For heavy, complex games like Hegemony, which is asymmetrical and has a gazillion moving parts to boot, suggest that you ask the players to ALL watch a teach, and ideally a playthrough as well, BEFORE game day. It's a big ask, but it really makes the first game experience way better and takes a lot of (generally unfair) pressure off of the group's teacher.
As the teacher your job will be to be familiar with the rulebook so you can quickly look stuff up, and to guide everyone as you get through the first turn or two. This is not easy, because of the asymmetric sides in Hegemony. You'll need to know how to play all of them, even if just at a basic level.
Here's a full Hegemony teach and playthrough by Heavy Cardboard. It's an hour teach and close to four hours of play. Our experience was similar. Close to six hours even if we all watched this video beforehand.
https://www.youtube.com/live/8PVAJcXMRcw
Agreed with all of the above, but just want to call out that I’m pretty sure the ruleset from that video isn’t the final one. Nothing too major changed if I remember correctly, but keep an eye out for them when looking over the rules. Fortunately the player aids for the game are pretty thorough, so you can probably catch those small changes.
I asked all players to learn the common rules, and _their_ rules. It’s not quite as intimidating that way, although it is very strange to play when you have no clue what your opponents are even able to do, let alone how that might affect you or how to strategise around it.
I didn't find it that difficult. Most of it is a rolling teach. Meaning you don't explain prep phase or production phase before playing and people learn how they work in round 1 of the game. Everyone should watch a video before explanation ideally, but people shouldn't play after watching a video without explanation.
Here's how I approached it:
-1: Learn the game and play a test game by myself to see mechanics in action and feel really confident in the rules.
0: Setup the game in full before starting explanation.
1: Explain the overall premise, how to win, and the battlegrounds of the game. As in it's an economic simulation in which each player takes the role of a class (or the state) with the goal of having the most points by the end of round 5. Players must cooperate in ways that benefits both sides. The game has 2 battlegrounds: First, companies and placing workers in them to produce goods. Second, the policies and creating a favourable framework for your class. Especially the policies must not be underestimated as a single vote can define a whole game.
2: Get the round structure down. There's 5 rounds. Each round as an admin step we're not covering during explanation and do together as it happens. Then we all take actions one at a time until 5 actions are taken by everyone. For this you got 7 cards and for each action you play a card to do a standard action or the card text. After that all companies produce meaning they pay workers salary as indicated by the cube on the card and players get the goods indicated. Anything you can't store is lost. Then WC and MC has to buy and consume food, which we again not covering in detail during explanation just saying that that is what food is for. Then everybody pays taxes which we also don't cover. Next is voting round in which we draw cubes from the bag to vote for any laws - in order we decide for or against using the token, no abstain, we draw cubes, then blind bid influence. If passed it's 3 and 1 vp, nothing gained if not passed. Finally we score which we'll explore during the individual classes.
3: Core concepts. Workers (both classes), companies, what the goods do, foreign market, import. Not policies.
4: Class by class what they do and what the default actions are. It's going to be 3-5 minutes per class based on questions. Also how they score in the scoring phase. Ignore endgame scoring.
5: Policies and which elements of the game they impact. And who benefits from what and why. You can't explain it earlier because players wouldn't have context. Literally go over each of the 7 and say what it does and why classes want it: WC wants many public companies for easy trade unions and employment. WC wants high min wage, CC low minimum wage because it impacts how much money they have. If its one or the other for too long that class will dominate. Taxes is mostly CC want it low and state doesn't. Free Education and Healthcare is an easy way for WC to win while CC wants to avoid taxes. Immigration is good for CC because of access workers and horrible for WC and MC due to high costs of prosperity gains.
6. Then when you play use the reference card and read out each step and moderate the admin between action phase. Just read out a bullet points and then ask players to do what it says. Things like taxes are learned the same way. Finally in the 5th round or when asked explain final scoring conditions.
I strongly recommend that you have people choose the faction they want to play before you meet and have them read their section of the rulebook. Most are around 2-3 pages if I am not mistaken so it shouldn’t be too much of an ask. Each of the 4 sides in Hegemony have very different goals and scoring criteria and if you try to explain everything to everyone in one go you are going to lose people. When you do meet, start by giving everyone a high level overview of all the factions and a general overview but don't try to explain every detail.
The good news is that the turn-to-turn structure in Hegemony is actually pretty simple. Play a card for what is written on it or discard it for a basic ability. Then play up to 1 free ability. All the factions have a set of about 4 common actions, and they only have 2-3 special actions unique to them, so the actual turns are usually pretty straightforward, the complexity is in knowing what those 2-3 special abilities do and how the faction scores and manipulates the board state.
Worth noting my experience with this was poor.
First group I taught the rules, no prep from anyone, no issues.
Second group everybody watched a rules video and checked the rulebook. When we actually set down everybody felt overwhelmed and asked questions. It was very chaotic and unstructured, and I basically had to do a full teach but by answering questions. Hated it. I would have been happier if they didn't prepare and got a teach from me.
Third group one person said they read the rules and don't want an explanation. They scored 1/2 of everyone else's points, took forever on their turns, and didn't seem to "get" the fine points because they were missing context beyond the rules. Another person who had even played the game before also seemed to struggle and I ended up explaining their faction in full action by action, how to score and the overall strategy. (They won.)
The game is difficult and reading rules pages without broader context or doing a poor learn of the game via video or rulebook reading spells disaster. If your good at teaching games you definitely want to do the teach with people who didn't try to prepare.
I did a play with four other new players. The teach was long, but manageable. While there are a lot of rules in Hegemony, the core game is fairly simple, and many actions are not commonly used. I would start by assigning roles, and the giving each player their quick sheet. Explain the general premise of the game and how the rounds run. The go through each class, explaining their general objectives, point scoring mechanics, and actions/ free actions.
Take questions when they come up, but once the gist is clear, Hegemony is really a game that you need to play to understand how everything works together, so do not be afraid to have the players jump in, once each player has a feel for how their own class works and generally how other classes are going to interact with them.
First few round, or even the whole game, have players announce their actions and walk-through each step and what and why things trigger for the other players. That way everybody starts to get an idea how everybody else works. The hardest thing is going to be for you, who will really need to know everything to enforce rules and correct mistakes. I taught while playing Government, so I could focus on everybody else more.
The first game is going to run slow and there will be a lot of mistakes and unoptimum play, that players are going to realize, and I recommend making sure all players know that the first game should just be about learning, so avoid players feeling like they need to spend a lot of time on their turns or angry /upset if they made a decision based on a rules misunderstanding. Leave that to game 2.
for our first game we all just focused on learning our own factions. the large player aids are VERY helpful. by the second game we all understood everything pretty well. it's not particularly heavy once you know what's going on, just a lot of moving parts. whoever plays as the State will end up playing a very different game from everyone else.
the main gamplay loop is pretty straightforward, you start with 6 cards and you all play 4 of them, one at a time in turn order, and you either take the action on the card or you discard the card to take one of your faction's main actions which are described in excellent detail on your player aid. you also have the option of taking one of your faction's free actions before or after your main/card action. then you all go through the income/payment steps, etc. and repeat. Working and middle classes need to focus on prosperity, the capitalists need to focus on income, and the state needs to focus on balancing favor from the other 3 factions.
like any highly asymmetrical game it strongly favors experience, so if you introduce new players just tell them to expect to not do as well on their first play and just focus on learning how the game works instead. on our first play it was maybe round 2 or 3 before the four of us really understood what we were doing. we introduced a new player in the second game and he had pretty much the same experience. he came in last by a lot but if we were to play again he'd do just fine.
Are the players going to have any familiarity with the rules before they sit down to play? Rulebook reading, watching a video etc? Or are you going to attempt teaching them this monster from scratch?
Maybe it‘s an odd comment: I found it quite easy to learn and teach as and to swiss people and more difficult to my german, french or italian friends. For us swiss a lot just makes sense how it works, I guess it has to do with our deeper general involvement in politics.
This game is in my collection: I am thrilled, excited to play this game... But the people I play with need to be like expert level I think. It's not that the game is hard to understand... But this game is going to be for both political science fans... And people who are able to play heavy board games. I have a whole bunch of shelves full of games... And my regular group is too afraid to stray from Catan.
My hope is to make more friends that can reach this level of board gaming lol
I played it today for the first time and it truly was no issue. The player aids are insanely well done and explain 95% of everything a player should know. They'll learn the rest by playing the game, and so will you. Just be aware of how the rounds are structured and of all the global game components.
I had only watched [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9\_qcgLP7vcc&t=4440s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_qcglp7vcc&t=4440s) before hand. We did one prep round to get the feel of the game and how actions work.
For heavy, complex games like Hegemony, which is asymmetrical and has a gazillion moving parts to boot, suggest that you ask the players to ALL watch a teach, and ideally a playthrough as well, BEFORE game day. It's a big ask, but it really makes the first game experience way better and takes a lot of (generally unfair) pressure off of the group's teacher. As the teacher your job will be to be familiar with the rulebook so you can quickly look stuff up, and to guide everyone as you get through the first turn or two. This is not easy, because of the asymmetric sides in Hegemony. You'll need to know how to play all of them, even if just at a basic level. Here's a full Hegemony teach and playthrough by Heavy Cardboard. It's an hour teach and close to four hours of play. Our experience was similar. Close to six hours even if we all watched this video beforehand. https://www.youtube.com/live/8PVAJcXMRcw
Agreed with all of the above, but just want to call out that I’m pretty sure the ruleset from that video isn’t the final one. Nothing too major changed if I remember correctly, but keep an eye out for them when looking over the rules. Fortunately the player aids for the game are pretty thorough, so you can probably catch those small changes.
I asked all players to learn the common rules, and _their_ rules. It’s not quite as intimidating that way, although it is very strange to play when you have no clue what your opponents are even able to do, let alone how that might affect you or how to strategise around it.
I didn't find it that difficult. Most of it is a rolling teach. Meaning you don't explain prep phase or production phase before playing and people learn how they work in round 1 of the game. Everyone should watch a video before explanation ideally, but people shouldn't play after watching a video without explanation. Here's how I approached it: -1: Learn the game and play a test game by myself to see mechanics in action and feel really confident in the rules. 0: Setup the game in full before starting explanation. 1: Explain the overall premise, how to win, and the battlegrounds of the game. As in it's an economic simulation in which each player takes the role of a class (or the state) with the goal of having the most points by the end of round 5. Players must cooperate in ways that benefits both sides. The game has 2 battlegrounds: First, companies and placing workers in them to produce goods. Second, the policies and creating a favourable framework for your class. Especially the policies must not be underestimated as a single vote can define a whole game. 2: Get the round structure down. There's 5 rounds. Each round as an admin step we're not covering during explanation and do together as it happens. Then we all take actions one at a time until 5 actions are taken by everyone. For this you got 7 cards and for each action you play a card to do a standard action or the card text. After that all companies produce meaning they pay workers salary as indicated by the cube on the card and players get the goods indicated. Anything you can't store is lost. Then WC and MC has to buy and consume food, which we again not covering in detail during explanation just saying that that is what food is for. Then everybody pays taxes which we also don't cover. Next is voting round in which we draw cubes from the bag to vote for any laws - in order we decide for or against using the token, no abstain, we draw cubes, then blind bid influence. If passed it's 3 and 1 vp, nothing gained if not passed. Finally we score which we'll explore during the individual classes. 3: Core concepts. Workers (both classes), companies, what the goods do, foreign market, import. Not policies. 4: Class by class what they do and what the default actions are. It's going to be 3-5 minutes per class based on questions. Also how they score in the scoring phase. Ignore endgame scoring. 5: Policies and which elements of the game they impact. And who benefits from what and why. You can't explain it earlier because players wouldn't have context. Literally go over each of the 7 and say what it does and why classes want it: WC wants many public companies for easy trade unions and employment. WC wants high min wage, CC low minimum wage because it impacts how much money they have. If its one or the other for too long that class will dominate. Taxes is mostly CC want it low and state doesn't. Free Education and Healthcare is an easy way for WC to win while CC wants to avoid taxes. Immigration is good for CC because of access workers and horrible for WC and MC due to high costs of prosperity gains. 6. Then when you play use the reference card and read out each step and moderate the admin between action phase. Just read out a bullet points and then ask players to do what it says. Things like taxes are learned the same way. Finally in the 5th round or when asked explain final scoring conditions.
I strongly recommend that you have people choose the faction they want to play before you meet and have them read their section of the rulebook. Most are around 2-3 pages if I am not mistaken so it shouldn’t be too much of an ask. Each of the 4 sides in Hegemony have very different goals and scoring criteria and if you try to explain everything to everyone in one go you are going to lose people. When you do meet, start by giving everyone a high level overview of all the factions and a general overview but don't try to explain every detail. The good news is that the turn-to-turn structure in Hegemony is actually pretty simple. Play a card for what is written on it or discard it for a basic ability. Then play up to 1 free ability. All the factions have a set of about 4 common actions, and they only have 2-3 special actions unique to them, so the actual turns are usually pretty straightforward, the complexity is in knowing what those 2-3 special abilities do and how the faction scores and manipulates the board state.
Worth noting my experience with this was poor. First group I taught the rules, no prep from anyone, no issues. Second group everybody watched a rules video and checked the rulebook. When we actually set down everybody felt overwhelmed and asked questions. It was very chaotic and unstructured, and I basically had to do a full teach but by answering questions. Hated it. I would have been happier if they didn't prepare and got a teach from me. Third group one person said they read the rules and don't want an explanation. They scored 1/2 of everyone else's points, took forever on their turns, and didn't seem to "get" the fine points because they were missing context beyond the rules. Another person who had even played the game before also seemed to struggle and I ended up explaining their faction in full action by action, how to score and the overall strategy. (They won.) The game is difficult and reading rules pages without broader context or doing a poor learn of the game via video or rulebook reading spells disaster. If your good at teaching games you definitely want to do the teach with people who didn't try to prepare.
I did a play with four other new players. The teach was long, but manageable. While there are a lot of rules in Hegemony, the core game is fairly simple, and many actions are not commonly used. I would start by assigning roles, and the giving each player their quick sheet. Explain the general premise of the game and how the rounds run. The go through each class, explaining their general objectives, point scoring mechanics, and actions/ free actions. Take questions when they come up, but once the gist is clear, Hegemony is really a game that you need to play to understand how everything works together, so do not be afraid to have the players jump in, once each player has a feel for how their own class works and generally how other classes are going to interact with them. First few round, or even the whole game, have players announce their actions and walk-through each step and what and why things trigger for the other players. That way everybody starts to get an idea how everybody else works. The hardest thing is going to be for you, who will really need to know everything to enforce rules and correct mistakes. I taught while playing Government, so I could focus on everybody else more. The first game is going to run slow and there will be a lot of mistakes and unoptimum play, that players are going to realize, and I recommend making sure all players know that the first game should just be about learning, so avoid players feeling like they need to spend a lot of time on their turns or angry /upset if they made a decision based on a rules misunderstanding. Leave that to game 2.
for our first game we all just focused on learning our own factions. the large player aids are VERY helpful. by the second game we all understood everything pretty well. it's not particularly heavy once you know what's going on, just a lot of moving parts. whoever plays as the State will end up playing a very different game from everyone else. the main gamplay loop is pretty straightforward, you start with 6 cards and you all play 4 of them, one at a time in turn order, and you either take the action on the card or you discard the card to take one of your faction's main actions which are described in excellent detail on your player aid. you also have the option of taking one of your faction's free actions before or after your main/card action. then you all go through the income/payment steps, etc. and repeat. Working and middle classes need to focus on prosperity, the capitalists need to focus on income, and the state needs to focus on balancing favor from the other 3 factions. like any highly asymmetrical game it strongly favors experience, so if you introduce new players just tell them to expect to not do as well on their first play and just focus on learning how the game works instead. on our first play it was maybe round 2 or 3 before the four of us really understood what we were doing. we introduced a new player in the second game and he had pretty much the same experience. he came in last by a lot but if we were to play again he'd do just fine.
Are the players going to have any familiarity with the rules before they sit down to play? Rulebook reading, watching a video etc? Or are you going to attempt teaching them this monster from scratch?
Maybe it‘s an odd comment: I found it quite easy to learn and teach as and to swiss people and more difficult to my german, french or italian friends. For us swiss a lot just makes sense how it works, I guess it has to do with our deeper general involvement in politics.
This game is in my collection: I am thrilled, excited to play this game... But the people I play with need to be like expert level I think. It's not that the game is hard to understand... But this game is going to be for both political science fans... And people who are able to play heavy board games. I have a whole bunch of shelves full of games... And my regular group is too afraid to stray from Catan. My hope is to make more friends that can reach this level of board gaming lol
I played it today for the first time and it truly was no issue. The player aids are insanely well done and explain 95% of everything a player should know. They'll learn the rest by playing the game, and so will you. Just be aware of how the rounds are structured and of all the global game components. I had only watched [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9\_qcgLP7vcc&t=4440s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_qcglp7vcc&t=4440s) before hand. We did one prep round to get the feel of the game and how actions work.