Prime Minister

Prime Minister is one of those GMT political games that puts you in the room quickly, much like Versailles or Churchill: the theme carries the rules, and the systems do not demand a law degree. The rulebook, incidentally, passes without drama. Beneath the tailored suit, though, sits a game that wants you to distrust your allies just a little.

Players split into two factions and play cards around the major issues of British domestic politics in the period. You are not merely fighting the other side; you are eyeing your own leader's chair and waiting for it to become vacant. You want the promotion, but not so clumsily that your entire faction goes down with you.

The interesting decision is when to defect and when to keep the knife sheathed. It shares Founding Fathers' political ambition, though that game handles it with more complexity; here, the repetition showed itself far too soon. After two hours, at roughly 60% of the game, we stopped because the same broad pattern kept returning, and our events ranged from mildly to deeply uninteresting.

The tournament game may be the better route because it is quick, but it requires real knowledge of the game and what is coming next: there is almost no room for error. It is not bad, but I would be very reluctant to put it on the table again.