Speculation (2003)

Overview

Speculation is a game about having as much worth as possible when the game ends. And unlike some Monopoly-like games, this one definitely ends when one of the draw piles are empty.

You start the game with €150,000 and that's all the money you get from the bank. No beauty contests to win here, so you'd better spend them wisely. You will get cards with collectible items, though. And the item value increases the more items you have in the collection. So getting lots of cards in one collection is good, but naturally there is a risk - each collection can possibly be fake and worth nothing. This is controlled by the Insider Information cards which sometimes are available for auction in the game.

Another interesting aspect of the game is the trading part. If you put cards down on the table, they are always for sale, and if an opponent happens to land on Trade, he can buy a category from you (for the market value). However, you can never lose money on showing your cards, but your opponent may increase his collection and therefore earn more - unless they are fake, of course.

The final balancing aspect is that the cards that you don't show are not declared properly, so if you land on Tax Razzia, you have to pay for those cards.

There are also bank-controlled auctions.

Speculation is a very well balanced, exciting and different economic game and you don't know for sure who's the winner until it's all over.

The game is in Swedish and scales well from three to five players. It works well for six players as well, but then you have to add a player marker and some money.