Star Wars Unlimited

The Game

Star Wars Unlimited is a 2-player battle card game. It is a collectible card game and you can do deck-building with it. What is most attractive about it is, of course, the Star Wars universe. You get to see all those familiar characters, weapons, and spaceships come into play. Other than that, it seems to me to be pretty much standard fare. That said, I am not an expert in collectible card games, so I might be missing some of the nuances. 

To win the game, you need to reduce your opponent’s health points to zero. Every turn, you draw cards and play cards. You may always play one card face down before you as a resource. There is no limit to the number of resources in front of you. To play a card face up, you need to pay the resource cost, and you do this by turning your resource cards 90°. Your resources are reset at the end of your turn. This aspect reminds me of Hearthstone, the digital CCG. Every round you get more and more resources, which will allow you to play more cards and better cards. In Star Wars Unlimited, the dilemma you have is which card to sacrifice as a resource. This is not always easy.

Other than the resource cost, every card also has an attack value and a defense value. Face up cards can only be used once per turn to attack. You can choose to attack the opponent base to reduce their health points, or you can attack one of their units. There is one restriction regarding unit type. Ground units can only attack ground units, and space units can only attack space units. Both unit types can attack the opponent base. When a unit takes damage, the damage is accumulated as long as it hasn’t reached the defense value. The unit is killed once the defense value is reached. 

Players control a general, and this is the player’s character. The general has a unique ability. It can also be deployed as a unit by paying the cost. When the general dies as a unit, it doesn’t actually die but just returns to being your general. However the general can only be deployed once as a unit. 

My base and my general

Some weapons are tucked under characters to modify their abilities. 

We used dice to keep track of modified attack and defense values.

Units have various icons, and this is something you need to consider when building your deck. Usually cards with the same icon combo well with one another. There are abilities which depend on icons. 

Icons are at the top left, below the card cost. 

The Play

The game starts slow and there is a gradual escalation because of the resource system. In the early game you probably want to play a card face down as a resource every round. Later when you feel you have enough, it might be better to keep and use those cards. The card abilities mostly match the Star Wars theme so that is fun. One interesting dilemma is whether to attack your opponent base or his units. You know the base is your ultimate objective, but if he is building a nice combo which can cause you a lot of pain, you may want to break it up first. 

Cards have interesting abilities. Some characters from the movies combo well, e.g. R2D2 and C3PO, and that’s fun to do. 

The Thoughts

Star Wars Unlimited feels like a pretty standard collectible card game and head to head battle card game to me. It’s on the simpler end of the spectrum so it is easier to pick up for a wider range of players. This will be a game you can use to attract casual gamers because of the Star Wars theme and the relative ease of play. 

Sarong Music Run event

Sat 8 Feb 2025. I participated in the Sarong Music Run event as an exhibitor. Several Malaysian game designers were invited by Locco to take part. This was a fun run event, and it was held right at the foot of the iconic Petronas Twin Towers. Don't be misled by the photo above. Only that building on the right is one of the twin towers. The other is hidden from view. They are identical twins. The building in the centre is the Maxis Tower and not the other twin. 

The route is not very long and it's just around the twin towers area. What's special about this fun run is you are indeed supposed to be wearing a sarong when you run. It's more a festival thing than a serious marathon type event. There is a festival throughout the day, and the actual run is in the late afternoon. That stretch of Jalan Ampang in front of the twin towers were sealed off Friday night, and tents were set up along the road. There were all sorts of hawkers, and we Malaysian game designers took up one of the tents. 

Jalan Ampang was closed from Friday night, and tents were already set up before Saturday morning. I arrived 9am Saturday, and I was the first to reach the Malaysian game designers tent. Most other stalls were already fully set up by then. They probably moved their stuff in on Friday night. 

We had some logistics issues. We were short of four tables. The chairs were later delivered and we had enough, but we never managed to locate the missing four tables. We switched to using mats and playing on the ground. That's reverting to local tradition. It certainly adds to the atmosphere. Thankfully we didn't get sore backs. 

That's my wife's suitcase and not mine. She loaned it to me for the day. That's why it's pink. 

Chee Kong (designer of Zodiac Go) and Choon Ean (publisher of Petal Plotters and Trishaw Frenzy) didn't participate in this event, so I brought their games along to place at my booth. 

There wasn't much crowd in the morning and around noon. So we game designers / publishers / industry people sat down to play. The crowd grew around 4pm. The peak was around 7pm, which was after the run. After running, and then some food and drinks, people had time to browse the stalls. 

Traditional floor mats

Haireey of Meja Belakang (in yellow) converted his suitcase to a low table, covering it with a sarong. He designs and publishes local themed games, so this is fitting. 

It was a hot and sunny day. Thankfully we were surrounded by tall buildings and much of the time we were in their shadow. 

Jon taught father and son to play Furmation of Rome. I think they are tourists from India. 

Ketupat Rendang is the latest release from Malaysian publisher Meja Belakang. Rasis is the designer, and this is the first time Meja Belakang publishes a game not by Haireey. 

Nick's Knights & Rebels is a 2-player game. 

I taught Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and they had some aha moments.

Jon's game under development - Dive for Gold

Artsy shot from where our tent was. 

We left around 8.30pm. 

The last four Malaysian game designers to leave, still smiling after a long day. 

Ihtilal

The Game

Most of the game I brought back from Essen 2024 were small box card games. Only three were standard sized big box games. One was a gift from a friend - Mission Impractical. The second was a signed copy of Rebirth by Reiner Knizia. The third was Ihtihal, a game from a Turkish publisher. When I walked by their booth, it was quite deserted. This was one of the smaller booths. It didn't have those fancy decorations which larger publishers had. However when I saw the box cover, I was intrigued. I approached them to ask for an overview of the game. 

Ihtilal in Turkish means "revolution". It is about modern Turkish politics, from the 1950's to the 1980's. This is a 2015 game, so it is already 10 years old. It is a 2-player-only game. You play two of the most prominent political parties, Iron Horse and Six Arrows, representing the centre-right and centre-left respectively. You compete to dominate Turkish politics. The game is played over 8 eras. Within each era you play up to 4 rounds, and then you have general elections. At the end of the 8 eras, the player with more influence on the board wins. 

This is the game board. You have a map of Turkiye, and it is divided into many provinces. There are spaces for counters in each province. Along the left and the bottom there are 9 areas. They represent the 9 steps of a round of play. Some of these areas also represent institutions which the players try to control and make use of - the police force, the military, the universities and the capitalists. 

The objective in the game is to place as many of your counters on the map as possible. When the game ends, whoever has more counters wins. All the things you do in the game ultimately links to placing, moving or removing counters. Whenever there is a general election, the player with more counters on the map wins the elections and forms the government. The other player becomes the opposition. The ruling party enjoys a few advantages, but also has some disadvantages. 

This is an event card. Event cards are divided into early game, mid game and late game sets. You start the game with only the early game cards in play. The mid game cards are shuffled in at a specific era. Late game cards are shuffled in only after a specific event occurs. Every round two event cards are drawn, and you do what they say. The cards may specify Iron Horse, Six Arrows, the ruling party or the opposition party to perform certain actions. 

These three areas on the board are the police force, the military and the universities. If you control the police force (here it is Six Arrows controlling it), you can attempt a die roll to remove a counter from the board. If the die roll is successful, you can keep rolling. If you are lucky, you may remove quite a few counters from the board. The military area has 8 different spots, representing the military academy, three armies, two navies and two air forces. Every military unit is based in a specific province. If you control a military unit, you can remove counters from the province it controls. Universities are used for placing your own counters. They too are province-specific. 

In addition to the two biggest parties Iron Horse and Six Arrows, there are other political parties in play - the Islamic party, the Socialist party, the Labour party and the Grey Wolves. At election time, you can choose to ally with one or more of these minor parties. You treat their counters as if they are your own. However you may need to pay a price to form a coalition with them, and this is for just this one election. For example if you want to ally with the Labour party, you must remove two of your counters from the Capitalists area. If you happen to have none there, then you are lucky. You earn an ally without paying any price. 

There is also the relationships between parties which you must consider. For example if you ally with the Islamic party, you can't also ally with the Socialist party. The counters of the minor parties affect play. Provinces with Grey Wolves presence cannot be targeted by the police. Provinces with Labour party presence cannot be targeted by the Capitalists. These are all very thematic. 

The Islamic party and the Socialist party both play an important role in the game. If either of them grow too powerful, the game ends early and both players lose. This represents Turkiye falling under sway of an extremist party. 

One perk of the ruling party is they control institutions more easily. Normally you need to control half the seats in an institution to control it. However if you are the ruling party, you only need to have more counters than everyone else. For example for the police force which has three seats, normally you need to control two of the three seats to control it. If you are the ruling party, and none of the seats are occupied, you just need to occupy one seat to control the police. 

The other advantage of the ruling party is getting more free counters to place every round. However this is somewhat balanced by a penalty. At the end of every round, the ruling party also loses some counters from the map. This penalty increases as the game progresses. By late game, the ruling party loses 4 counters every round, which is painful. I guess this is pretty thematic too. It is always the ruling party which gets blamed for whatever is wrong with a country. It's always easier for the opposition party to complain. 

Each player gets one die. The 6-pip side is replaced with the party logo. 

Having five Socialist party counters (red star) on the map is dangerous. If not enough are removed by the end of the next events step, both players will lose the game to a Socialist revolution. 

The Play

The biggest impression our first game gave me was - politics is hard! Both Han and I found it difficult to increase our counters on the map. I wonder whether it was because we competed too fiercely and focused too much on removing each other's counters. Or maybe the game balance is tuned that way. Being the ruling party is tough, because at the end of every round you must remove some counters. Yes, you do get some perks, but the drawbacks seem to be harsher. Possibly we haven't learned how to better utilise our position when we were the ruling party. 

We spent much effort on the institutions. This seems to be a sensible investment, because once you control an institution, in every future round you get a new power, to either remove opponent counters or add your own. However despite our efforts, we didn't really gain a strong hold on the institutions. At the same time, our presence on the map was feeble. This is tough! One way the game ends is one player losing all his counters on the map. The other player would win. This almost happened in our game. 

The players mostly play a passive role when it comes to the two event cards which must be revealed every round. You just follow what the cards say. You don't always have a decision to make. Sometimes the card will say remove counters, and you can choose where to remove them from. Some cards specify provinces for you to act on. The cards are not in your hand and you don't decide when to play them. We were not familiar with the cards and we didn't skim them before the game, so we didn't know what to expect or how to prepare. When we get familiar with the events, we might be able to handle them better. 

The relationships between the minor parties and the rules around them take some time to digest and remember. This is a theme-first game, and these rules, although a little overwhelming at first, all make sense. I imagine a Turkish player will understand and enjoy this game a lot. As a Malaysian, I learned much about Turkish history and politics. 

Some actions in the game affect political tension. If the tension rises to a certain level, the ruling party has the option to call for snap elections. So elections do not necessarily occur once every four rounds. The time between elections might be shorter. 

Han and I played until the mid game era, and found ourselves with five Islamist party counters. We couldn't remove them in time, and so we both lost. An Islamist revolution occurred and the game ended. 

The Thoughts

At the moment I've only played Ihtilal once, and I feel there is more I need to explore and learn. This is not a simple game. When I listened to it being explained to me at the Essen booth, it was likened to Twilight Struggle. There are indeed some similarities, but this is definitely not just the same system applied to Turkiye. The overall system is simpler. You don't do hand management. It is mostly an open information game. You don't hold any information which your opponent doesn't know of. You don't know what the next event is. Neither does your opponent. So this is fair. 

The institutions and what they can do, and also the minor parties and their abilities, are all evocative. The event cards tell the story of modern Turkiye. The core mechanism is straight-forward. Ultimately it is all about placing counters on the map. All your planning and strategising lead to this. 

In our game the Islamist revolution took us by surprise. Only after we lost the game I realised we probably should have somewhat collaborated. We needed to work together to prevent the rise of the Islamists and the Communists. I still think we were right in spending effort on the institutions, because that's efficient play. However perhaps we shouldn't focus too much on institutions which removed counters. It might be more productive to work on institutions which placed counters. We were more destructive than constructive, and that might be what doomed us. 

I have two concerns about the game. Everything you do eventually comes down to placing counters on the map. That feels a little one-dimensional. There are many provinces on the map, but they don't seem to matter much. It doesn't matter where your counters are, as long as you have more than your opponent. That said, some event cards do specify where to remove or add counters. The military and the universities are linked to specific provinces. The Grey Wolves and the Labour party protect provinces they are in. So actually the provinces do matter. The ultimate aim being having more counters might be a good thing instead of a bad one. It is a simple system and many other mechanisms which reflect Turkish history and politics are easily linked to it. 

The other concern I have is the events being something the players have little control over. Once you are familiar with the events, you will be able to prepare better for them. However you have no control over when they will happen. So your role is mostly passive. Sometimes I get a feeling the game is playing you. At the moment the impact of the events feel about equal to the impact of player actions. So the events tell the history, and the players need to work around that. 

Both my concerns may end up being invalid. I have only taken a first dip into this game. I will need to play more to understand it better. 

I like the historical elements. This is a game with a lot of heart and character. This is a heavy game so this will not be for the casual crowd. This is for players who like wargames and historical games. I'm glad I stopped at the Kene Yapim booth to check out Ihtilal. It is certainly a new experience for me. The publisher Kene Yapim is an indie publisher. Ihtilal has some rough edges and it is not the kind of highly polished and refined game from big publishers. Some parts of the English rules are unclear or contain typos. However sometimes it is the quirks of indie publishers which make their games endearing. Big publishers tend to make safer decisions, which sometimes makes games less interesting. I'm happy to have discovered this interesting game from Turkiye. 

Port Arthur

The Game

At Essen 2024 I bought two games by Japanese designer Yasushi Nakaguro, 300 and Port Arthur. They are in the same series, and they are the first and second games respectively. Port Arthur was first to catch my attention at the Ares Games booth, because of the beautiful cover. That led me to browse further and I then found 300 too. Port Arthur is about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. In history, Japan defeated Russia. This marked the rise of Japan as a world power, and also exposed the weakness of Russia. In the game, Japan plays the aggressor and in the early game has a stronger fleet than Russia. Russia has to send its Baltic Fleet, but they only arrive in the second half of the game. The Japanese army needs to push for advancement on the mainland, while its navy supports them and also prepares for the arrival of the Baltic Fleet. 

The game components are beautiful. Even the bottom of the box is carefully designed to look like a collection of mementos found in an attic. 

The little wooden soldiers are the Japanese army. The game is played over just 6 rounds. Every round, Japan may attempt to transport up to two armies to the mainland. However in this game the Japanese army is just supporting cast. The stars of the show are the Japanese navy and the Russian navy. The job of the Japanese navy is to transport and support the Japanese army, and the job of the Russian navy is to disrupt that. The Japanese army is under time pressure. At the end of Round 6, if they do not advance to Mukden (capital of Manchuria, modern day Shenyang), they automatically lose. Only if Japan meets this prerequisite will victory points be compared to see who wins. 

This is the Japanese navy. The die value at the bottom left of a counter is the speed of the ship. When you have multiple ships in a sea zone, they automatically form a squadron, and the speed of the squadron is the speed of the slowest ship. This squadron speed is important for two things. It determines how easily a squadron is able to move to an adjacent sea zone, and it determines the turn order in battle. The number at the bottom right is the firepower. Naturally, the higher the better. 

The Russian fleet

The counters are double sided, the back side being the damaged side. A ship can get damaged in battle. If it cannot return to a port with a shipyard at the end of a round, it also becomes damaged due to lack of maintenance and resupply. The small dots at the top right are the damage points a ship can take before being sunk. An undamaged ship flips to the damaged side with only one shot, but a damaged ship usually takes more to get sunk. 

The board is simple. There are only six sea zones. Japan itself is treated as one port, and it is directly adjacent to five of the six sea zones. Russia has three different ports. At the end of a round, every ship must return to port. For Russia, where the ships can return to depends on which sea zone they are in. Controlling sea zones will score you points. Some sea zones only score points for Russia. At the end of Round 6, you determine victory by checking who is ahead in points. The point scoring is done as a tug of war. You only track who has more points net and not the cumulative points (i.e. like Twilight Struggle). 

Every round Japan deploys first. You deploy as many ships as you want from your port. You can leave some in port if you want to, but note that during the action phase of the round, movement requires a die roll and is not guaranteed to succeed. Japan also needs to decide how many transport ships to send to deliver armies to the mainland (maximum two). You hope to succeed in protecting the transport ships. In case you fail and they are sunk, Russia scores points. Russia only deploys after Japan is done, so Russia can react to and counter what Japan does. Japan sets the stage, but as Russia, being able to respond to what your opponent does has its advantages too. 

The action phase is unusual. You don't just take turns. You don't know whether there will be a next turn, and you don't know whose turn it will be. To determine whether there will be a next turn, both players roll a die each. If the die rolls are the same, the round ends. Otherwise, the player with the higher die roll takes a turn. If the round is about to end, the player holding the initiative marker may veto that by surrendering the initiative marker to his opponent. That means if both players are keen to take turns, the round will go on, with the initiative marker changing hands. However this initiative marker is very important, so surrendering it is not taken lightly. Also, often one of the two parties will want the round to end. If you are at an advantage, you will want the round to end sooner so that your opponent can't catch up. If you have set yourself up for a major offensive, you will hope to get a turn so that you can execute your plan. If a player gets a turn but does not want to do anything, for example his ships are already well positioned and he doesn't want to move them or initiate an attack, he can choose to do nothing, but his opponent will get the turn. So the game will not be stuck with a player wanting to do nothing but getting the turn all the time. 

On the board there is a track for the Japanese army. One location here is Mukden, and the Japanese army must capture this for Japan to be eligible for victory. The track must be filled step by step by army units which land successfully on the mainland. Other than Mukden, some other locations give various benefits to Japan, e.g. scoring points, damaging the shipyard in Port Arthur, and even destroying Port Arthur. 

Players score points by controlling sea zones. Japan also scores points for specific progress made by its army. Russia scores points by sinking transport ships. One thing Japan can do is to blockade Port Arthur. This restricts Russia to deploy ships from Port Arthur by only one step. Normally it is up to two steps. Blockading Port Arthur costs Japan one point per round. Japan must decide every round whether it wants to blockade Port Arthur for the next round. 

The game is a contest between the two navies. The Japanese navy must support its army in advancing on the mainland. The Russian navy is not as strong in the early game and might need to rely on guerrilla tactics, harassing Japan in the backyard sea zones. They need to survive and slow down the Japanese as best they can while waiting to be reinforced by the Baltic Fleet. 

The Play

I played this with Han, and we were both new. Playing Japan was probably going to be more interesting so I asked him to play the aggressor. I played Russia, and I knew in the early game I would be in a more passive and reactive position. It was hard for me to stop Japan from shipping troops over. My fleet was not as strong as the Japanese. So Japan made steady progress on the mainland. Han wanted to prevent me from running around his backyard scoring points, and split up his fleet to protect more sea zones. I was conservative and decided to mostly keep my ships together. I took the opportunity to do a focused attack on his smaller squadrons. I had an advantage in these battles because I had more ships in the sea zone. Han's die rolls in the early game were atrocious, and he suffered several painful defeats. 

I enjoy the element of uncertainty in the game. It's difficult to plan anything long-term, because you don't know when the round will end, or whether the next turn will be yours. I think this beautifully captures the uncertainty of war. You can't even 100% count on being able to move your squadron. Movement requires a die roll. There is no pinning, so movement is fluid. Guerrilla warfare is viable. If you are lucky enough, you can keep running around without getting forced into battle. In small scale battles it is hard to inflict damage. I find the uncertainty exciting and also realistic. War is not neat and tidy like most boardgames are. One interesting rule I like is how squadrons are automatically merged when they meet. Unless they are in port, ships which come together must stay together. This means if you have a slow ship, it will bring down the speed of the whole squadron. I wonder whether this rule is there because in the navy you're not supposed to leave your friends behind. 

When the Baltic Fleet entered the fray, things looked worse for the Japanese navy. Despite the successes of the Japanese army on the mainland, the situation at sea was dire. Eventually Japan surrendered early and we ended the game at the end of Round 4. History was rewritten.  

Every round Japan may send up to two transport ships to the mainland. If both land successfully, Japan will place two army units on the track. 

The Japanese army track has 7 locations, and it branches. However there are only 6 army unit pieces. So it is impossible for Japan to use all the locations. The Japan player will need to prioritise which locations to capture first and choose which one to omit. 

This narrow strip is the round tracker. Ships from the Baltic Fleet will arrive in Rounds 4 and 5, and they are placed here during game setup. 

The Thoughts

This is a game with a lot of character. It's short, and the rules aren't very complicated, but it tells a vivid story. The core mechanism on taking turns is interesting and I am fascinated. I like the uncertainty and the need to be flexible and adjust plans as the situation evolves. Sometimes you are anxious about the round ending earlier than you want, and sometimes you pray hard for it to end as soon as possible. I like how the board situation is fluid. 

Port Arthur is still a wargame. It is short and simple, for a wargame, but it is still more complex than a typical Euro-style family game. There are detailed rules which make the game more flavourful, which you probably won't find in a typical family game. 

Elemana Chronicles official website launched

The official website of Elemana Chronicles is now live! Elemana Chronicles is a 2-player head-to-head battle miniature game designed and produced in Malaysia, and features highly detailed sculpts. Check it out! - https://www.elemanachronicles.com

Koinobori

The Game

Koinobori has a Japanese theme, but it is a game from Spain. Koinobori (koi-no-bo-ri, not koin-o-bo-ri) means carp streamer in Japanese and they refer to carp-shaped windsocks. They are flown on Children's Day, 5th of May. The game mechanism doesn't have much to do with the theme. This is a market manipulation game. You collect carps and manipulate their point values. When the game ends, you sum up the point values of your carps and the player with the most points wins. 

Every player has his own flag pole like this. You may collect up to three cards containing carps. Before you collect anything, your flag pole looks like this. You refer to the three icons at the bottom, which tell you what you are allowed to do. The three icons mean the number of cards you may take on your turn, the number of cards you may play, and your hand size. When you start collecting cards and attaching them to your flag pole, you cover your flag pole starting from the bottom, covering the icons. As you do this you refer to the next set of icons which are still visible. Your abilities improve as you collect cards and cover the lowest set of icons. 

There is space at the centre of the table for five columns of cards. These are the common flag poles where everyone can play cards. Each flag pole has space for five cards. The game ends when all five flag poles are full. At each flagpole, only a single carp colour with the most carps wins and will score points. In the case of ties, both the highest colours are disqualified, and the second highest colour wins instead. If there is a tie for second place, then they too get disqualified and the third highest colour wins instead, and so on. This is a little convoluted, and the outcome can be quite unexpected. 

In the photo above, that row on the far right is card market. This is where you take cards from. You may only take cards from the top or the bottom. The market is not refilled immediately from the draw deck. You only refill when the market drops to a specific the number of cards. 

On your turn your options are to take cards from the market, play cards to the common flag poles, or play cards to your personal flag pole. Some cards have special powers which are triggered when they are played to a common flag pole, e.g. you get to take additional cards, or you can move a card from one common flag pole to another. 

Carps come in 6 different colours. There are only five common flag poles. When the game ends, all six colours will have a specific value. At least one colour won't score. The point value will not be zero. It is -3 instead. This can be quite scary. If you have carps in that colour, every carp is -3. These cards above are reminders for which colours are still -3. They are flipped over when the corresponding colours score, i.e. win at one of the common flag poles. 

At this point I have played two cards to my personal flag pole. Once you play a card here, you are committed and may not change or remove it. The card is played face-down so your opponents do not know which carps you have. The advantage of committing early is you enhance your abilities. The downside is the board situation may still change drastically, and you might be committing to colours which eventually turn out to be duds. 

The Play

This is a stock market manipulation game. Everyone can influence which colours score. This is like a horse racing game. At every common flag pole only one colour will win. A colour may win at two or more flag poles. As you try to manipulate which colours win, you have to bet on the colours too, hoping you bet on the biggest winners, and not on any of the losers. After you have committed to certain colours, you will want to do your best to help them. If you can guess what colours your opponents are committed to, you want to sabotage those colours. Sometimes there may be others who have vested interests in the same colours as you do. Here you can collaborate. This is what Koinobori is, so it's not very complicated. The challenge comes in the cards available to you. You don't have that many choices when taking cards. There are six colours and you may not always have the chance to take a colour you like. Sometimes they don't show up, sometimes others take them. Sometimes you need to go with the flow and change tact. 

These were my carps at game end. I went with red, yellow and green. 

It's a card game but it takes up much table space. 

The Thoughts

Koinobori is a mid-weight strategy game. It has secret betting and race manipulation. Everyone can manipulate the race so your control is limited. You have to observe how others play and try to make use of that. If you can invest in colours others are already working on, you can save some effort. Sometimes you have to push for the colours only you have invested in and no one else, because that gives you a unique edge which others do not have. When the time is right, it is also good to sabotage your opponents' colours. 

The game felt a little complicated when I started playing, but once I understood the underlying concept, it's not that complicated. The only part I wasn't very comfortable with was the tiebreaking at the common flag poles. I felt it would be a poor experience for the two leading players who had been fighting over a flag pole, when their colours tied, and the victory went to a third colour on which minimal effort was spent. It would be frustrating. However, in practice, this didn't seem to happen often. So maybe my worry was unnecessary. When players play cards to the common flag pole, they know exactly what the outcome will be after the cards are played, so the victory going to a third unexpected colour would be what the active player deliberately chooses to do.