'We have a beautiful game on our hands, if we have the means and inclination to play it properly.'
— Sir William Hay MacNaghten, discussing the invasion of Afghanistan, 1838.

Your First Few Games

Masterly Inactivity

Each turn you have two actions. Each player takes roughly a dozen turns in a game, and sometimes far fewer.

It's a game with simple concepts and components. Buy, play; move, attack. Resources are scarce, so deploy them wisely to back the dominant faction. But which faction is that?

In Pax Pamir complexity arises when a player reaches into the future to predict events. Layers of simple game systems create a fog of war, and reading through the fog is your test.

Four Moments?

The game has at most four scoring moments. Sometimes only two. What happens between them is merely preparation. Nothing has value unless it influences what happens when a dominance check resolves.

Two Futures

When a dominance check resolves, scoring is determined by either cylinders or loyalty. They need different preparation. Learning to predict when and how a dominance check will resolve is a core skill for new players to learn.

In 2/3/4 player games, every chunk of 9/10/11 cards in the deck contains a dominance check (except for the opening chunk which contains a few extra.)

Use this constantly. If you're playing a 3 player game and there are 31 cards left in the deck, but you still haven't seen a dominance card yet, you know the next card must be it.

Practice Reading the Board

The more you read the board, the better you become at it, the faster you will be, and the deeper you will be able to see into the future each turn. Start with knowing the exact score for all players under the most likely outcomes for the next dominance check.

If you're playing on rally-the-troops.com and spy movement is unintuitive, try reading the tableaus like a book. That's the path your spies will move.

Your Next 10 Games

A Tapestry of War

Every game system connects. The opening market dictates what the map will look like in the next few turns. The map dictates the dominance check. The dominance check dictates the value of the cards in tableaus, hands, and the market. The threatened and threatening cards, spies, and actions dictate the priority in which cards should be played. And so on.

Check every system before trusting any one signal. A single rupee or spy or army could ripple through your analysis and change your decision.

Austerity

The economy is essentially closed and zero-sum, with only two ways to increase the total rupee count in the game: leveraged cards, and the Backing of Persian Aristocracy event card.

Beware depleting your rupees in a board state where you will have difficulty recuperating. Spending more conservatively in the early game is often advantageous. A tax advantage can grow easily if unchecked.

The Rupee Strangler

Always know where your next rupee comes from. When you don't have a tax action, understand how that makes you vulnerable. If your opponent is building a rupee strangle, disrupt it before it locks in.

Once you are strangled your options are few and shrinking. The strangler will control when the next dominance check resolves; they will buy any pivotal cards; and most importantly, if they are skilled, they will ensure you have access to only weak cards in the 0 and 1 slot of the market.

Some players will try to force this strategy… to their doom. Nothing in Pax Pamir can be forced.

Opponent Misery

When evaluating a potential action, ask: after they respond as well as they can, what is the gap between me and my opponents? Sometimes the correct play may be mundane or unintuitive because it doesn't advance your position directly. Creating a bad board to pass to your opponent is a useful way to think about this.

If someone is winning by a large margin, join a different faction if at all possible. Do not help them score. In 3/4 player games, if the trailing players can cooperate, almost any leader can be toppled. Simply the act of leaving their faction will devalue their tableau, hand and thus their future scoring potential.

The Market

The Market is the most crucial zone of the game. It tells the story of the next few turns. But importantly it's where good players can consistently express their skill.

The Timeline

When a check is close, every action requires score math. When no check is near, build flexible value — rupees, hand size, cards that work in many scenarios.

Action Economy

If a player is missing a key action, consider the cost of denying them that action by buying cards from the market (tax, betray, gift are most commonly the actions that can be denied successfully to create an advantage).

When the opponent doesn't have a betray action, you can safely play patriots and high value political cards.

When an opponent doesn't have a gift action, you can safely join their coalition, help them become dominant and outscore them in loyalty more easily.

When an opponent doesn't have a move or battle action, their map and spy power will be greatly reduced.

Buying Dominance Checks (don't)

Actions are a resource. Sometimes you have a fleeting window of advantage, and buying a dominance check will net you points against all opponents. This is a good exception. But still, understand how much future value you are giving up in order to score. It may or may not be worth it.

Playing from Behind

…has essentially zero deception value, outside of a 4 player setting with newer players. But the last dominance check is worth double, so there is a natural incentive to delay scoring to save resources for a late push. Play from behind to ensure you're strong enough to execute your final gambit, but not to "fool" the table into thinking you're weak to avoid counter play.

Suit Changes

Your biggest tool in securing structural advantages. But don't over index on suit changing/matching unless the pay off is big or durable.

Persuasive Methods (event card)

"Exchange your hand with another player."

The most game warping card in the entire deck. As soon as it's visible it causes a mini game: who is in the best position to take it, and whose hand will they target. Respect this card and what it does to the game. If it hasn't appeared yet and you're nearing the end of the game, keep the possibility in mind that it flips by the end of the game, and how it will affect the board.

Your Next 100 Games

Depth

If playing a live 2 player game, a chess clock would be appropriate. Time is a resource. The quality of your move is usually correlated with how many layers deep you can read the board. A seasoned player may be able to read 5-6 layers ahead in a few minutes, while a newer player will be much slower.

Stalling in Structural Advantages

We've covered different structural advantages you can create over opponents. Rupees, actions, area control — it's possible for any system to be controlled or denied.

Understanding when and how to stall in these moments is crucial. If the current board state structurally benefits you (compared to your opponent), find a way to make it last longer. Each time you can exploit the advantage it widens the resource gap between you and your opponent.

Herding (in British)

Have you played a lot of Pax Pamir? Doesn't it seem like all players fighting for British loyalty is one of the most common outcomes?

Patriot counts are asymmetrical. For each faction there are: 7 in Afghan. 10 in Russian. 13 in British.

This means more opportunities to switch into and advance loyalty in British, creating significantly more British loyalty games.

Understanding the deck and what cards remain is not an often used skill in Pax Pamir, but when it is useful, you will likely be gaining a pure knowledge advantage over your opponents, since it's so infrequently used.

Endgame

When in a losing position, see if an early or late dominance check would give you an opportunity to win. Play as if the dominance card will appear where you need it. This is an adage in many games: play to your outs.

By Format

2-Player

Chess-like with hands face up. Opponent misery through market play is

3-Player

The most balanced format. If you find yourself up against a high quality player, join the faction of the third player, if possible. Opponent misery, specifically the skilled player, is important. Outplay the weaker opponent in your faction, where you generally have less ability to hurt them. Outplay your stronger opponent with the help of the weaker opponent's board and resources.

4-Player

More players, more chaos. Scale down your focus on hyper specific planning and opponent misery, and scale up your focus on economy and accruing value across the possible range of scoring outcomes.

As with 3 player games, identify who your main threat is and focus any opponent misery on them.