I love the alternate Strategy Cards from Shattered Empire. I especially enjoy Imperial II patching one of the most nagging problems I have with the base game, and Technology II keeping pace with the expanded Technology tree. Trade II is a great option I find easy to interchange with Trade I .

Diplomacy II is a card I can't see using unless Warfare I is replaced with Warfare II . Bringing them in and out of the game as a pair seems fine to me.

However, I found myself trying to employ Production and it didn't really work without Leadership as a way of replacing the Command Counter resupply feature of Logistics . Once I'd replaced Initiative with Leadership I didn't have any way to move the Speaker Token around the table. That made Assembly a mandatory replacement for Political . The only problem there is the lack of drawing mechanisms for Political Cards. That really made Bureaucracy a must-have card as well.

I'm not sure I'm really keen on Bureaucracy and I don't really like the idea of needing to bring in Strategy Cards in dependent groupings of more than 2.

And I missing another way to draw Political Cards other than Assembly / Bureaucracy ?

Am I overlooking a mechanic to move the Speak Token outside of Initiative / Assembly ?

Has anyone else had any luck trying to integrate Production + Leadership without having to bring in Bureaucracy ?

Thanks for your time,

- Marty Lund

Well, the 1-3-4-8 Strategy cards are pretty intertwined. That means you should probably either use Leadership/Assembly/Production/Bureaucracy as a set, or use the original Initiative/Political/Logistics/Imperial (I or II). I'm sure you could make some house rules to disconnect them a bit, but the two sets have the same basic functions, but often distributed differently.

The 2/5/6/7 are pretty independent, though. Yes, having Warfare I does change some of the strategy with Diplomacy II, but they are by no means incompatible.

The only thing about Bureaucracy that I don't like is it's not really compatible with Age of Empires, and I kind of like that variant. However, Bureaucracy has grown on me anyway.

If you really WANT to decouple Bureaucracy from the rest of the SE sets, just throw in Imperial II, and change the secondary to the Bureaucracy secondary. Otherwise, you essentially have to Production-like SEs, and (as you said) no way other than Assembly and Status Phase to get ACs and PCs (with ACs only available in Assembly).

There have been some variant versions of Bureaucracy posted that you may want to take a look at. You can probably find them by digging around on ti3wiki.org.

Well, I guess if we were going to alter the actual abilities of the Strategy Cards I could just give Leadership the "Take the Speaker Token" effect of Initiative and leave Assembly and Bureaucracy off the table entirely. Another possibility is to give up Age of Empires and supplement the game pacing with a House Rule. I've been toying with an adaptation of the Edge mechanic from the old Vampire: The Masquerade trading card game that I'll detail in another post.

Thanks for the consult!

- Marty Lund