Watergate

Watergate is a two player game about the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. One player is the newspaper editor trying to gather evidence, link them to Nixon and expose the scandal. The other player is the Nixon administration, trying to prevent this and attempting to win by lasting till the end of the presidential term. 

The game board is a network of links with Nixon himself at the centre, and seven potential key witnesses around the edges. To win the game, the editor needs to place enough pieces of evidence to connect two witnesses to Nixon. The witnesses are initially inactive and they have to be activated. Nixon can prevent witnesses from being activated. The pieces of evidence come in three colours. They are what the two players will fight over every round. 

The track on the right is how the players will compete every round. This is done in a tug-of-war manner. There are five items on the track which all begin at the midpoint at the start of a round. Players play cards which pull the items in their direction. At the end of a round, if an item is closer to one player, this player claims it. There are three item types - evidence, momentum and initiative. There are three pieces of evidence, and they start face-down. Nixon knows what colours they are but not the editor. Whoever wins an evidence gets to place it on the board. The editor places it face-up, creating links, while Nixon places it face-down, creating walls. The red token is the momentum token. When you win it, you place it on your character card. For the editor, when you get your third to fifth tokens, you get to perform a strong action. For Nixon, when you get your fifth token, it means you have now completed your presidential term and you win. 

The editor's character card

Nixon's character card

The white token is the initiative token. Every round the player controlling initiative draws 5 cards and the other draws 4. The player with initiative plays first, and will also play last. By default, initiative switches every round. However if you win the initiative token, you will control initiative next round. So it is the player who will lose initiative next round who has incentive to fight for it.  

You usually play cards to pull items to your side of the track, but the cards have various other effects too, including activating witnesses and disabling witnesses. Some cards let you react to and cancel your opponent's cards. 

The game is a constant tug of war. You want to maximise the abilities of your cards, playing them at the best moment. Cards can be used in different ways. The same card can be used to pull evidence of a specific colour, the initiative token, or the momentum token, or it can be used for the special power written on it. It is not always straight-forward which is the best use of a card. If any item reaches your end of the track, you claim it immediately without waiting for the end of round. This is something you need to watch out for. Your opponent may surprise you by playing a value 3 card to claim a token which has only moved 2 steps in his direction. 

The game is an immersive experience. Many historical details are represented in the game. In my first game where I played the editor, my opponent Han was aggressive in disabling witnesses. I guess he had a lot of money to pay them to shut up, or many thugs to threaten them into staying quiet. He silenced 5 out of 7 witnesses. Thankfully I secured the remaining two, and they were nearby on the board, which meant less effort for me to create links. Unfortunately for me, I misread the board. At one point I thought I had linked up both the witnesses to Nixon and won. Then I realised I was still one link short, between one witness and an adjacent piece of evidence (the green one at the bottom). That was a stupid mistake. Nixon eventually completed his term and won. 

We played another game, and this time I was Nixon. This game turned out very differently. I fought hard for evidence tokens and didn't spend much effort on witnesses. I claimed many evidence tokens and placed them face-down to protect myself. I surrounded myself with a wall. However I only managed to disable one potential witness. Han convinced five witnesses to come forward. There was only one witness that both of us ignored. Despite having built a complete wall, I was not absolutely safe. In the game it is possible for face-down evidence to be flipped face-up. I still had to hurry to claim momentum tokens in order to complete my term.