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Pax Porfiriana

#128780BGG ↗

2012 · 1-6 players · 120min · weight 3.64 · 3,934 ratings

v2 v3

BGG raw

ID
128780
Name
Pax Porfiriana
Year
2012
Rank
426
Min players
1
Max players
6
Playing time
120
Min playtime
120
Max playtime
120
Avg weight
3.6411
Num weights
287
Bayes avg
6.82293
Average
7.63263
Users rated
3934
Num owned
6000
Wanting
311
Wishing
1291
Num comments
1164
Fetched at
Sat Apr 25 2026 16:15:54 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (9)
Action PointsFinale EndingHand ManagementIncomeMarketOpen DraftingSimulationTake ThatVariable Player Powers
Categories (5)
Card GameCivil WarEconomicPoliticalPost-Napoleonic
Description (1710 chars)

Pax Porfiriana – Latin for "The Porfirian Peace" – refers to the 33-year reign of dictator Porfirio Díaz, who ruled Mexico with an iron hand until toppled by the 1910 Revolution. As a rich businessman (Hacendado) in the turbulent pre-revolutionary borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico, players compete to build business empires of ranches, mines, rails, troops, and banks while subverting opponents with bandidos, Native Americans, and lawsuits. Each turn goes as follows: 1. Action Phase: Perform three actions, such as play new cards, get new cards from the market, speculate on cards in the market, buy land, or redeploy troops. 2. Discard Headlines: Remove any Headlines (i.e. cards with the Bull-Bear icon) that have reached the leftmost position in the Market. 3. Restore Market: Restore the Market to twelve cards. 4. Income Phase: Collect one gold per Income, Extortion, and Connection Cube in play. If Depression, pay one gold for each card in play (includes Partners and Enterprises in your Row, and all of your Troops). Four "scoring" cards (Toppling) are in the game and their effect depends on the current form of government. The government can change if troops are played and as a result of other cards. The form of government also influences different production values of the game, such as how much mines produce. Players win by toppling Díaz, either by coup, succession, revolution, or annexation of Mexico by the U.S. If Díaz remains firmly seated at the end of the game, then the player with the most gold wins. Pax Porfiriana includes 220 cards, but only fifty cards (along with ten for each player) are used in a game, so no two games will be the same!

LLM v2 (wide)

Core verb
buy card, topple regime
Decision shape
combinatorial
Reward schedule
mixed:engine_compounding+delayed
Aesthetics
["Challenge", "Narrative", "Discovery"]
Core loop pitch
Buy from a sliding card market to build an empire of ranches, mines and goons, then trigger a regime topple.
Translation difficulty
Hard
Difficulty reason
Dense rules, deep card text, multiple win conditions tied to a shifting government state; intimidating UI surface.
Direct digital port
Port kind
Closest loop translation
none yet
Primitive tags
["sliding_market_with_aging", "regime_state_modifier", "multiple_victory_paths", "interlocking_card_economy", "bull_bear_event_headline", "lawsuit_take_that"]
Confidence
0.55
Extracted at
Mon Apr 27 2026 11:40:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Raw v2 JSON (928 chars)
{
  "game_id": 128780,
  "name": "Pax Porfiriana",
  "core_verb": "buy card, topple regime",
  "decision_shape": "combinatorial",
  "reward_schedule": "mixed:engine_compounding+delayed",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge",
    "Narrative",
    "Discovery"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Buy from a sliding card market to build an empire of ranches, mines and goons, then trigger a regime topple.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Hard",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Dense rules, deep card text, multiple win conditions tied to a shifting government state; intimidating UI surface.",
  "direct_digital_port": null,
  "direct_digital_port_kind": null,
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "sliding_market_with_aging",
    "regime_state_modifier",
    "multiple_victory_paths",
    "interlocking_card_economy",
    "bull_bear_event_headline",
    "lawsuit_take_that"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.55
}

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).