World Order: Geopolitics on the verge of overheating

🌠World Order transforms geopolitics into a tense board game: deck-building, majorities, (cold) diplomacy. Our full review.

PEF

PEF, alias Pierre-François for short. Undisputed master of board games that last forever. PEF took to complex strategy games as soon as he could hold a dice in his hands. His favorites are the ones that involve building empires and plotting against adversaries while sipping herbal tea. Motto: “If the game lasts less than two hours, it’s a coffee break!”

World Order: The Evian G7, but in your living room

âš ï¸ Warning: In the interest of transparency towards our community, we would like to point out that this article reflects our personal opinion on the game. We have not received any compensation from the game publisher.independently acquired and tested the gamewithout commercial link with its publisher. The reviews presented here represent our honest and unbiased analysis of the game, based on our own experience.

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The essentials in 3 points:

• World Order is a big geopolitical board game of majority and deck-building, easier to learn than Hegemony, but not lightweight.
• The theme works very well: influence, economy, structured diplomacy, military threat without direct combat. A real cold war on stage.
• Its big flaw: duration. For four people, allow 4 to 5 hours.

On the box, leaders are discussing. On the table, no one is really negotiating. And this is where World Order becomes powerful.

On the cover of World Order, we think we see leaders ready to shake hands, to negotiate in cozy living rooms, to come out with a peace treaty between two lukewarm kawas. On the table, it’s something else. No big promises whispered in the corner of the board, no secret deal scribbled on a piece of napkin. Here, diplomacy involves maps, influence cubes, resources, military bases, and changing regions. And sometimes it’s even more brutal than an open discussion.

World Order is Hegemonic Project Games’ second major title after Hegemony. Same duo of authors, same desire to take a huge subject and transform it into a readable playful system. But it’s not Hegemony II. And that’s probably the first thing to say to avoid misunderstanding. Hegemony simulated class struggle in a fictional country, with four almost incompatible roles. World Order aims broader: the international order of the 2010s, four superpowers, seven regions of the globe, a race, subtle, tasty and pernicious, with global influence.

NB: this review is based on the original version of the game we played. The VF is arriving in a few days in June at Super Meeple.

After Hegemony, another bet

We really have to start from there: World Order doesn’t have the asymmetry of Hegemony. In Hegemony, each role almost had its own game: working class, middle class, capitalists, state. In World Order, everyone uses a common grammar. Same handle structure. Same type of actions. Same core of rules. This could make you fear a flatter game. In reality, it’s much more subtle.

Asymmetry is not in four different rulebooks. It is in the starting points, geographic interests, resources, initial maps, possible allies, some capabilities, geopolitical constraints and objectives. China doesn’t look at the map like the United States. Russia does not breathe at the same pace as the European Union. Everyone plays the same game, but no one lives in the same world. It’s very strong. It’s very realistic.

This choice makes the game much simpler to explain. The booklet is short for expert play, the playing aids are crazy, and the game turns are easy to understand. It’s not a small game, however. Let’s say instead that he lets you in easily, before closing the door behind you with a very polite smile. Afterwards, it’s “get out of your way!”.

A game takes place over six rounds. Each round, we draw six cards. Four are played, one by one, to carry out diplomatic, economic, military or domestic actions. The remaining cards are then used during the research phase, where you buy new cards to improve your deck. Brilliant detail: purchased cards are placed on top of your draw pile. You will therefore see them immediately in the next round. Not in three cycles. Not when the game is over. Right away.

This is one of World Order’s best ideas. Deck-building is not an engine purring in the distance. It becomes an immediate tactical tool. Are you missing a trade action for the next turn? You can try to buy one. Do you want to militarize a region before Russia steps on you, metaphorically? Same logic. Each purchase has a scent of plan. And each card revealed in the market can provoke that little collective sigh: “Oh no, not that one now.”

The actions themselves are readable. We improve our relations with countries, we attract allies, we invest, we trade, we move armies, we build bases, we produce resources, we develop our national picture. The actions are simple. Their sequence is not. This is where World Order shows its fangs.

The world map as a field of tension

The central plateau represents seven major regions. Influence cubes are placed there, some in permanent locations, others in temporary locations. The first are reassuring. The latter often earn more quickly, but they can be expelled when the region becomes too disputed. So . The modern world in a sentence: stability is expensive, opportunism is profitable, and both will make you lose sleep.

The big counts come after rounds three and six. This gives a very clear breathing to the part. For three rounds, we push, we prepare, we threaten, we believe we hold a region. Then the countdown comes and someone places a cube at the wrong time – well, at the wrong time for you. The turn order then becomes crucial, especially since the player furthest behind can choose their position. Small rule, big effect. Delay sometimes becomes a weapon. Or at least a parachute.

World Order is therefore a majority game, but not a classic and/or lazy majority game. It’s not enough to stack cubes. You have to understand the tempo, the priority regions, the areas of interest, the military threat, the available economy, the visible maps, the opposing intentions. A game is rarely won on a whim. It is earned by small movements, by investments, by blockages. Out of silent annoyance too.

A cold war without open war

The best moment in World Order is when we realize we’re not fighting a war. We are creating the conditions for fear of war. Delicious shade. Armies move, bases appear, threats weigh on regions, but the game is not a wargame. He’s not looking for a head-on collision. He’s looking for pressure.

This is where the theme really works. The United States keeps an eye on everything (well yes, like in real life…). China builds its engine. Russia threatens and takes advantage of its levers. The European Union negotiates, composes, sometimes buys what it would prefer to produce itself. The game tells the story of power through interdependence, and it’s much more interesting than a simple conflict of pawns. We don’t win because we destroyed the other. We win because we made his room for maneuver ridiculous.

When everything goes (very) well, World Order gives the impression of a diffuse Cold War. Not the Cold War of 1962 with missiles on the beach and a dramatic soundtrack. Rather the contemporary Cold War, made up of economic dependencies, military signals in hybrid war mode, regional presence, rare resources and markets that suit everyone except the person watching the score.

Diplomacy, yes. Negotiation, not really

And this is where we need to be very clear. World Order is about diplomacy. He uses diplomacy as a category of action. It depicts alliances, trade, balances of power. But if you’re looking for a loose bargaining game, with open deals, flimsy promises and backstabbing, this isn’t it.

Exchanges exist, but they are regulated by the system. We can buy certain resources from other powers, but this is not a political bazaar where we bargain with wet fingers. The prices, the quantities, the possibilities come from mechanics. You interact a lot, but you don’t talk freely. World Order is not Diplomacy. It’s not Zoo Vadis either, with the planet in a suit.

This choice does not make the game any less interactive. It makes it drier. Colder. Each player reads the board, calculates their lines, anticipates reactions, but without this social theater where we promise anything in a low voice before stabbing everyone in scoring. Some people will enjoy it. Others will feel like they were shown a trading table on the box, then served a beautifully designed geopolitical spreadsheet.

The academic work behind the game

Hegemonic Project Games does not hide the intellectual ambition of the project. The publisher explains having worked with specialists in international relations, and a Concepts Book of more than 90 pages accompanies the VO (we are waiting for the VF in outline) to connect the game’s mechanisms to notions such as realism, liberalism or constructivism. This kind of promise can quickly ring hollow. Here, it is felt in the structure.

World Order doesn’t simulate everything. He can’t, and fortunately. A game that claimed to simulate everything would end up in a spreadsheet or a thesis. Instead, he chooses a few levers: diplomacy, economics, military, domestic production, regional influence. Then he makes them cross each other. China is not “strong” because a map says it is strong. It is strong because its production engine and its relationship to commerce create different opportunities. Same thing for the other powers.

The theme is therefore not just about sticking flags on mechanics. It informs the constraints. This is what separates World Order from a simple abstract game with a large world map.

Two, three or four?

World Order was designed not to collapse as soon as a power is missing from the table. The absent powers are simulated by a self-influence system which adds cubes, and sometimes armies, according to their geopolitical interests. For two players, the game even imposes an opposition between a Western block and an Eastern block, in order to preserve a form of thematic balance.

It’s clever, of course. But let’s be honest: World Order does its best with four people. This is where the map breathes the most, where resources circulate, where tensions intersect, where blocks brush against each other everywhere. With two or three, the game remains playable. At four, he really becomes himself.

The real problem

The major criticism, massive, difficult to dodge: World Order is long. Officially, 120 to 180 minutes. In a quick, prepared table, why not. But plan widely, especially with four people.

Our parties tended to lean towards… 4 hours. Or even more, sometimes. And watch out for analysis paralysis, which lengthens the game. This is the paradox of World Order: the rules are relatively fluid, but the decisions are not. Each action is simple to perform. Choose the right one, at the right time, with the right card, in the right region, after looking at the market, the score, the allies, the threat and the temporary cubes… there you go.

The research phase is both one of the best ideas in the game and one of its sources of slowness. Buying powerful cards that immediately return to hand is powerful. Waiting for three other players to read a market full of text before buying yours is less glam. There, World Order can go from “crazy” to “do we order a pineapple pizza to last the night or do we give up?” in one round.

Second album syndrome

There is also the shadow of Hegemony. It is inevitable. Hegemony stood out because it offered an almost organic, chaotic, narrative experience, where each class lived a different story. World Order is cleaner. More framed. More… classic. And therefore, sometimes, less memorable in his great stories.

This is not an absolute fault. It’s a difference in nature. World Order doesn’t really try to produce the moment where the working class goes on strike while the state sinks into deficit and everyone laughs (yellow). Rather, it marks the moment when the European Union must buy oil from Russia while China moves elsewhere and the United States looks at three regions at the same time. It’s less theatrical. But it’s damn well seen.

Players who were expecting a new asymmetrical slap in the same place therefore risk being destabilized. Those who accept the idea of ​​a geopolitical expert Eurogame, more mechanical, drier, but very coherent, will find here a rare proposition.

For whom?

World Order is for you if your group likes expert games, squeaky majorities, cards that open lines of play, long weekend games and political themes treated seriously. If you like Dune Imperium for the tactical deck-building, El Grande for the majority tension, Twilight Struggle for the idea of ​​indirect balance of power – while knowing that World Order is neither of these games – you probably have reason to be intrigued.

It’s less for you if you want a nervous game in two hours, real verbal diplomacy, free deals, reversals that can be recounted for ten years, or a Hegemony encore. You also need a group capable of remaining focused for a long time. Not just “we love big games”. No. A group that agrees to read, compare, think, and return to the set without losing track.

Finally, note that Super Meeple (who else?) is localizing the game this June 12. The Parisian publisher has also translated the two expansions, Dans la Tourmente and Diplomatie & Domination, for a release that fits with the base box. We haven’t tried them (yet).

World Order, verdict

World Order deserves 4.5 stars out of 5. Because it succeeds in transforming global macro-politics into a playable, readable, elegant system. Because immediate deck-building is an excellent find. Because the tension of the regions, the military pressure without direct combat and the discreet asymmetry produce a real sensation of global power. Because the edition seems at the level of ambition.

Why not 5? Because the actual duration is a real obstacle. Because the research phase, as exciting as it is, can become a tunnel of victory. Because the diplomacy announced is above all a diplomacy of mechanisms, not a diplomacy of words. And because the comparison with Hegemony, even unfair, necessarily weighs on the experience.

The best sentence to summarize World Order would perhaps be this: it’s not the game of handshakes around a table, it’s the game of the balance of power established before anyone even extends their hand. If your table likes it, go for it. If she wants to negotiate loudly, lie with a smile and end up in a diplomatic scandal, bring out another game instead. Here, the war is cold, the cubes are hot, and the evening will be long. Very long. But frankly, it’s worth the trip.

On a aimé : The tension of the majorities, the deck-building which pays off straight away, the discreet but relevant asymmetry, the very solid ergonomics and this impression of pulling the strings of the world without ever rolling a die.

We liked less: The real duration, the research phase which can become a four-way tunnel, and this diplomacy which has the name of diplomacy but not really the taste of dirty bargaining between friends.

It’s more for you if…: You like big interactive euros, majority games that are played at the tempo, geopolitics, tough decisions and evenings where we take out the game like we’re blocking a date for a G7 summit.

It’s probably not for you if… You want to negotiate out loud, promise anything, betray in a burst of laughter, or finish before the fondue freezes. World Order is brilliant, but it doesn’t rush.

In World Order, no one declares war. We just lay down a military base, we smile, and suddenly everyone gets the message.

Très, très bon!

• Label Dé VertA: No. To find out more about the Dé Vert label, click here.
• Création : Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou
• Illustrations : MiÅ‚osz Wojtasik
• ÉditionÂ: Hegemonic Project Games for the original version, Super Meeple for the French version
• Number of players and playersÂ: 2 to 4 (clearly better at 4. But much longer, too)
• Âge conseilléÂ: From 14 years old (clearly no less!)
• durée : 3-4h (pas moins !)
• Theme : Diplomatie
• Main mechanicsÂ: Asymmetry, management, deck-building, territory control. To find out more about the different game mechanics, click here.

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