DRCongo

About this board game

DRCongo is an economic strategy game for 1-4 players, with a playing time of approximately 180 minutes, first released in 2015. Set across the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it challenges players to develop industry, infrastructure, cities, and trade.

Players build industries that produce oil, minerals, and crops, then expand a transport network of rivers, railways, and roads. Resources can be sold through the Atlantic port of Matadi for rich rewards, while hydroelectricity can be generated and sold to developed cities.

• Build industries and produce valuable resources
• Place river, rail, and road transport routes
• Develop cities and sell hydroelectricity
• Export resources through the port of Matadi

Each turn, a player chooses one of five actions: build industry, place transport, develop a city, produce resources, or sell resources. This straightforward economic structure is complicated by the political and military situation on the map.

Insurgents are present from the start of the game. Players use peacekeepers to suppress and eventually eliminate them, with a simple but tense dice combat system characteristic of Ragnar Brothers designs. As the game progresses, new layers introduce peacekeepers and insurgents, the Government, and strategic interventions by other countries.

DRCongo presents a hopeful hypothesis: that enlightened industrial development could help the country escape a crippling insurgency. Balancing investment, transport, production, exports, and security creates a detailed economic challenge shaped by the geography and changing pressures of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.