Don't let the name fool you. Though it references the early 1970s scandal that led to the only resignation of an American President in history, the game requires absolutely no knowledge of that scandal to compete effectively. The more you play it, though, the more you'll come to understand what that 50-year-old scandal was all about, because in the process of play, you'll be utilizing tools, in the form of cards, that offer you glimpses into specific people, actions and consequences of that time and place. If you're a high school history teacher, this would be a great game to introduce to students. Not only would it provide a glimpse into the events surrounding the scandal, but it would also provide the students with a strong, strategy/tactics game to figure out. Without delving into too many specifics about the rules, one player takes on the role of Nixon, while the other plays a journalist. Each has a different goal; the journalist is trying to connect at least two people involved with the scandal directly to Nixon, while Nixon is trying to block the journalist's discoveries. Each player has a separate deck of 20 cards, which are used in groups of five (or four) to constitute a single round of play. Whichever player has the 'momentum,' determined at the start to be the journalist and in later rounds, to be whoever has managed to obtain more 'momentum' progress on a Research track, starts the card play (The player with 'momentum' at the start of a turn gets 5 cards, the other player gets 4). Each card has two options, indicated by two sections of a card. One either uses its Value or its Action. Example: One of Nixon's cards (a Conspirator card - Haldeman) has a Value of 1, or you can use its Action - "On the research track, move each evidence token 1 step." The Value of the card, combined with a color (in the case of the Haldemann card, that color is blue), allows a player to move what are known as Evidence tokens toward you on a Research track (it would need, in this case, to be a blue Evidence token), or move a momentum or initiative token toward you, the number of spaces indicated on the card (in the example, 1 space). At the end of a single round (each player has used all of the 5, or 4 cards he grabbed from his pack of 20 at the start), Evidence. momentum and initiative tokens will either be on Nixon's side of the research track or the journalist's side (or possibly in a 0 space on neither side) and actions are taken accordingly. If a colored (blue, yellow, green or combinations of two colors) Evidence token is on Nixon's side of the Research track, the player gets to put that token on the board, face down (blocking evidence). If it's on the journalist's side, it goes onto the board face-up and becomes a link in a chain of evidence tokens, marching from the picture of Nixon in the center to the edge of the board where it connects to one of the game's seven picture tiles of key figures (informants) in the scandal. The game is over when the journalist connects at least two of the picture tiles on the board's perimeter to the center picture of Nixon, OR, Nixon successfully collects five (red) momentum tokens, earned by moving the token in his direction on the Research track (by utilizing the Value option in a given card and moving that token 'x' amount of spaces as indicated on the card) and having it end up on his side of that Research track at the end of the round. Do that five times successfully and the game is over. There's a little more to it, rule-wise, than that, but that's the basic idea. It is a game of medium complexity and not likely to be immediately enjoyed by people who don't generally play strategy/tactics games. The game also rewards a strong familiarity with the 20 cards in each player's hand. Knowing at the start of a game, for example, that certain cards remain in your deck, as you play 5 (or 4) cards that you drew at the start of a round is helpful. In some cases, cards played in a round are discarded and after going through the deck of 20 (5, or 4 at a time), the discards are re-shuffled and come back into play. Other cards, though, and this is only true when you use the Action option of a card, get removed from the game permanently. A Nixon card, with the title "A third-rate burglary," for example, which (choosing to take the card's Action), allows you to "move 1 evidence token back to the 0 space on the research track and the momentum token to the 1 space on your side of the research track (Nixon's side, in this case). But, and this is a BIG "but," you have to remove this card from the game, permanently. It will take a while before you get comfortable with the ebb and flow of when that Action (or others, in either player's deck) is worth removing the card from the game. It's not for everybody this game, and believe me when I tell you, "Uno" or "Yahtzee" it is not. If, however, you like games that require you to put on a relatively serious thinking cap, this could work for you. It is also not "Twilight Struggle," another two-player game that utilizes the same sort of card mechanics (two-part cards from which you choose one of the options) in service of a game in which the complexity, compared to "Watergate" is not just squared, but arguably cubed. With "Twilight Struggle" firmly camped on the 'heavy weight' side of a game complexity fence, "Watergate" sits atop that fence; part of it on the "Twilight Struggle" side with the other side firmly attached to its simplicity roots. "Watergate" is a compelling and dare I say, educational game experience for two.
