How to play

WIR SIND DAS VOLK!

Set up the game
(1)During setup, each province receives 2 or 3 unrest cubes. East puts 1 factory each on Bitterfeld and East-Berlin, while West puts 1 factory each on Hamburg and Dortmund. All these factories have an initial value of 1; the number pointing north indicates the value.		(2) Shuffle the cards of decade I. Deal each player 2 cards for his hand and put 7 cards face up along the top edge of the board. Above these 7 cards lay down the decade I special card.

Course of the game Basic idea: With the use of action cards, players build up their economies and increase their living standards. Too high a difference in living standards (both internally and compared to the other) will cause unrest. When there are 4 unrest cubes in 1 province, a mass protest will result. A state will collapse (and lose the game) when he has 4 mass protest markers at the end of a decade. Starting with the player holding the prestige advantage, players alternate in picking 1 card from the card display. Alternatively you may also play a card from your hand. The special card in the display is reserved for East exclusively. With the picked card, you may execute 1 action. Basically a card gives you 4 different options, and you must decide for one.
(1) Build up your economy: With every card you may build up your economy by using the card's value. For instance, with a 3 East may build 2 factories and 1 infrastructure as indicated above. Since the infrastructure now connects 2 factories both increase their value by +1. Note: In the province to the left, there is a mass protest. In a province under mass protest you may never build any economy.		(2) Increase your living standards: Another option is to increase your living standard. With every card you may place up to 3 living standard pieces (LS) in 3 different provinces. However, the province must have an economy strong enough. For its 1st LS, the summed up values of the factories inside the province must be at least 3. If the province's economy is not strong enough, you can use the card value to temporarily meet the requirement. For each placed LS you may remove 1 unrest from the province. In the above example, East uses a 3 value card to place 1 LS each into Brandenburg (total economy of 3), Sachsen (2+1=3), and Sachsen-Anhalt (1 + card value of 2 = 3). For each LS, you remove 1 unrest cube.
(3) Trigger the event: Another option is to trigger the card event. A red card event may be triggered only by East and a yellow card event only by West. A dual card event may be triggered by both. The effects of an event are the icons in the bottom half of the card. In the above example, East triggers the event Forced merger of the SPD and KPD. The effect is: East builds with 1 point (by putting a new factory to Rostock), puts 1 unrest cube to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (which causes a mass protest, since it is the 4th in that province) and moves the marker on the socialist track by 2 to the right.		(4) Remove 1 unrest cube: The 4th option is to remove 1 unrest cube. East may use any red card without any costs for that. When using a yellow or dual card, East has to pay by removing 1 build point. For West the removal of 1 unrest cube is free for yellow cards. In the above example, East uses a red card to remove 1 unrest cube in Sachsen-Anhalt, thus ending the mass protest there.
As soon as the 7 normal cards in the open display have been played, you lay out 7 new cards. Once these have been played as well, the decade is finished.

The end of decade During the end of the decade several effects are taken into account. For instance international prestige, the Eastern chronic lack of Western currency, rundown factories, the oppressive Eastern police power, flight from the republic and the Berlin wall (if it was built during the game). The most important ones are: a) Comparison of living standard between East and West, and b) checking the victory conditions.
(a) Comparison of living standard: In the end of decade, every province "attacks" 1 adjacent province of the opponent. The opposing province receives as many unrest cubes as it is inferior in living standard. In the above example, Schleswig-Holstein inflicts 1 new unrest cube to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (putting it under a mass protest), and Niedersachsen attacks Brandenburg (3 new unrest cubes and a mass protest). Niedersachsen could have opted to attack Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or Sachsen-Anhalt instead, but in both cases it would have inflicted only 2 new unrest cubes.		(b) Victory: A state breaks down when it has 4 mass protests at the end of a decade. For East, these 4 mass protests are labeled WE ARE THE PEOPLE! In the above example, East is under 4 mass protests and loses the game. If no player has lost until game end (after 4 decades), East wins. There are some other victory conditions as well (like national insolvency or triumph of socialism), but these are less likely to happen.