This document describes the board game Four Tribes, which is designed as both a military strategy game and a pedagogical/social project. The game is played by 4 players who each control one of four tribes with different political charisma. Players use economic units, troops, diplomats and artillery to try and defeat the other tribes through military, economic and political strategy. The game aims to teach players critical thinking skills around history and decision making, as well as improve their ability to work in groups and bond with other players. The creators of the game believe it can help "restore ludic delay" and prove that opening ludic spaces is the only way to do so.

1. CUATRO TRIBUS – FOUR
TRIBES
Strategic Approach to Mexican
Society
International Colloquium Board Game Studies
Haar, Germany April 2012

2. What’s Four Tribes
Military Strategy
Board Game
Pedagogical and
Social Project

3. General Ideas of the Game
Designed for four players
The game finishes when a player has
defeated the other players, or by common
agreement of the players.
Military, Economical and Political Strategy.
Each Tribe has a different political charisma:
the Capitalist Entrepreneurs, the
Revolutionaries, The War Economists and the
Organized Crime.

4. The Board

5. Elements on the Board
Economic Units = PAC
Troops
Bourgeois
Diplomats
Troop Artillery

6. Description Myth of the Tribes

7. Moves

8. Pedagogical and Social
Project
Ludic delay: the result of cultures
whose tradition of playing is
underdeveloped or interrupted. In
comparison with other cultures a
smaller percentage of population or
time is assigned to play.

9. Kriegspiel: Essence or
Delirium?
Weikhmann 1664
“Committed
students will
dress themselves
with the most
important military
and political
principles”
Debord 1978: “It might be the only
thing in all my work - I'm
afraid to admit - that one
might dare say has some value.
The War Game will become a basic
element in the training
and education for the new generation
of militants”

10. Psychoanalytic Game Theory
Angst and Projection of
subconscious conflicts
What happens when we systematically
observe behaviors, and reveal the concurring
associations to the participants of the game?

11. Vulnerability and Scarcity
Anxiety is the result of
an impression that
resources to
achieve security are
limited.
Anxiety = Consistent
Mistakes = Known
universe of possible
decisions = Record
= Interpretations.

12. Homeopathic Principle
Sicken to reveal
and
Reveal to heal
Stress the social
bond during the
game to heal social
bond out of the
game.
Winning
=
Escape from the logic of
scarcity and
vulnerability.
=
Upgrading from
primitive anxieties.
=
Reinforced conduct

13. Five-Year Research

14. Results
Critical understanding of history and
current events.
Strategic decision taking in common
professional or academic activities.
Focus on objectives.
Working in groups.
Bonding with other players.

15. “The only way to restore ludic
delay is by opening ludic
spaces”
The challenge is that ludic
delayed countries don’t
understand this argument, so it
has to be proved”

16. Future of Board Games
Is a digital board
game a “real” board
game?
Bring people
together?
Creates a common
language?
What kind of logical
relation is built?
Video and Board Games
Game’s structural relation
with the user:
Descartes.
Master- Above the
structure: Social
Change.
Slave- Below the
structure: Social
Establishment.

17. www.cuatrotribus.com
consejo.general@cuatrotribus.com