[INWO-list] INWO: Reverse Engineered

[Steve Brinich]

martin laerkes wrote:

> *Anti-speed*
> The fast goals should be changed to reduce the basic goal, ensuring that 
> no deck can circumvent it, but will instead need a few turns to expand. 
> Furthermore, goals may no longer be combined. This prevents the doubling 
> goals from working in tandem with the reworded goals, and is also a nice 
> and simple rule.
> The altered goals look like this:
> 
> Bavarian Illuminati: "Control of groups with a total power of 50, 
> including Bavaria's own power, reduces your basic goal by 4."
> Bermuda Triangle: "Control of groups with a total power of 35, including 
> Bermuda's own power, and at least one group of each alignment, reduces 
> your basic goal by 4."
> Shangri-La: "Having peaceful with a total power of 30 in play, 
> regardless of who controls them reduces your basic goal by 5. Shangri-La 
> players may share victory among themselves."
> Power for its Own Sake: "Control of groups with a total power of 50, 
> including your illuminati, reduces your basic goal by 4."
> 
> The 4-5 group discounts ensure that these absolute goals are still 
> appealing compared to a doubling goal. They just can't be abused. This 
> errata makes second turn victories virtually impossible, and third turn 
> victories harder to achieve.

   A few thoughts:

   1. Why not 4 across the board?  Does Shangri-La really need that special 
exception?

   2. If nothing else, it's a way to make Goals meaningful in the "Octopus" 
variant.

   3. I've come up with a "recommended" Basic Goal that depends on the 
number of players (IIRC, 12 for 2-3 players, 11 for 4 players, and 10 for 
5+ players) that seems to keep game times reasonable for casual play 
(though tounament play should probably keep it at 12).
   I suspect that with a Basic Goal of 10, or maybe 11, this change would 
rarely make any difference.  With a Basic Goal of 12, it could easily make 
it a bit harder for a speed deck to win with one quick burst.  That seems 
to go along with your idea of focusing on tournament situations (in casual 
play, people get bored with speed decks except to demonstrate them as a 
party trick).

> *Anti-stop*
> After slowing down the hyper speed decks, the existing speed bumps are 
> no longer needed. A simple solution might be to ban these cards 
> altogether, as indeed some cabals have. However, rewriting them instead 
> allows players to still use their cards.

   I'm a bit reluctant to rewrite things without a compelling reason.

> NWO: Apathy: "No group may use global power."

   It seems to me that that would be a bit weak, to the point that no one 
would care about Apathy (rimshot) except as a way to get rid of an unwanted 
Red NWO.

> NWO: The Magic Goes Away: "No magic resources have any effect while this 
> NWO is in play. All magic groups have their power reduced by 1. Magic 
> resources and groups still count normally for all goals. Also, all 
> Illuminati get 1 less action token during the token placement phase."

   I'm not sure how this helps -- taking away Group NWOs as the official 
NWO:tMGA does (Resource ATOs are basically unaffected -- one way, you get a 
Resource for you ATO; the other, you get a Resource by spending an 
Illuminati action) hurts _non_-degenerate decks more than degenerate decks 
(the latter tend to pile on a single flavor of "any attempt" bonus and 
Groups to which the bonus applies).

> NWO: Interesting Times: "Any plot card that cancels another plot costs 
> twice the normal price to play."

   This looks like a step in the wrong direction -- cancellers are one of 
the tools to _stop_ a quick-blooming Power Structure.

> The paralyze plots: Do not prevent a group from counting towards any goal.

   This would be the easiest to implement.

> Upheaval: May only be played on your own main phase.

   I'm not sure how much difference this would make.

-- 
  Steve Brinich <sbrinich at bigfoot.com>      If the government wants us
    http://www.bigfoot.com/~sbrinich            to respect the law
    41BFB2CAA6083A641079871798366DC7      it should set a better example