Junta (game)

Junta is a strategy board game created by designer Vincent Tsao and first published in 1978 by Creative Wargames Workshop, with West End Games taking over as publisher from 1985 onward. The game is set in a fictional banana republic called Republica de los Bananas, where players take the roles of corrupt elite families competing to accumulate the largest personal fortune hidden away in Swiss bank accounts before the republic's foreign aid runs out. Play proceeds through a repeating cycle of seven phases each game year, covering budget allocation among the ruling families, attempted assassinations of rival family heads, and tactical military coup attempts aimed at seizing control of the government by force. A full game commonly runs three to seven hours and supports two to seven players, playing best with four to seven, and its negotiation-heavy, deception-driven design has drawn praise from reviewers for how directly its mechanics dramatize the theme of a corrupt, coup-prone regime.