Rise of Totalitarianism

About this board game

Rise of Totalitarianism is a card-driven strategy game for exactly three players, with an approximate playing time of 540 minutes. Set in Europe from 1919 to 1933, it recreates the ideological conflicts and political struggles surrounding the rise of totalitarian dictatorships.

Each player represents one of three Ideologies: Social-Democracy, Fascism, or Communism. Your aim is to control the Governments of Germany and Italy, while extending your influence across Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Yugoslavia.

Minor Nations can be brought into your sphere through political influence or government overthrow. Major Powers demand a deeper contest: players destabilize governments, shift public opinion, trigger elections, and pursue their ideology’s distinct route to power. Social-Democracy must preserve elected government, while Fascism and Communism seek to establish regimes that can remain in power indefinitely—unless severe economic and stability failures bring them down.

• Crisis Cards introduce major historical troubles and opportunities.
• Strategy Cards provide Political Points and unlock events, actions, laws, and further crises.
• Coup Cards create a domino effect of upheaval across Minor Nations.

Players secretly plan actions with chits, spending Political Points and fluctuating Funding. Leaders can improve action effectiveness, while simultaneous reveals create tense political reactions involving propaganda, conflicts, reforms, laws, public opinion, economic conditions, and government stability.

Across each turn, players determine funding and play order, refresh their cards, resolve one to three political rounds, and check active crises. Economic performance affects the stability of Major Powers, while failed stability checks can force elections or overthrow governments. With its detailed historical context and competing victory paths, Rise of Totalitarianism turns interwar European politics into a long-form struggle for supremacy.