Designed by: James Dickinson
Profiteers is a game with a dark heart, as players enjoy the spoils of war not as military or moral victors, but capitalist weapon manufacturers, invested in one thing only: money.
The setting is the American civil war, with the Union and Confederates at odds. The players meanwhile are hoping to steer the war one way or the other depending on where their investments lie, and perhaps even force a ‘tie’ where the game ends with no side triumphant, and the war presumably ongoing.
Everyone begins with a factory card that tracks how many supplies you’re manufacturing: one track for the Union, one for the confederates, and a GB track that can supply either side. You also begin with a little cash, in the form of gold cards. Each round is made up of two phases: produce, and battle. In the produce phase, travelling clockwise around the table players can spend cash to build more factories, buy bond cards, or purchase Saloons, Undertakers, or Railways. All are good, but to explain why we need to cover battle. Before battle begins though, players also take military cards and bonds for each factory they currently have: Union factories beget union military and union bonds, confederates likewise, but the ‘neutral’ GB factories allow you to choose whom to supply.
Battle starts with the last player who produced, and goes anti-clockwise. Now players choose how many military cards to commit to battle, either union, confederate, both, or none at all. Cards are played face-down and then revealed when everyone has played: military strength is compared and the winner must have at least two strength greater than the other side: the winning army’s bonds increase in value. Note that military cards vary in strength: troops are 1, artillery 2, and trenches zero – but trenches can force ties as when they’re in play the other side’s strength must be five better to force a win. Railways are hugely powerful when played, adding considerable strength, but after the battle is done is when the Undertaker coins in: a gold for every three cards played by all the players. Conversely, the Saloon gets you a gold for every three cards unplayed (not including your own) meaning that Profiteers has various routes to victory: engineering a win for the Union or Confederates and having bonds in that side; forcing a draw so bonds are worthless, or picking your way through the battle tactically, snaffling up undertakers and saloons and feeling like you are the best humanity has to offer!
The game ends either after seven rounds or, if sooner, when either side has won three battles. If neither side wins the war, bonds are worth 1-2 gold. If one side wins, the victor’s bonds are worth 3 gold and the losing side nothing at all.
Although players are not directly fighting each other, the fighting-by-proxy is close enough to make Profiteers feel a pretty combative experience.
Once you know the game, it's pretty fast moving.
If Profiteers has one lesson - outside of it's bleak commentary on capitalism - it's be flexible. Early plans can be harpooned by fate (eg the other players) and the winner is not so much *the strongest* as *the most adaptable*.
Profiteers isn't hugely immersive, and the bleak theme may put some off. But the mixture of open and hidden information and the slings and arrows of battles make it always dynamic, and a more than likely hit for a gaming group who likes their games just a little but brutal.
2-5
Players
12+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
Profiteers looks pretty dry on the table, a collection of grey and brown cards with text on: it could almost seem like a work in progress at first glance. But behind the possibly-underwhelming exterior is a highly interactive game space, where strategies may be obvious or opaque, tactical volte-faces emerge at the whims of player order and winning positions can implode. It can feel a little... procedural, I guess? However within the confines of procedure are plenty of miniature hand grenades to throw up surprises.