The American company GDW published this interesting card game by Frank Chadwick during 1990: 2 to 6 players, each representing political transversal sides into the soviet empire, clearly divided into three factions, Party, Army and KGB. The players manage the leaders of these three structures, struggling to achieve the Presidential status, before USSR collapses.
At the beginning of the game, the leaders are dealt to the players, and must be kept open on the table. The strongest side (i.e. the player with the most leader points) starts the game by conquering immediately the President chair, taking and showing the corresponding card. During his turn, a player may attack any leader in play (including his own), by placing onto them cards with a value and a color. The color is associated with one of the three sides (Party, Army and KGB). In order to play such a card, the attacking player must have in play at least one leader of the color of the card he is playing, and he cannot 1) attack a leader that is already under attack by the same color/side; and 2) attack a leader of the same color of the card, but that is not already under attack by a different side. You might want to read that again.

Poetically speaking, this means that the attacking player must himself play a role in the attacking side; that no sides ever expose itself too much when trying to politically kill a rival; and that the first attack on any leader cannot come from the side the leader belongs to.
If and when the value of the attack (sum of the value of the cards) is greater than the value of the leader he is – needless to say – killed: on the other hand, if all 4 possible attacks have been played (3 from the power sides, the possible fourth by Mr. President) and the leader survived, all the attacking cards are discarded.
The game is further enriched by different kinds of action cards (scandals, prizes, treaties), some “crisis” cards that must mandatory be played, and some other funny mechanism: one above all, players can make the leaders fall ill, and the result of a die roll will tell if they have a simple flu, or a deadlier... soviet one!

The focus point in Red Empire is, however, crisis management. Crisis often affects not only the President, but the whole nation. That is, at the beginning of his turn, any player must play all the Crisis-card he drew: crisis must be handled by the players together, beginning from the President, by discarding attack cards for a total value greater than the value of the crisis. Starting from the President, each player in turn has a single occasion to discard (i.e. play against the crisis) attack cards; when all players have had their chance, the total value of the attack cards is tallied. If this is equal or greater than the value of the crisis, the crisis is overcame and discarded. In this case, the President adds the crisis to his points (it is worth 1 point) and all players add to their points the value of the attack cards they have played (each player adds the values of his own cards); this is the main way of scoring points in the game: the other ways are the assassination of the leaders (worth points equal to their value) and being the President when the round ends.
However, if the total value of the attack cards is not at least equal to the values of the crisis, the unresolved crisis is set aside on the playing area.
Unresolved crisis are the real threat for the future of the game. When the total value of the crisis reaches or exceeds 18 points, the game ends suddenly, and all players lose. Playing on more than one round, this means that players always have a chance to make the game ends as a null, and that a player in the lead must be really careful of not winning ... too much! if he does not want to see the end of the days for USSR and his beloved points!
This elegant balance makes the games of Red Empire very funny and with uncertain results. Discarding attack cards during a crisis is taking away resources from our hands, but it can also provide points and make the game go on. On the other hand, attack cards are worth points only when played at the right moment, i.e. as the last card overcoming the value of the leader, just in time to send him in heavens. It is really annoying when you have played two or three cards in order to get a leader out of your way, and the final touch is given by another player who conquers prize and ... (dis-)honor; or even worse, seeing all the work done wasted by a stupid scandal or flu!
As stated on the back of the box, players must cooperate in order to kill the most dangerous leaders and the most threatening crisis, but without exaggerating, so that none of them can take a true advantage by his play: the perfectly balanced blend between an almost-traditional scoring system and this quite clever cooperating mechanism, grants Red Empire a high playability and a long re-playability. Many thanks to Frank Chadwick and his playtesters (the strategic game club of University of Illinois), also for foreseeing the real fate of the USSR, a hardly imaginable political scenario at that time.