Pax Illuminaten has you race to form a secret society

In Pax Illuminaten you are an Areopagus of the Illuminati, seeking to grow the order and undermine the authority of the church. Spread your clandestine influence across Bavaria as you recruit the great thinkers and artists of the Enlightenment era into the order. You will plot to grow your web of sympathisers in different factions, gaining favour as you seek to dominate them to ensure you stand highest among the Areopagites.

Pax Illuminaten begins with a facedown map or web of potential luminary recruits in the centre of the table, there is also a market display for new recruits and a faction display indicating which of the six factions in the game will be preeminent and ripe for domination this game. Faction favour tokens are the main currency in game.

Pax Illuminaten is a race to complete two recruitment plots. The first player to do so will immediately claim victory. At the start of the game each player receives one private plot card, there are also two face up public plot cards that all players can pursue. Plot cards might require you to have your influence (represented by tokens) on a certain pattern of recruits in the map to form a specific network or control cards with specific traits.

Play proceeds in rounds, on their turn the active player will proceed through three phases. The event phase, action phase and check phase. In the event phase one favour token is removed from any edict cards the player has (these act as the games timer if no one achieves two plots, once five are discarded the final round is triggered), edict cards with no remaining favour are discarded. Next events from previous rounds are discarded and players may play a new event card from their hand which will affect everyone at the table, the active player then proceeds to the action phase where the real gameplay begins.

The action phase offers multiple options for advancing your shadowy yet light bringing masterplan. Players may take two main actions: scout, expel, influence, organise, extort or oust. The scout and influence actions are core to the gameplay as they allow you to reveal and draw cards into your hand, replacing them with cards from your hand or spend favour corresponding to the card to place your influence tokens on it, advancing your agenda. You can also redistribute your placed tokens, remove a card from the network, use cards to generate favour tokens for their corresponding faction or even, challenge a rival for control of a card and remove their influence.

In addition to performing two of the preceding core actions players players can scheme to play cards and activate their abilities, you can even play multiple cards for their ability this way as long as you build a chain of matching faction icons. Players can also claim a completed plot card as well as a faction card which provide additional abilities, provided they control the biggest lodge of that faction. Lodges are formed by three or more adjacent cards that share a faction.

The check phase rounds out a players turn in which plot cards are checked to make sure claims are still valid, next event cards will be drawn if certain conditions were met, finally cards used to scheme or oust are discarded. Non-active players draw from the deck and the active player may draw from the deck or the display. Play then passes to the next player.

Don’t be fooled by the small box Pax Illuminaten rocks up in, this is a strategic beast with deep and satisfying complexity and interactions. Expanding your influence is a delicate balancing act of leveraging your cards at the right moment, judging which to use for schemes and which to commit to the tableau as your influence grows. Just two main actions never feels enough and made sure I was always looking forward too and plotting my next turn. However the reckless will be punished, push too hard or to fast and your network might just crumble like a house of cards as it’s easily picked apart by rivals.

I enjoyed this best at the full four players, but two and three were great fun too with lots of back and forth. Having one private plot each combined with the public plot works really well as you are constantly engaged with your rivals machinations trying to work out what they might be working towards. The shared tableau of potential recruits only heightens the need to carefully observe your opponent’s actions. Each card has a limited number of spots for influence tokens which will very quickly force players into confrontation with such a tightly contested and compact play area. The trick is to be ready and waiting for the confrontations. Making sure they happen where you want.

The event and faction cards do a good job of mixing things up and adding variety, making sure that you will frequently need to adjust and refine your well laid plans. There’s different faction cards in play every game and thus different abilities. However there are only fifteen event cards and thirteen plot cards so after a few plays you will begin to notice a good amount of repetition, on the upside planning is easier when you know what you are planning for.

The scheme action can be very powerful and rewarding, but you will need careful judgement not to burn through too many cards reducing your other options such as ousting. Gaining control of an opponents card at just the right moment and watching their sad little schemes crumble is quite frankly delicious.

The tense and interactive mechanics combined with the fascinating theme which is complete with historical tidbits on all the cards based on real historical figures really drew me into the games world. The production quality is great, cards are thick and glossy and all the wooden favour tokens are a unique shape for each faction. I don’t want to spoil too much but this really is a game of schemes and secrets. Make sure you give the box a thorough investigation. Will you uncover the secrets, just like I did?

Pax Iluminaten is a great choice if you are looking for big strategy in a small box, with a dynamic spin on area control. I would happily bring it (and its secrets) to game night in the place of a bigger box area control game. It delivers all the same interaction and take that with a fascinating theme.

You can get a copy of Pax Illuminaten direct from developer, Ion Game Design.