A Cardassian board game of strategy that rewards bold attack, played by Garak against Nog and then used as a deadly metaphor in the Deep Space Nine episode Empok Nor.
Kotra is a tactical game played with pieces on a board, and in the Cardassian view it is won by aggression and daring rather than by careful defence.
It appears in the Deep Space Nine episode Empok Nor. On the journey to salvage parts from an abandoned Cardassian station, Garak plays against Nog and criticises the cadet for regrouping when he should attack. He needles Miles O'Brien, the hero of Setlik III, for declining to play.
On the station, a psychotropic drug left as part of its defences sends Garak into a murderous state. He begins killing the engineering team and treats the hunt as a game of kotra with O'Brien, naming the dead as captured pieces. O'Brien ends it with an improvised explosive rather than the hand-to-hand fight Garak wants.