[INWO-list] INWO: Reverse Engineered

[martin laerkes]

Hi Steve,
thanks for your response.

>>*Anti-speed*

>A few thoughts:
>1. Why not 4 across the board?  Does Shangri-La really need that special 
>exception?

4 across the board would suit me fine, and be simpler.
I only added the Shangri-La exception because it seems to me that Shangr-La 
was designed/intended to be able to win with few groups on the table, 
(relying on rivals groups for cheap extra points).

>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).
They're in WDH 1.2 right?

>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.

My concern is primarily with the decks that are so "fast" that it doesn't 
really matter whether the basic goal is at 10, 11 or 12.
Ugliest, exaggerated example:
Bavaria, New York, Clone arrangers (puppet of NY) and Mafia. Cyborg Soldiers 
x3.
Power: 10+14+12+12+2 (NY's special ability) = 50.
4 groups in play. Sad.

>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).

While speed decks don't crop up in casual play, I still think the speedgoals 
need adjusting, because once the fastest most degenerate decks have been 
killed, we can get rid of the superstoppers that cause such havoc in casual 
INWO.

>>*Anti-stop*
>I'm a bit reluctant to rewrite things without a compelling reason.

I do believe that my case for a "compelling reason" does gain some 
credibility from the fact that Birgers INWO group has banned 4 of the 5 
cards that I'm after too. Even though he and I have never influenced 
eachother regarding this.
He recently stated here that he has banned them in order to comply with the 
Discordian "law of 5" (i.e. that games should not take more than 5 hours).

This is my experience too.
I took up OMNI (sealed deck) INWO about 1,5 year ago, because my group 
wanted to go back to low power INWO. We had some great and memorable games.
Only one game had no winner: The one where somebody had gotten an 
Interesting Times.

>>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.

I disagree. It seems to that this would make it useful to _some_ decks - 
like most NWO's are, instead of being an emergency end-all defense for 
anyone under pressure.
(Changing it would also make it a much less powerful component in Church of 
Violentology seppuku).

The way I see it, the new version would still be useful to Discordia 
immunity decks, alignmentless decks and be a good way to annoy secret decks.

My greatest problem with Apathy is that short of Privileges it makes it very 
hard to control from hand, (because you can only spend 1 token, but your 
rivals can defend fine), and makes it nigh impossible to attack rivals.
This makes it very hard to interact, until someone ATOs to victory.

But seriously - even if you find the "no global power" approach too weak, 
anything would be better than the current version.

>>NWO: The Magic Goes Away:
>>Rewritten, to remove in illuminati action, instead of removing the ATO.

>I'm not sure how this helps -- taking away Group ATOs as the official 
>NWO:tMGA does [snip] 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).

I agree that the official tMGA hurts non-degenerate decks most. That's _not_ 
good.
The purpose of all my suggested anti-stop errata is to stop the 
non-degenerate games from getting bogged down.
In my experience, with no ATO, decks almost completely stop growing. And 
without the help of your ATOs, many many decks have a very hard time 
slurping their way to 11 or 12 groups. Especially since even with a few 
privileges or suchlike in the deck, your rivals can prevent and tear down 
faster than you can build up.

>>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.

Exactly!
I wanted the anti-_speed_ rules to deal with too quick blooming power 
structures. (IMO, if your rival needs at least 3 turns, then you do have the 
time to mount a counter attack).

The anti-_stop_ errata is intended to speed up slow play - because _too_ 
fast play has just been dealt with.
The errata does 2 things:
Get rid of the old IT, which is the ultimate gamestopper.
Encourage players to actually do something. In a standard 4 player game it 
is by no means uncommon that there are 12-16 cancellers present.
I find that to be a huge deterrent against being the first one to attempt 
something creative.

>>The paralyze plots: Do not prevent a group from counting towards any goal.
>
>This would be the easiest to implement.

Yeah. Unfortunately, this is also the least necessary.
I haven't had too many problems with these because they have a requirement 
(i.e. alignment match). Still, I dislike them for more or less saying "you 
don't win", rather than saying - "you lose so and so, which may affect your 
ability to win".
Still, if you pull out all the other stops (like I'm suggesting), these 
might prove to be reasonably useful cards......

>>Upheaval: May only be played on your own main phase.
>
>I'm not sure how much difference this would make.

Hey, don't take it from me - take it from Birger :)
Basically, it is a massive deterrent like the cancellers.
If anybody manages to declare victory, then he can be upheavaled out of it. 
(And since he has ended his main phase he can't have a second go).
I know that the solution is to "simply overshoot the basic goal by 1", but 
if every victory attempt has to be to 13 rather than to 12, just to make 
sure, then the game does slow down a lot.

With upheaval moved to your own main phase you can still do nasty things 
with it, without being able to use it as a victory-canceller.

Sorry for being so wordy, but I do care a lot about this game, and still 
play it on a semi-regular basis. The thing is that I simply enjoy games of 5 
hours or less, and games that do end up with a winner, (even if it isn't me 
;) to be significantly more enjoyable than the ones that don't.
I honestly believe that this would improve the state of the game vastly.

Cheers
Martin

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