Welcome back to Disco Elysium, the Ballad of Officer Superstar. We spent last episode reading. That was fine, but let's shift gears a bit. Let's try one of these games. Let's try the Suzerainty. This is a civilization building game. Oh, wait, hold on. Let's see how much time we have left. Three hours and eight minutes. So that burned just over another hour. OK, Suzerainty. Let's try it. In your hands, you hold a brand new copy of the game, Suzerainty. It's snugly wrapped in the skin of plastic.
The cover features a charming illustration depicting a mass of grinning laborers loading goods onto a ship, while a richly dressed administrator oversees their work. The exact location and time period are left deliberately vague, but it's clearly meant to represent the economic relationship between the Revacholian Suzerainty and its many vassals. Oh, we could leave it perfect and undisturbed like a collector's item. If there were an eBay here, we might do that, but we're not going to do that. We
're going to shake the box to see how many pieces move around. The box has a nice heft to it. You hear the rattle of individual wooden tokens and feel their weight shifting back and forth. What treasures wait in store for you? Let's find out. Even before you open it, you can tell that this will be a meaty game of grand strategy and complex player interactions. All right, let's rip that plastic off. The plastic wrap rips off as easily as a bodice in a tawdry historical romance. Let's open the box
. There's a hiss as the lid slides off. Inside, you find a thick, full-colour rule book and more than a dozen pouches of various wooden components. Let's read that rule book. Welcome to Suzerainty, a game of economic strategy for the whole family. The rule book is sumptuously illustrated and thick as a gradient novel. Well, there's no way we're going to say it's a proper game to teach children about the importance of trade in the global economy. Economic strategy, more like rapacious plunder and
exploitation. The colourful illustrations depict cheerful workers picking apricots, hauling marble sculptures out of crumbling temples and harvesting a strange magenta-leaved plant. Everyone is smiling. You begin to suspect there may be a political agenda to this so-called family game. Only one way to find out. Yeah, it's a colonialism, the board game. Let's keep reading. The instructions are opaque at first and introduce many concepts you're not familiar with. Fortunately, there are many diagr
ams and examples throughout. You soon figure out the basic conceit. Each player represents an administrator for the Suzerain of Revachol. Your objective is to increase the Suzerain's wealth and renown by accumulating victory points. And how do you accumulate those victory points? That's where the Suzerain's vessels come in. The game features four vessel nations, each one home to an economically important resource. Each turn, the player collects resources from vessels where they've placed workers
. They may then rearrange their workers, fulfill contracts for coin and bonuses, or build structures back in Revachol. As you leaf through the pages, your eye catches on a sidebar labelled "Advice for Beginners". Let's read that advice. Remember, there are many paths to victory in Suzerainty, but successful players will find one strategy and commit to it wholeheartedly. That seems like perhaps advice for the game. A giant hint. Boring, boring, boring. Tear up this rulebook and commit some old-sc
hool atrocities. All right, how is the winner determined before we follow Half Light's advice? The actual scoring system appears infinitely complex, with a series of tables and appendices required to compute each player's final victory point total. You skip that part for now. Okay, that sounds like some board games I've tried to play. Let's examine the components. You open up a number of pouches containing wooden tokens. There are also several punch boards with other cardboard components that wi
ll need to be punched out before you can play. Well, let's punch the cardboard pieces out one by one. Each cardboard token makes a satisfying "chk" as you pop it out, soon a neat pile of cardboard coins and counters has accumulated before you. What? You're not going to offer to let me punch any of them out? I feel like I stole all the bubble wrap and popped all the bubbles instead of giving Kim a try. Let's check out the wooden tokens. In addition to the worker and building tokens used by each p
layer, there are also several piles of colorful resource tokens, each representing one of the game's four principal resources. From the Empire of Safre, orange apricot tokens. From Ile Marat, the ancestral name of Iilmaraa, gray marble block tokens. From the Semenine Islands, white sacks of sugar tokens. And from Supramundi and Saramiriza, magenta tokens for unprocessed cocaine leaves. What if cocaine leaves are purple and that's what it was referring to? I don't know. Oh, those are nice. The li
eutenant picks up a sugar token and admires it. Wow, he clearly likes board games. Let's put the components away. You hold the open game box before you. Hey, Kim, you want to play? The lieutenant looks over the rule book before he sees something that makes his eyes go wide. Holy shit. The average playing time for this game is one to six hours. Cool. We need to burn a shitload of time anyway. I'm not sure we can afford to set aside that kind of time for a game. Oh, okay. We are going to see what
we can do to increase our suggestion. We can already take some pyrholidon. But let's put the game away and see if we can change our clothes. We are totally doing this. Okay, we're back and we've added one point to our suggestions. So let's see. Let's see if that helps. But we're also going to burn one to six hours. So how much time do we have left? Three hours on this. Okay, let's try it. Let's try it. Here it is. Oops, interact. The Suzerainty box is heavy. 72%. Here we go. Let's convince Kim t
o play with us. All right, come on, Kim. It might help us think of more creative solutions to the case. Yeah, he was just looking for an excuse anyway. That's what I was saying, suggestion. I read the rules already. I'll show you. I mean, I'm sure he is a quick study. I'm sure Kim has played a ton of board games. Ah, I see. So it has a built-in save system. The lieutenant goes first. He draws a contract card and moves several of his workers to the Safre territory of the board and the others to t
he Semenine Islands. All right, detective, your turn. You have a few options available to you. Will you try to fulfill contracts right away or rearrange your workers to maximize production on future turns? Remember what the rulebook said. You'll want to choose a strategy early on and stay committed to it. I like how we can just do whatever Kim did. So we're going to let our workers rest for a while because we're a communist and we feel like the workers are supreme. What is the very beginning of
the game? Your workers haven't even done any work yet. Let's let them rest anyway. There's no concept of rest in suzerainty. Workers have to work. You produce a handful of archaeological treasures and the smattering of other resources. Meanwhile, the lieutenant spends two of his sugar and one of his apricot tokens to complete his contract card. He is rewarded with four coins and a round wooden token that he places in the center of the board. That's a market. It's worth two victory points. I thin
k we're in a glower silently. The lieutenant returns your baleful look with a satisfied grin. I know how this is going to go. Kim is going to romp us. Come on. Is that your game face? You're practically broadcasting your position to the lieutenant with that expression. We can't help it. We're very dramatic. We wear our heart on our sleeve. Glancing over the board, you see several possible strategies. Pressing more workers into service would increase your economic output and help you to survive a
possible conflict with the lieutenant or you could ignore your labor supply and focus on fulfilling contracts for points and resources. This game is so not what Superstar would be into. Those aren't your only options. Oh, okay. Tell us, Rhetoric. You could also show your workers how much you appreciate them by investing some of that wealth in them. After all, they're the ones producing wealth for the suzerain. That's the route we're going to go. Well, sure. You can do that. It's just not a terr
ibly effective strategy, but then it's up to you. Oh, look, we can finish it later if we want, but we're going to say invest in our existing workers. To the lieutenant's puzzlement, you spend several turns building various improvements to your territorial infrastructure. We are going to introduce Mazovian socioeconomics to this game, whether it likes it or not. Soon, your workers have access to clean water, paved roads and basic hobbies. In return, they produce one extra resource per turn. Of co
urse they do. Let's gaze on our workers like a benevolent parent. Too bad investing in your workers just isn't worth many points. What do you mean, Kim? Take a look at the scoring tables in the back. The lieutenant turns to one of those appendices you skipped over earlier. You see in table 8C that investing in territorial infrastructure multiplies your final victory point total by one, which is to say not at all. Whereas erecting monuments in Revachol gives you a multiplier of five. So you're sa
ying the values of the ruling class are completely divorced from the well-being of the people who generate their well? Yes, precisely. Of course they are. Now it's the lieutenant's turn to respond. He moves aggressively onto the safari territory. Soon, his workers are producing a steady supply of extremely valuable apricots. I hope we have enough of charges of hypnogamma to fix all the morale damage we're going to take when we lose to Kim. For several turns, you struggle to respond to the lieute
nant's burgeoning apricot empire. Eventually, you relocate the majority of your workers to Super Supramundi and Saramiriza, where they begin producing a bumper crop of cocaine tokens. Oh perfect. Cocaine is definitely the sort of thing Superstar is familiar with. You draw a new contract card. According to the text, there's an aristocrat willing to trade a large supply of cocaine for a number of coins and access to a rare bonus. Amplified music worth seven victory points. You know, this isn't unl
ike the situation the historical Revacholian Suzerainty faced in safari in the middle of the last century. Oh, due to Encyclopedia. Well, the Suzerain was looking for new markets for all the cocaine it was producing, and it settled on safari by introducing cocaine into safari under exclusive contract. The Suzerain created an extremely valuable captive market for an extremely addictive product. That's fucked up, but genius. Oh look, I could have said that's brilliant. I didn't even see that. That
's still fucked up. If you could somehow get the lieutenant's workers addicted to your cocaine, you could not only make them less productive, you would also force the lieutenant to pay you for your cocaine tokens each turn. Can you even do that in this game? Yes, you can. It's right there in the rules. Oh, this is exciting. You've reached a critical strategic juncture. How do you respond to the lieutenant's aggression? Rock and roll baby. Let's go for the contract. It takes several turns, but yo
u slowly begin accumulating the cocaine necessary to complete the contract. When you do, it practically rains cardboard coins on your side. Superstar would definitely do this first one because of his dramatic flair. Cha-ching, Kim. Despite your trash talking, the lieutenant still has a formidable store of coins and resources. Well, he's going to have to spend them on rehab stations. The end game is upon you. How will you spend the vast resources you've acquired for the glory of the Susa Rain? Fl
ipping through the manual, you find the most expensive structure in the game. The Revacholian victory column worth 12 victory points. If you can successfully build it, victory would be all but assured. Alternatively, you could try launching a trade war to crush the lieutenant's economy, or you could blow all that money on a public education system for your worker tokens. The choice is yours. Oh boy. Okay. What would he do at this point? Is he even sucked into the game or is communist thoughts go
ing to come out? Actually, this is not so much communism anyway. Let's build the victory column for almighty Revachol. Building the ultimate structure requires diligent economic planning, which you completely fail to do. Of course we did. Rather than build a glorious monument to Revachol's economic superiority, you have to settle for a handful of post offices and school for the blind. Oh well. A risky gambit, detective. Sorry, it didn't pay off. This dumb game is rigged. Rigged, I say. Don't be
a sore loser, detective. Your moves were your own. It's true. Actually, his moves were mine. Now let's tally up the scores, shall we? Computing the final scores is almost a game unto itself. You each spend an inordinate amount of time making stacks of coins, consulting tables, and struggling with basic addition and multiplication. After double, then triple checking your maths. You have your final score. 15 victory points. The suzerain will not be impressed. What's an impressive score? I've got 2
6 points. Oh, he says it with a barely contained smile breaking out across his face. Don't be glum, detective. There's always next time. Figuratively, I mean, there's no way we have time to play this game again. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Now let's clean up and get back to work. Yes. Okay. Thanks, Kim. You hold the open game box before you. All right. Let's put it away. All right. So that leaves us an hour and 36 minutes. We are plowing through. We're plowing through. I am really curious ab
out the world game. And then we have two books after that. Let's do the world game and see how long that takes. We have an hour and 36 minutes on the front form a title. We're out. The colorful box is illustrated with the blue colic vistas. The cover art also features odd looking humanoids. Some short, some taller, some with pointy ears, others with ephemeral wings. It's examined the box underneath the title in smaller typeface reads third edition mega set in supplements module. The side panel a
dds a sword and sorcery adventure board game with new maps and miniatures. Let's shake the box. Mysterious things rattle inside. What could they be? Dice, plastic miniatures, a fantastical alternate world full of magic and wonder. I think it's going to be all those things. None of that witless Man from Hjelmdall fascist dross hidden behind faux-realistic allegory. Wirrâl is no cliché-ridden apologia for colonial violence. We're out is pure imagination. Somehow I think there's probably a little b
it of sarcasm there. Yes. The world setting is known for its complicated system of political alignments. But if you're not into that, you can just hack your way through dungeons in search of loot. That's what most people do. That's what I like to do. Let's look at the back. A blurb on the back reads tired of the tedium and toil of modern life. Escape to where our leave behind a solace and nations with their petty squabbles discard electricity magnets and boring technological widgets. So come to
a world of high past thermal fantastic. Unleash your imagination and create an adventure of endless possibilities. Discover the terrible secret threatening we're out. Can your band of adventurers save the world? Oh yes, yes. We're ready to take on this challenge. Exactly. That's the spirit. All you have to do is read an intricate rule book, study an assortment of maps, unfold the illustrated game board and start rolling dice. All right. I am definitely up to that task. In no time you could be ro
mping through grasslands with low level characters, hunted by iyskel riders or battling unspeakable monsters. An endless dungeon fraught with danger and despair conjuring up forceful magics to aid your quest. Don't forget heated arguments escalating to physical confrontation with your friends. Oh, that's the best part of tabletop role-playing. And most importantly, never forget to rage quit if the dice don't go your way. Oh, this is definitely something I would never ever forget. Let's go. Let's
open the box. You pry open the box. Inside you find a folded up map, a small booklet, a 24 sided die and a little plastic figurine. Okay, let's look at the map to begin with a reprint of a crude hand drawn map. The top left corner reads lands of we're out. The map features both small villages and mid sized towns with odd names. In addition to meadows, forests, hills, lakes and seas. Also with odd names that see this is how you know it's a high quality product because every name is odd. It doesn
't seem to correspond with anything you've seen thus far. It's not a very helpful map. That's how I feel about the map at the beginning of every one of those fantasy books. Like, you know, you try to flip back and try to see where your characters are going. You can almost never figure it out. Let's look at a quick guide to the multiple races of we're out. Create your own hero, choosing from any of these completely unique and fantastical backgrounds. The options are an order of importance. The we
lkin, the dweorgr, the humans, the faerie folk and the pygmies. How do we know they're in order of importance? Let's read about the Welkin. The Welkin, tall, lithe and graceful with long flowing hair and pointy ears. They're known for being powerful magic users, but can also hold their own in a brawn driven fight. The Welkin come with a variety of exciting sub races. High Welkin, Forest Welkin, Lake Welkin and Snow Welkin. But if you're not feeling experimental, a basic Welkin will always do. Ye
ah, let's read about the Dweorgr. A grand race of industrious mountain people. They're short, stout and muscular and enjoy digging for gold and other precious minerals. They're also well versed in the art of combat, where they prefer to use axes and hammers. Yeah, these are all the common racial tropes of every fantasy game. First we've got elves and then we've got dwarves. The Dweorgr also come in a few different sub races. Hill Dweorgr, Shield Dweorgr and Dark Dweorgr. And humans? They're just
humans. What else is there to tell? They're average in all stats and jacks-of- all-trades. Yeah, and the most boring race to play. Let's read about the faerie folk. A very small race of flying people known for being mischievous, full of trickery. They often lure people into their marginal traps. There are no sub races for the faeries. And the pygmies? The least popular of the Wirrâl races. The pygmies are short, rotund and dim-witted. Pygmies live in small villages made of shoddy wooden dwellin
gs. They spend most of their days tilling the earth and smoking their pipes. There are no sub races for the pygmies. Are these hobbits? Or is it just more racism? Let's look at the die. It's made from some sort of wood and has been decorated with peculiar plant motifs. We don't know much about dice, but this one looks pretty damn fancy. All right, let's take that fancy die. You place the die into your pocket. It's always good to have luck on your side. We'll check that out in our inventory in a
little bit. Let's look at the figurine. You see a man in ragged clothes wearing a lopsided hat and wielding some sort of a firearm. Firearm? That seems out of place. Interesting. A criminal. That doesn't sound very Wirrâl-like. That's exactly what I just said. It is not. The criminal are not a part of the game setting. I guess someone misplaced it during the packaging process. Does this mean we can't play, Kim? I have a feeling the figurines are more there to set the scene than anything else. Al
l right, let's take the common art figure. You pick the figurine up by the base to meet your gaze. The little plastic man stares back at you, his face contorted into a disturbing shout. Then you pocket it. Great. We're closing the box. Are we not going to be able to play a colorful box with the title Wirrâl in bold letters? It's a board game. Oh, what a bummer. All right. I guess we put the box away. All right, we'll check out the other things that we got. So we've got this standard world die an
d the Communard, right? Okay, so standard world die. This basic 24 sided role-playing die can be used to get results for several dice. It's made of East Semanese snakewood and embellished with plant motifs. It reminds you of plain and hill welcomes. No, look at the map tab in the journal to see which white checks have opened. I wonder if any checks still remain given that we're so far into the game, but we'll check in just a moment. Let's read about figurine set revolutionary. What a nice little
figurine. A turn of the century leftist revolutionary in ragged clothes. On his head lies a lopsided hat seemingly an Ushanka. In his hand, he carries a little musket. And so neither of these things are interactable. Let's check our map. Do we have, obviously we can't do anything with Renee. It doesn't look like anything new has opened. Whatever. I don't think anything new has happened. Andre. Oh yeah, no, we need to. Oh, right. We need to go do these. So that's that. Well, that was, honestly,
that was a little disappointing. We still have 54 minutes left. I'm I'm disinclined to read a book because I know that's going to take a lot longer than an hour. Hey, I wonder last time we tried this one, this cafeteria window perception site, it still wasn't time yet. So let's see if we can do that now, since we're standing like right there. We're going to do this check on this window. I just removed two items that were giving us minus one perception and then added some boots that to give us +1
. So now our perception is 7, so let's try this. Behind the dock workers, a ceiling height window. The Hawthorne branches scrape the glass, like bony fingers. When we did this before up until now, there's been a minus 12. It's not yet time. So now that's gone. So that's very helpful. And we've got four +1s here. So we've got a ninety two percent chance. So let's give it a shot. Look out the window. There's a yellow ribbon tied to one of the branches, light yellow faded with time. A tiny special
color in the blackness of the thicket hanging from it. A bronze key. Okay, that's weird. You would think we would have seen that before. Someone hid the key in the bush and attached a yellow ribbon to make it easier to find. It's close enough to the latch up there. One can slide it open and just take it. Surely not a coincidence. Someone's hit a key in the bush. We say pointing at the window. Titus, can you hand that key to me, please? I'm not your janitor, cop. I don't even know what you're tal
king about. There's nothing there. Who do we think he's consciously ignoring it here? If he says he's there, it's there. Titus, let me slide by so I can grab the thing. I don't know about that. I'm comfortable here. Don't think any sliding would really help right now. What's this crap about? Sorry, fucko. Looks like you're gonna have to go bush diving. Good fucking luck with that. The Hawthorne's got a bitch of a bite. This is a weird side quest. I'm gonna enjoy the side of you in the bushes out
there. Oh, no, it is in the bushes outside. So what, why do we need to slide by to get it? Is this window, could we open it or something? With a loud thud, the old man stands up, pushes the window open, grabs the key from the Hawthorne branch and slides it across the table to you. That was Theo who did that. He clearly was tired of this crap. Let's take the key. Thanks, Theo. The key is brass. Workshop spare is etched into its bow. The old man closes the window and sits back down in silence. Co
me on, man. We were just having some fun. Where's the horn in? I'm tired of listening to your shit. Yeah, me too. Thanks, Theo. Thank you. We say nodding to Theo. Don't thank me. I don't give two shits about your key. Does anyone know why this key was hanging right outside the union box window? I didn't even know it was there. Boys. Idea. Never even seen it. Someone must have hidden it there before this room became our place. I wonder what door is this open? It could open the door in the kitchen
. The blue door. It says workshop spare. Maybe there's a workshop there. That would be awesome. It's worth a try. It sure is. Maybe this is somehow connected to Ruby getting to the roof. Your secret root theory. You're grasping for straws, cop man. Why'd she put it back if it's hers? It's a good question. A little wisdom from old Titus. Not everything is connected to one thing. Keys just lie around. It's a messy world. That's true. I have a whole drawer filled with keys that are just lying aroun
d. It's said without aggression as a genuine advice. Yeah, Titus is clearly warmed up to us, but let's go find out. Just going to double check the amount of time we have left. 46 minutes. Okay. This is great. This was unexpected. I'm just going to put our gear back on. So give me a moment. All right. I put her clothes back on. Although this time I changed out of the red brogues, which were giving us +1 Empathy and put on the found sneakers. They're super expensive ones that give us +1 to hand, e
ye coordination and reaction speed. Here we go. Cross your fingers. You see a heavy steel door with a prominent dimple lock. It's painted blue. Let's try the workshop spare key on the door. He fits the dimple lock. It takes a bit of effort to turn it after all these years, but then the lock clicks. This is awesome. Dust rises before you like mist. A tomb haunted by regal spirits from distant ages. Probably not. That sounds more like the world board game. No, smells like engine grease and cut woo
d. A workshop. Here we go. How exciting. And that's it for today. Come back tomorrow to learn what's been hiding behind the blue door all this time. Could it be, as we suspect, how Ruby made it upstairs to kill Lely? But is that just lies told by Klaasje? We'll find that out next time too. Thank you for your viewership. I love you very much. Please remember to spay or neuter your pets.
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