Scott Randolph
United States
Arvada
Colorado
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I like the SE SC#8 "Bureaucracy" card, I think it adds a powerful and interesting mechanic to the game, the ability to claim an objective during a game round. What I feel is missing, and reduces the importance of Mecatol Rex, is the additional VP one can gain by controlling Mecatol Rex when playing with "Imperial II."
As a variant, what if the capability to claim an additional VP for controlling Mecatol Rex were added to "Bureaucracy" making it SC#8 "Imperial Bureaucracy?"
Thoughts?
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Adrian Pop
Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj
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A number of Bonus counters, the possibility to immediately qualify for a revealed objective and the possibility to somewhat manipulate the card order should be enough incentive to pick Bureaucracy.
It is not an obvious advantage such as Technology, Trade or Warfare, but the player who picks it when everybody ignores it usually has an advantage in the late game.
Adding a VP for controlling Mecatol Rex would be an interesting variant, although I think it would make the card a tad too powerful for the holder.
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Scott Randolph
United States
Arvada
Colorado
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Tretiak wrote: A number of Bonus counters, the possibility to immediately qualify for a revealed objective and the possibility to somewhat manipulate the card order should be enough incentive to pick Bureaucracy.
It is not an obvious advantage such as Technology, Trade or Warfare, but the player who picks it when everybody ignores it usually has an advantage in the late game.
Adding a VP for controlling Mecatol Rex would be an interesting variant, although I think it would make the card a tad too powerful for the holder.
As written, the SC allows for only a maximum number of objectives to be claimed as two. One thing that speeds up the game is more scoring. Mecatol Rex is sort of "fluff" in my opinion, except for Secret Objectives which require its control, but once these SO's are claimed, MR can be vacated by the claiming player, MR is really not the "throne" or "seat of power" I think it ought to be. SC#8 "Bureaucracy" is a powerful card (bonus counters notwithstanding, bonus counters apply to all SC's), and the ability to claim an objective during a game round was a burst of design genius in my opinion, but, (again in my opinion) it lacks the incentive to control MR with the associated bonus VP. We recently played a 4 player TLW game (to [14] VP's) and were done in five game rounds. It was really fun. We played that a player could choose either SC#8 "Bureaucracy" or SC#8 "Imperial II" as the eighth SC (both were not in play during any one game round, a player had to choose one or the other). We were also playing "Age of Empire" as an optional rule.
I'm looking for a single SC#8 as a blended version of "Imperial II" and "Bureaucracy."
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Martin Larouche
Canada
Longueuil
Quebec
Melting souls with cuteness since 2007
Lovin' N-16
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Bureaucracy is the most powerful card of the alternate set.
I wouldn't make it even more powerful, but that's just me.
It allows you to claim an additional objective.
It allows you to manipulate the objectives, making you put easy objectives for you and hard for others, providing you with VP some others can't get.
It's tied directly to the VP mechanic, while all other cards are indirect.
Technology is always interesting to take... but unless there's a specific tech-related objective in play, it won't get you any closer to winning the game outide giving some small benefits to achieve other objectives. Same with the other cards.
In the late game, it's especially useful. It's a fight every turn in our group to get it. Assembly gets taken for the speaker token just so next turn we can avoid a specific player from taking Bureaucracy.
The leading player always want to take Bureaucracy in order to turn up the Imperium "game over" card. The other players always want to take Bureaucracy to prevent the same card from turning up and delaying the end game to try to catch up to the leader.
My opinion is that Bureaucracy is perfect the way it is.
If you want to boost Mecatol Rex's interest to produce more fights over it, i would maybe suggest boosting it's stats. Maybe use the Lazax homeworld Mecatol Rex tile from Shards of the Throne instead of the original "destroyed planet" one. It has good production and awesome influence and would be more attractive to fight over as it's the best planet on the board.
Maybe another solution would be to simply put an artifact on it? It makes thematical sense and would make all players fight for it, while only providing a single VPs that won't change such a critical card as bureaucracy? It's a VP that would be put on the board anyhow...
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Scott Randolph
United States
Arvada
Colorado
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deedob wrote: Bureaucracy is the most powerful card of the alternate set.
I wouldn't make it even more powerful, but that's just me.
It allows you to claim an additional objective.
It allows you to manipulate the objectives, making you put easy objectives for you and hard for others, providing you with VP some others can't get.
It's tied directly to the VP mechanic, while all other cards are indirect.
Technology is always interesting to take... but unless there's a specific tech-related objective in play, it won't get you any closer to winning the game outide giving some small benefits to achieve other objectives. Same with the other cards.
In the late game, it's especially useful. It's a fight every turn in our group to get it. Assembly gets taken for the speaker token just so next turn we can avoid a specific player from taking Bureaucracy.
The leading player always want to take Bureaucracy in order to turn up the Imperium "game over" card. The other players always want to take Bureaucracy to prevent the same card from turning up and delaying the end game to try to catch up to the leader.
My opinion is that Bureaucracy is perfect the way it is.
If you want to boost Mecatol Rex's interest to produce more fights over it, i would maybe suggest boosting it's stats. Maybe use the Lazax homeworld Mecatol Rex tile from Shards of the Throne instead of the original "destroyed planet" one. It has good production and awesome influence and would be more attractive to fight over as it's the best planet on the board.
Maybe another solution would be to simply put an artifact on it? It makes thematical sense and would make all players fight for it, while only providing a single VPs that won't change such a critical card as bureaucracy? It's a VP that would be put on the board anyhow...
Just to give some helpful background to provide perspective on why I really like the above variant Strategy Card:
a. we play AoE, and don't want to play the "Red Tape" variant with "Bureaucracy," it slows down scoring
b. we play TLW, so speeding up scoring is very beneficial
c. putting an artifact on MR is a reasonable idea, but just moving an artifact to a different location doesn't add more potential VP's to the game
d. only "Imperial II" provides a bonus VP for controlling MR
e. we don't play the RAW version of "Bureaucracy" - again, slows down scoring
We recently played a game where there were two options on the SC#8 card, choosing "Bureaucracy" added another Objective card of the appropriate stage to the game. We finished a 4-player TLW game to [14] VP's in 5 game rounds. While we all really liked playing this way, we thought it would be better to have just a single #8 SC, since either one is so powerful. Unlike "Imperial II" which allows unlimited scoring (and we have had players score [6], or even [7], VP's in a single game round), the above variant SC#8 "Imperial Bureaucracy" does limit the scoring to a small degree, and provides a real incentive to control MR (which thematically we really like, and is completely absent from all versions of the game without "Imperial II," unless you just move an existing artifact there)
In November'11, we played a 6-player TLW game to [14] VP's, and at 9 game rounds, after over 12 hours of play, we stopped because no one had yet scored [14] VP's. We were playing the "Red Tape" version of "Bureaucracy" for SC#8. "Red Tape" "Bureaucracy" is fun, and an interesting variant, but the "locked up" Objectives only served to slow down scoring to the point where even at 9 game rounds with experienced players, we still didn't play the game to completion, and had to declare an arbitrary winner (rather unsatisfying).
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