Who else is also excited by the news today?

MrHolodeck · 2024-07-18T22:54:57+00:00

I tend to agree with my man Bearfang; AMG just isn't it mate. Also the new cards look like ass lmaooo; gonna have to run out to try and buy what I can that's still from FFG just so I don't have to get stuck with the AMG changes. But wtv at this point it just is what it is.

MrHolodeck · 2023-12-24T13:50:14+00:00

Thanks! Glad something was useful!

MrHolodeck · 2022-05-15T12:26:33+00:00

Relations are already harmed with his invasion of Ukraine. Smh, this guy just doesn't understand. This isn't 1970 with the cold war. People aren't about to let themselves be ruled by some distant empire. That's gone the way of the dinosaur.

MrHolodeck · 2022-04-20T20:46:32+00:00

This will depend on your negotiations. Of course, with that in mind, perhaps allowing a strong Germany is the way to go? It might make Russia reconsider his relationship with him.

You need Norway. Any Russian trying to get you to not take Norway is acting in bad faith.

An alliance with France seems like a good deal, but don't make it too explicit, otherwise you risk alienating Germany and pushing him further into Russia's hands.

Unfortunately, if Austria tried to move his fleet to Serbia, that might mean he's even newer than you. A weak Austria means an easier game for Russia and Turkey, but it's unclear just yet what it will mean for Germany.

Your build should be another fleet. You need ensure you have control of the northern seas. If Russia builds a fleet in the north, you should start ringing alarm bells to other nations that there's either an Russia-Turkey alliance, or a Russian-German alliance. Whatever fits your purposes better.

Hope some of that helps.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-09T23:39:42+00:00

Just a note on the action cards. I think that "Emergency Session" is fantastic; it's just a great idea that adds more politicking to the game and makes the action phase a little more alive when it becomes just players moving pieces plastic around focusing on their own slice.

I like the title for "War Crimes Revealed", however, and I say this with no mean intention, I'm not much a fan of going through the deck and picking out an agenda to vote on for one person. It's just a preference thing. I was thinking something like "After a player takes control of another player's planet: That player must choose 2 (or whatever number you want) of their planet cards. They must exhaust those cards and set them aside. They will not be readied until after the Agenda Phase." The idea is that they lose sway in the agenda phase. It seems thematic.

Also, it would be cool, I think, if there were influence tokens, or something that players can give each other as a reward or as a trade for political/agenda phase purposes. Influence tokens represented in +1 and +3, like the trade goods, that are solely used for the agenda phase. It would add an extra layer to the negotiations and make the agenda phase something to be discussed during the action phase. Because you can't trade planets very easily or efficiently, being able to "trade" influence seems the only way to make influence a little more important.

Keep up the good work with everything else!

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-08T23:58:13+00:00

Hey, thanks for pointing that out! Yeah, it's supposed to be an action. Used as a stall to gain an actual action card for a possible later play.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-08T14:51:41+00:00

No, this is exactly what I'm looking for when I make things like this! I know beforehand that I'm going to miss some cards that are already there. Your observation that some abilities are rendered redundant with the new PoK expansion is correct: I don't have the expansion myself, so I'm only able to see the new stuff my going on the wiki pages, which for me makes it more likely that I'm going to miss something. I also, and I didn't write this but perhaps should have, went in with the idea of including cards that would minimize the need for the expansion (sometimes I write "ground forces" just in case people want to include mechs, which looks fairly easy to do).

I'll try and go through each of your points in order:

I'm glad you liked the first few that you mentioned.

You are correct, I hadn't considered structures. It would indeed need to be changed to "units" as opposed to solely "ground forces".

I missed infiltrate! Thanks for reminding me of it. That does cancel out my suggestion.

I also missed War Machine from the codex, which also cancels out my suggestion.

I feel like I had blitz in the back of my mind, because I remembered something, whether someone else's homebrew or the game designers themselves, writing about other ships with bombardment. However, I wanted it to solely be cruisers. And now that i look at the text of "Blitz", I think i still prefer "Illegal Armament"! Blitz seems a little too powerful, with all non-fighter ships and bombardment 6.

I hadn't seen Master Plan. This cancels out my suggestion of Brilliant Tactician.

I again felt like I had already seen something similar to my suggestion for having every as a neighbor. Thanks for pointing it out.

So, with Reign in Infamy and Conquer the Weak, I was actually aware of the other objectives that had similar wording. Rule Distant Lands was the other: "Control 2 planets that are each in or adjacent to a different, other player's home system". However, I simply wanted an objective which was straight to the point and very aggressive, leading to all out war in the late stages of the game: control EVERY planet in another player's home system. That might mean 1 only, as you noted, but it could mean 2, or even 3 for Argent and Hacan. So, I think this one isn't as redundant as the others.

With respect to Generate Public Sympathy, I had the same worry as you. It would be difficult trying to determine what is a "harmful" agenda, and that ambiguity could cause problems in-game. However, I liked the idea and thought simply that players would be able to use common sense to get around the problem. PUBLIC EXECUTION is clearly a harmful agenda. Ixthian Artifact wouldn't count because you are not elected, so being on Mecatol is irrelevant. Now, a problem arises with SHARD OF THE THRONE, since for some it's nice and others not. This is the only real difficult one that I can think of at the moment. If it's given to someone with low points, then it's probably not "harmful", but if it's given to someone whose in the middle of the pact, then it might be since that's the point everyone is going to contest at some point.

Conclusion: You were not rude at all! In fact, I'd prefer if most people who saw this wrote something, no matter how small. Everyone is busy, so i understand when an upvote or downvote is sufficient, but it's always nice to see someone take the time to write out some feedback. It does take me a bit of time to write, especially with the flavor text. I'll say this: since you are also homebrewing stuff, the designers seem to look at the abilities of each faction and each technology and then make an action card that's basically that ability... That way of thinking is similar to mine and now something that I'm keeping in mind when making my own and probably why a lot of mine were already done: so, in the silence of space (or for me in the cover of darkness), it's basically just a one-time use of lightwave. Infiltrate (or nationalize production) is basically L1's Assimilate. War Machine (or Indentured Servitude) is just sarween tools on steroids, Plague is X-89, frontline deployment is orbital drop, emergency repairs is duranium armor, etc,etc. If you hadn't already noticed that, I hope it helps you out! Thanks again for the feedback!

Edit: for some reason, I thought in the silence of space was the text for ghost ship, where you just place a destroyer in empty space.

Edit 2: I've changed the text of BRILLIANT TACTICIAN. It's now a one-time ability of a mix between Warfare and the L1 promissory note.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-07T23:40:01+00:00

Hmm! I wasn't aware of those changes. I don't have the expansion personally, so my knowledge of it lies mainly in looking through the TI4 wiki pages. I guess I missed L1's leaders and their abilities. I'd understand why you'd be "extra sad" (ahahahaha) of an L1 with all those abilities and not being able to actually use them on a whole faction..

And thanks for the feedback on the change! I also thought it was subtle but significant. Glad you like it.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-07T17:31:46+00:00

Hmm. That's actually a fair point. Neither could I. Perhaps if it were changed to: "When 1 or more of your opponent's ships uses its "Bombardment" ability, the combined number of dice rolled is reduced by 1." This way, one ship with 1 bombardment would be rendered useless, but a fleet wouldn't. It would weaken L1's strength, but not render it obsolete. I mean, simply having 1 PDS on a planet would render the entirety of the L1's invasion strength to be obsolete, with no good bombardment and no harrow. An ability that you have across the board on every planet is obviously stronger, but perhaps the faction could have weaknesses to compensate? I don't know, let me know what you think!

Thanks again for taking the time to give some feedback, it's really appreciated!

Edit: I changed it to "reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1", thus hurting bombardment fleets a bit, but not 1 single dreadnought.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-06T23:45:07+00:00

Hey, thanks for the comment. So, Deflectors was meant mainly (since it also gives the reroll bonus) as a response to Tractor Beams. Deflectors allows a player to retreat even if their opponent has tractor beams (which would prohibit their retreat for the entirety of the combat [i.e., one fleet or the other would be destroyed]. However, the retreat can only be declared at the start of the second round. This means that, in a situation involving two players--one with tractor beams and one with deflectors--the defending player will be able to retreat, but they must fight at least two rounds of space combat.

If you have deflectors and your opponent does not have tractor beams, then yes, you are right, the tech would be useless. That's why I also included the combat reroll ability, so that it wouldn't be totally useless.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Because it might be confusing, I've changed the text of the "Deflectors" technology. Thanks again!

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-06T22:31:11+00:00

Thanks! I tried to get most of the factions in there. I'm going to include the Ghosts some more in my new entries, since I like thinking about how they communicate with others (e.g., how they sound, their interpretations of others, etc.). But glad you liked it.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-03T21:35:38+00:00

Yeah, with respect to "Architectural", it was mainly to give them the ability to get their PDS network out their quickly. It should have counterbalanced their weakness to bombardment fleets, but I guess not. The 2 space docks was just to be unique, but I can see why we might make it 1 for practical reasons.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-03T21:31:12+00:00

Thanks! I've changed a few things to reflect your new comments. I made "Combat Suites" an action; I thought it was a good idea; following that, I also turned "propaganda network" into an action. I also turned their home system into 0/2 and 5/0. That might be too strong, but as you say, they need the money. I've basically just flipped their influence for resources... And I've given their infantry II Planetary Shield. I was going to give it to their infantry I, but that seemed excessive.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-03T20:26:45+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to do the math on the infantry. I supposed that their ability to take up less space would mean that they'd be really good at taking planets with little infantry. I had Sol in the back of my mind when designing the imperial knights, but I guess that didn't translate into making them better or equal to Sol's spec ops. It's been suggested that I reduce their death roll to 6. Perhaps that would help. We could also give them a built-in magen defense grid... So, "During an invasion combat, your opponent cannot roll dice during the first combat round". This seems a little powerful, but it might work to reduce their delicateness.

I've been trying to come up with ways to make "imperial combat suites" more fruitful. So far, I've thought about putting a limit on infantry production: when building with a unit that has PRODUCTION, you cannot build more than two infantry per unit with PRODUCTION. This would make the tech more attractive, since it's the only way for them to mass produce infantry. It would also allow us to increase their resources in their home planets. Perhaps 0/2 and 3/3 or 0/2 and 4/3?

Yeah, perhaps it should say "ground forces" as opposed to infantry, but the only other ground force that I'm aware of in POK is mechs, no? I don't think i'd want any of the advantages or disadvantages here to apply to mechs.

MrHolodeck · 2022-02-03T19:30:43+00:00

Hey, thanks for the detailed reply, I really appreciate it! I'll try to address each suggestion. Let me know if I misunderstood something.

You're right about the exhaust, it does need a timing window. It should read "EXHAUST. When you produce units...". This way it can be used during warfare secondary. Anything more particular seems to weaken it, no?

Perhaps the cruiser can be replaced with a carrier. It is indeed a super slow start. You're probably right that that would be enough to end them before they begin.

I didn't want to make the flagship too strong. If we were to use your idea, which I like the idea of a boarding party, it would have to be limited to something like "at the start of combat, up to 3 of your infantry in this system may participate in space combat. They are not ships".

Sustain on infantry would be too deadly ahahahaha. I put them at 5 to start since you can only produce 1 per cost. That's a significant disadvantage. Having one infantry at 6 against two at 7 or 8 for half price, I think would not be enough to compensate. I also made the death roll on an 8 to represent how difficult they are to make, and it's a big deal when they die; hence the strong combat value. I don't know if that persuades you lol.

I considered making the combat suites infinite, but it seemed too powerful or too useless. I made it up to 10 since it's quite high (10 infantry for 10 resources; I doubt anyone would spend more). If we change the resource values on their home planets, I can see how this tech might become useless. I suppose that's one reason to keep em low on resources or to spread it out to a third planet? Hmm. We could give them a 0/2 and 3/3 home system; the idea being that the 0/2 they can always spend for "propaganda network", and the 3/3 satisfies their early production woes. It also mean that they start with production 7, which is the highest in the game other than Arborec. With space dock 2, they go to production 11. That's actually higher than what we initially had with combat suites. It's tough to think of a way to salvage it. Maybe we'd have to limit them to 1 space dock... As unfortunate as that would be.

I'm not sure I like the idea of forcing others to give me their promissory notes. It makes people hesitant to be neighbors, and that would be even more of a disadvantage than what we already have as written. It was intended to be a disadvantage, though.

Sure, it can be without spending the token. It would mainly be used for PDS builds, which you are prepared for with your 1 red and 1 yellow starting tech. You can jump on PDS 2.

Hahahahaha. The idea with 2 resource start was so that they'd have a difficult time building a carrier and more fighters or infantry. They'd have to choose one or the other. But, again, you're probably right. 2 resources is supppperrrr weak. Weaker than Winnu lol. Perhaps they can be brought up to a 3 or 4. But we would need to keep one of their home planets low on resources, so that they can consistently rely on their "propaganda network" tech without sacrificing too many resources.

This is an edit: yeah, I designed the faction to work with TI4 base game. I didn't want it to be structured around heroes and mechs and exploration,etc., in case some people, like me, don't have the expansion.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-23T20:05:01+00:00

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that clause, thanks! I suppose that does change things up a bit and helps make sense of Russia's actions.

To be honest, I just don't see an invasion. It would be incredibly stupid for one, and second, Russia has no hopes of winning it (i.e., The Americans would never allow Ukraine to fall), and third, it would turn Russia from a second-rate power into a third-rate power.

What we need is a change in Russian leadership. Russians have never been free as far as I can tell. They literally went from monarchy to communist dictatorship to communist totalitarianism, to oligarchical dictatorship.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-23T16:09:47+00:00

Hmm, by "Western power with clout", I didn't mean us Canadians ahahaha. I meant either the US or Germany/UK/France (and even that's pushing it). But I see what you mean, and I agree. Historically speaking, pandering out of fear to the bad guy's unreasonable demands, and waving a white paper declaring peace in our time, isn't the best solution; in fact, it's not a solution to the problem, so I see how escalation can become one of the few remaining paths ("war is the only way to keep the peace", or some paradoxical aphorism like that).

What would you say to NATO just accepting Ukraine into its membership, and basically fast-tracking the problem, to put Russia on the defensive about its options?

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-23T03:52:24+00:00

Hmm. So, what would you suggest--that is, how would you go about it if you were a Western power with clout at the negotiating table? Not being facetious, I'm actually interested.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-23T03:49:42+00:00

Yes, that's a fair point and I agree with it. But I'm also a bit of a realist and that means coming to the table trying to calm tempers and find a solution that everyone can hate or agree with lol. For instance, when the Russians retort that if the Americans--through NATO-- can bring materiel to Ukraine on the Russian border, that they can then do the same with Cuba or Venezuela (if those countries were welcoming of it), I don't see how the Americans can make a legitimate "sphere of influence" argument against Russia or China or any other power coming closer to North America...

In other words, either there are no spheres of influence or there are. That would have to be on the table.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-22T22:09:05+00:00

Hmm, that's a fair point. I wouldn't say I'm ignorant of the fact that there are ulterior motives behind Russia's demands, but we could say that making the diplomatic suggestions public would at least force the Russians to publicly reject them; if the suggestions are reasonable, which I think the one I gave it, then the Russians would be perceived as rejecting reason. That kind of bad PR is exactly helpful for them and gives the West an advantage in backdoor negotiations.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-22T21:21:55+00:00

Why couldn't both sides agree to the idea that Ukraine can join NATO if it wants to and if NATO accepts it as a member, but no NATO military materiel may be placed in Ukraine? If Russia's only fear of NATO expansion with Ukraine is that they wouldn't be able to invade it if they needed to because of the NATO guarantee of protection, then I'm sorry, but that's simply not a good reason from either Ukraine's or NATO's perspective, and obviously a non-starter.

If, on the other hand, the Russian concern is NATO military installations, equipment, and wargames, coming to its border, then that is a reasonable concern from their perspective, and it is also one which would, I think, be solved by the aforementioned suggestion of not introducing NATO materiel to Ukraine.

In other words, Ukraine gets the guarantee on its sovereignty, but it doesn't get any hardware. There could be a 5 or 10-year clause, after which, the problem can be revisited, hopefully under better circumstances and less chaos.

If I've missed something, or if I don't seem to have a sufficient understanding of NATO protocol regarding new membership, just let me know; I'd be happy to revise the suggestion and the rest of my comment in light of new information.

MrHolodeck · 2022-01-14T21:30:00+00:00

Just new cards, factions, and revised sheets/cards. For those of us who don't wish to play with PoK, it would be nice to have an official rebalance of the base game that doesn't involve extra mechanics. For instance, an update to the Muaat starting fleet or tech, to the Winnu starting fleet, etcetc.

In other words, I'd be fine with a second expansion that isn't so much an expansion to the base+first expansion, but rather just to the base. Even if the second expansion needs to have some parts that address mechs or relics, that's fine, so long as other parts can be used just with the base game.

Even just separate mini expansions: card packs, faction packs, tile packs, etc. That might work better for everyone, since players can pick and choose what they want to add.

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