Collusion in a nutshell

The last three posts may not make a ton of sense since I haven't yet explained how the game works.  Here is a quick synopsis.

Collusion is played on a board containing 25 territories.  These are clustered into 'baronies', and wooden pieces belonging to 'factions' are added to those territories.  Additionally, players place discs into territories as 'estates', or associate them with the factions to 'influence' those factions.

During setup, each player receives four 'schemes', representing the end game state you're trying to achieve -- things like "X barony is largest", "Y faction controls 2 cities".  You arrange your schemes in a row, and they stay in that order.  At game's end, the leftmost scheme is worth the most points, if you meet its condition, and the cards to the right are each worth a little less.  

You also get points by controlling baronies, and the bigger a barony you control, the more points you get.  You also have three heirs that are worth negative points unless you get them out onto the board.  And finally, those power discs you have count as points for other players if you give them away.  

The turn mechanic is very simple.  There's a row of five 'barony cards'.  You advance your marker to the right on this row, to a different card from the one you're on.  Then, you propose an action within that barony, placing an action tile into one of its territories.  Finally, you place three support tokens onto action tiles previously proposed by other players.

When everyone has had a change to propose and support within a barony, that barony is evaluated, and the three actions within that barony that received the most support are the ones that happen.  Then there's an election.  Anyone with an estate in the barony is a candidate, and anyone who influences a faction gets votes, if that faction is present in the barony.  The person with the most votes becomes baron.

There are four types of actions and they're all quite simple: expand/shrink the barony, add a building for a faction, influence a faction, or place an estate in the territory.

But of course, because your actions only happen if they gain enough support, the trick is to propose actions that you think your opponents will support.  There's a clever way of dealing out the schemes such that, in a 5p game, each of your four schemes will "rhyme" with a scheme held by exactly one opponent.  Thus you're aligned with every other player in exactly one way.  But of course, you can also try to bribe them for their support, and that's where giving out power discs and trading heirs come into play.

There's a bit more to it but that's the basic gist.  I think it's unique in that everything that scores you points -- achieving your schemes, securing baronial control, getting heirs onto the board, acquiring power discs -- involves your opponents.  Thus it's no exaggeration to say that at the end of the game, the person who wins will have been gifted the victory by the collective action of everyone else.