Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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Lucre: the lucre concept was not bad, but not excecuted particularly well. It didn't really add much, except a few cards, or a minor plus to the outcome of a few battles.
The Lucre powers were pretty awful. Force simple had no power unless other players agreed that it could. Butler the same. Other powers seemed to help your opponents more than you. A few were ok, such as Dragon and Pirate.
The other two powers, Visionary (calls a card and you must play it if you have it) and Negator (negates one action per round) were essential powers.
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Ken H.
United States
Amherst
Ohio
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Re:User Review
Since the review doesn't explain the lucre rules, I'll explain them: Lucre is money. You get one per turn. Lucre adds to your attack total, which gives you a strong incentive NOT to spend it. You can buy tokens (armies, basically) at a cost of 1 lucre. That's a terrible idea generally, since a token gives +1 in one battle whereas a lucre gives +1 in all battles. You can also buy a card from the deck for 1 lucre. This is usually the only way lucre gets spent.
I used to think lucre rules were great -- we never played without them. However, I recently decided that they add almost nothing to the game. The ability to buy a card is interesting and fun, but doesn't happen very often. Otherwise, people just horde their lucre and there is really no point in having it. Yes, it adds to your attack, but since everyone has basically the same amount, there is no net effect.
I agree that overall the powers in this expansion aren't very good. However, I have to disagree with you on which are the good ones and which are the bad ones.
First, I don't think Negator and Visionary are all that good. Negator is more annoying than good, and Visionary is interesting but not particularly strong.
Pirate and Dragon are two of the weakest powers in the whole set (all expansions). They are thematically fun, but not good powers. All Dragon does is cause everybody to stop using lucre (otherwise they have to give it to you). The fact that you get +4 lucre (which makes +4 to your Attack cards) is nice, but is relatively minor when compared with other powers.
Pirate is a nice idea, but frankly if you have the ability to win a challenge, you should be going for a base instead of going after somebody's lucre. In other words, this is the type of power that only helps you when your cards are strong enough that you don't really need help.
You didn't mention the two strongest powers in the expansion: Ethic and Extortionist. Ethic is good and will have a constant supply of new cards or lucre. Same for Extortionist, who is very strong but also very annoying for the other players, almost to the point of being a weakness (because it causes others to gang up on you).
Force and Hurtz are pretty strong as well. Yes, they can be shut out if the other players decide not to make use of your abilities, but I've never seen that happen. Sooner or later one of the other players will realize that he can pull ahead of the others by paying you to help him. As powers, they are definitely "out there" and not for everyone (Force in particular causes rules arguments even among the friendliest groups), but then again, the game might not have reached its cult status without powers like that.
Butler is actually one of the stronger powers in this expansion. I'm not sure why you think people can shut you out. If they don't give you 1 lucre *every* turn, then you get to look at their cards, mess with their bases, and possibly even make them lose challenges. It's not super strong, but generally you can force other players to "tip" you because you can eliminate their bases if they don't.
The tenth and final power in the expansion is Lloyd (named after Lloyds of London). This power is less crazy than Force and Hurtz, but still suffers from the potential shut-out problem when other players refuse to pay you. I *have* seen that happen with Lloyd (and Dragon), unlike the other two.
Overall, I would say this is the second weakest Eon expansion (after Expansion 9). Lucre is interesting, it's just not all that useful. The rules were designed to encourage hording instead of spending (Mayfair fixed that problem, though). And the powers are, for the most part, among the worst in the set because of being weak, annoying, or just too crazy. The idea of lucre is fun, however. There are several internet powers (and other home-brewed expansions) that make good use of it.
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Yehuda Berlinger
Israel
Raanana
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Re:User Review
Rubric (#68522),
You should have written the review, as your comment was beter than my review. Thanks.
Yehuda
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