readily forgive a loose teach or a “we’ll figure it out as we go” approach.

As I experienced it, the interaction comes from having to read every move against that delicate balance. Players are not simply operating within a familiar COIN framework; they have to adapt to a game that is deliberately different from its predecessors. That can make it difficult and somewhat uncomfortable at first, but that is also where its interest lies.

In the end, that oddness is the positive for me. After eight titles that have covered almost everything, Gandhi needed to be different in order to justify a place in the collection. I would recommend it only to fans of the genre: people who want another COIN not because it is safe, but because it asks something new of them. Our own season, meanwhile, ended rather badly, with Jose Cuervo raining down at work; I am still hoping for a good comeback before the holidays, because an endless pile of shrink wrap is waiting to be torn open.