The Anarchy 2026

This is a hybrid card/board game inspired by William Dalrymple’s book The Anarchy on the relentless rise of the East India Company.

The board is a political area map of India circa 1740. Each area on the map has a corresponding card suit identified by the background color and name on top for clarity.

The core mechanics are taken from the The Great Khan Game which used a Rummy-like draw-and-discard system whereby players take initial control of an area by placing a "meld" from their hand which has to have a leader.

There are 126 cards, each of which represents a place, leader, army, or commodity within a given area which when melded together represent an area’s political strength (crown symbols), defense strength (castles), attack or defense strength (swords), and economic strength (treasure chests).

The first player to reach 20 treasure chests in their combined melds in their income phase at the end of a turn wins the game.

Once placed, a meld/area can be captured by rival players either through political coups or military attacks.

Coups are done by placing an "alternative government" meld with more crowns than the incumbent. The defender can thwart these by adding cards from their hand to strengthen their government. The winner gets to steal the loser's meld.

Military attacks from neighboring areas are made uncertain using simultaneous bidding. Money played a bigger part in battles than soldiers in this history. For instance, the English East India Company’s Robert Clive won his celebrated Battle of Plassey by bribing his opposing general not to pitch.

Evenly matched battles tend to be disastrous with both sides suffering three cards "killed" as in placed at the bottom of the draw pile, possibly causing both areas to revert to neutral.

—description from the designer