Republic of Virtue is a 2-player game where French politicians try to keep their heads during the Reign of Terror
Republic of Virtue is the 2021 Hollandays freebie game from Hollandspiele by Amabel Holland. That sentence has the word Holland a lot. I love it. This is a 2-player game where players build a tableau from a centralized market and try to score points and survive. This can be accomplished by one or both players.
I know that Republic of Virtue is not readily available, but I also know that the previous Hollanday freebie games have been reprinted. No promises. I know absolutely nothing. Also, if you have this on your shelf, maybe look at the game!
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Gameplay Overview
This is a general overview to provide context for the review, not an in-depth how to play. Some rules may be glossed over or missing.
Republic of Virtue is a two-player game that consists of a small deck of cards and 8 coins. The game comes with cards but does not come with coins. When we played, we had a set of nickels that we keep with our games for situations like this. (Some of the other Hollanday freebie games also require coins). A way to tally the scores of each player is needed (either paper or a spin-down die).
Game Flow & End
The game flow is on the simple side. Each player takes a turn and then that continues until the end of the game is triggered. When one player (or both) reaches twenty-one points, the game immediately ends. From what I can tell, there is no evening of turns mechanic.
However, if the third crisis is resolved (I’ll talk more about crisis’s later) or there are no cards in the deck, the game ends and both players lose. And neither of the players were able to keep their head in these explosive times.
Setup
At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt three cards and four coins. Then four cards are placed in the center of the table as the market. Then 2 out of 5 set aside cards are shuffled into the remaining deck. And 1 out of the 5 cards is placed on the bottom of the deck. The remaining two cards are put back into the box.
Each player can then pick one card from the three they were dealt to place in their tableau and another to place beneath the tableau card (rotated). The suit of the second card is considered to be your natural suit and you can play cards of your natural suit for free. The sphere of the second card is your natural sphere, which dictates how you score points.
Honestly, this is a major decision at the beginning of the game, especially on your first game. While I went off what cards were in the market, I was not sure what the remainder of the deck would look like.
Player Turns
During your turn you can do one of three actions; Buy a card, play a card, or use a card. When you play a card, you add it to your tableau and when you use a card it is used from the tableau. Seems simple enough!
Republic of Virtue uses a graduated market. This means the leftmost card is free, the second costs 1 coin, the third costs 2 coins, and the fourth card costs 3 coins. The cost is paid by putting the coins on the cards that were passed over (i.e., put one coin on the leftmost card to take the second). The player takes the card and any coins that are on the card that they purchase.
Any open slots are filled by shifting the market at the new card fills the most expensive slot. Players only have a hand limit of three so they cannot buy if their hand is full.
When playing a card from your hand, you must pay for its rank via discards. This means discarding cards whose rank equals that of the card you are playing. All new cards must be played to the right side of existing cards (order sometimes matters).
Using a card consists of placing a coin on a card in the tableau. It will either have a one-time power, or a passive effect and all used cards are immune to purging. But this does take up a coin and removed it from the small closed market.
Concept: Crisis cards
Crisis cards can be triggered in two ways. The first is if the card is purchased. The second is when the card is the leftmost spot at the end of a turn. This will cause the crisis card to automatically resolve and then get removed from the market. If the card is resolved in the second manner, it is played as if the non-active player bought it. Points are generally only scored when a crisis card is resolved.
Who Will Like it?
Republic of Virtue is very similar to Reign of Witches but a little quirkier. The main two mechanics that I would say this game leverages is tableau building, closed market, and a graduated market. There are clearly unique aspects to the game, but these are the major components that build the core loop of Republic of Virtue.
What I Think
What did I like?
I really love closed market games because there is an innate pressure when no new money is being injected into the economy. This is especially true of games that remove money from the market. I find it so interesting how activating and protecting a card is the result of losing money to purchase other cards. There is an interesting balance of how to approach your tableau and the market.
What didn’t I like?
The game is a bit of a surprise as you don’t know which three crisis cards are being put into the market, so you don’t know what to prepare for. Sometimes a player will just naturally have an advantage based on luck. But the game is so short that losing doesn’t necessarily feel too bad.
My Take
Republic of Virtues is a fun short game that I enjoy playing and having. I do think Reign of Witches might be a little more streamlined, I like the quirkiness of the game. It satisfies a different aspect than Reign of Witches for me, but I can see why people tend to lean more towards Reign of Witches.
Breakdown
Rulebook/Learning the Game
Republic of Virtue does not really have a rulebook as much as it has a set of rule cards. The rules for this game fit on four cards. More accurately, they fit on two double sided cards. Games with small rulebooks are always interesting because either the game is simple, or the rules are simplified to the point of being confusing.
The rule cards are a little too simple for me because not all of the actions or opportunities are made clear within the rules. A lot of the rules themselves are explained on cards rather than in the rules. This isn’t a negative, but it can make the first game a little vaguer when starting
Rating
6/10
Republic of Virtue is a fun game but that are other games that live in a similar realm that are more likely to make it to the table before this game.
*See my rating scale Here
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