Suffrage is a card-based board game about the iconic and pivotal struggle for women’s suffrage in early 20th century Britain and Ireland. I got the chance to play it and here are my thoughts on it.
A copy of this game was provided for the purposes of this review.
In Suffrage, you play as an important historical figure for the women’s suffrage movement demanding votes for women. On each turn, you get to resolve an available action card which can earn you supporters, but also lose some as well. And some actions have extras to resolve that can benefit you or harm another player. Once you reach ten supporters minimum, you can have a vote in parliament made, and if that vote succeeds to win women the right to vote, you win!
Suffrage is fairly easy to learn and get playing. You’ll definitely want to shuffle the cards very well so you get a variety of different action card options for each refill. This will also help you strategize more. One thing I wish was a little more balanced was the votes in parliament. It felt too easy to win the vote in two-player, but it is very much luck of the draw for that. While there are cards that aid players in getting the yes vote, I think there needs to be something to counter that and cause the vote to potentially lean no. I think that added balancing would help the game be less luck-based and more strategic when it comes to the win condition.
Playing two-player, a game can go by quite quickly. And with the small number of pieces, it is easy to get a new round started. I think that playing with more than two will make it so there is more strategy and more active competition than with only two. So while it is enjoyable two play with only two players, I think it will be best played with 3+.
Overall, I really enjoyed Suffrage. It’s an interesting theme for a game and it is truly educational along with enjoyable. I can see it being a great learning tool and it is also fun for us adult gamers too.
So cool that you got a game to review! Though I agree with you that the game needs some cards to make it harder to get the vote. It would make it more challenging and be more historically accurate to his difficult getting the vote must have been.