Each of the players takes the role of a business friendly, let us not say corrupt, politician. Each turn represents an election cycle in which players sell out the nation's resources to moneyed interests. In the end, there must be a reckoning, and whoever sold away the last of the store will take the blame for all the selling.

WHAT YOU NEED

• the game board: Provided below.
• 26 resource tokens: Pennies make good tokens. Nickels or poker chips are good, too. Slices of sausage will do in a pinch.

SET-UP

Start by putting 5 resource tokens in each hex and an extra 6th token on Alaska.

HOW TO PLAY

Players alternate turns removing resources until there are none left. The player who takes the last of the resources takes the blame for destroying the environment and loses the game.

Each turn, a player picks two adjacent hexes; at least one of the hexes must have remaining resources. If the two hexes have the same number of resource tokens, the player takes one token from each hex. If one of the two hexes has fewer resources than the other, then the player removes enough tokens from the hex with more resources to make the two hexes have the same number of tokens.

Each turn, the resources will dwindle down until a player has no choice but to remove the last tokens.

THE GAME BOARD

ADVANCED PLAY

More advanced play simulates corporate exploitation of the environment. Make a photocopy of the gameboard so that each player gets their own board. Moves each turn are declared aloud, and each player records the move secretly on their own board. A third player acting as an "auditor" assures that the moves announced correspond to the moves players make on their own private boards.

A player may give the auditor one resource token in return for the auditor's looking the other way as the player cheats shamelessly. Sausages slices are nice, since the auditor can eat them and smack his lips assiduously.

The loser is the first player indicted for fraud.

MUMBO-JUMBO

pdm:gaming stuff:f'earth