Question 1

Consider spies that choose a player and/or an outcome -- is the chosen player/outcome supposed to be:

(A) declared to all players at the Resolve Spies step, or

(B) kept hidden until outcomes have been resolved?

Example:

In the first round of the game, the players are supposed to vote for/against a law that has virtually no impact on the game if voted "For", but voting "Against" would be a small detriment to most players. The Nekro Virus predicts that The Embers of Muaat will vote "For", so they send the spy Asmodai* to the council, hoping to copy the War Sun technology.

* Asmodai's ability reads: "Choose a player and an outcome. If he votes this way, copy one of his Technology Cards."

I don't own Shards of the Throne, but I would expect it to be option A. FFG is not in the habit of writing rules that require you to go find components that aren't included in the box (ie: pencil and paper) in order to play their game.

As for whether its weak or powerful, as with so many other things in this game, it depends on how it's used. Your example is not the best. If the card is For or Against and it has - at most - a "small detriment" to players, then it's a waste of time to use powerful representatives trying to influence this vote. Let this one play out however it will - the outcome literally has minimal impact on the game - and save your representatives for something more important.

If you had a For or Against vote where voting For would provide a large benefit to the Embers, and voting Against would have a large detriment, THAT'S where you use this card. You KNOW Embers will want to vote "For," so you play this spy, and you declare it in such a way that IF the Embers vote "For," they give you a tech in the process. To avoid giving you a tech, they have to vote Against and hurt themselves in the process.

Because The Nekro Virus cannot vote on Political Cards, it seems to me that playing according to Alternative A would make The Nekro Virus rather weak in general.

The Nekro are supposed to be weak in the political arena. They have strength in other aspects of the game.

Question 2

Consider the example above, but instead of a "For or Against" Vote, the players are instead voting on an "Elect" Vote. The Embers of Muaat vote for Sardakk N'orr, but The Xxcha Kingdom is the elected player.

For Asmodai's prediction to be correct, what would his prediction have to be:

(I) The Embers of Muaat was the chosen player, and they voted for Sardakk N'orr, or

(II) Asmodai's cannot be correct because the outcome (The Xxcha Kingdom was elected) was different than how the target voted (The Embers of Muaat voted for Sardakk N'orr)?

Asmodai's power requires you to name a player and an outcome. "Embers of Muaat" is the player, "Sardakk N'orr gets elected" is the outcome. If Embers do not vote to elect Sardakk N'orr, then you don't get a tech, even if the Sardakk N'orr DO get elected in the end. Election cards are not a wise time to use this spy.

Asmodai can be VERY powerful in the right circumstances, downright useless in the wrong ones. Knowing the difference and when it's worthwhile to use him is what it's all about.

Now imagine if the vote was not as obviously one-sided as in your example, the Nekro player can basically direct one players vote, and I think that is the point. The ability is not meant as a way for the Nekro to steal more tech, it is meant as a way for them to influence the political action without actually voting. The steal a tech bit is just meant to be something severe enough to make the other player at least think about voting the way the Nekro player wants them to.

For the elect player example its the same. You are basically telling a player "Vote this way or I get a tech" So you tell the Embers player "If you vote for the Sardakk N'Orr, I get a tech". If the Embers player votes for the Sardakk N'Orr you get a tech, if they don't, you don't. Who actually got elected doesn't really matter.

Bit of a digression to a broader issue,

It's a problem I have with the whole politics phase in general. Most of the time it really seems like politics is just a waste of time. Either you get a card that everyone at the table wants to go one way, or one person has such an advantage in Influence that they win the political vote no matter what. I'd really like to see some house rules that made debating and negotiating and bribing over political cards more meaningful.

Thank you both for the answers. A few comments:

As for whether its weak or powerful, as with so many other things in this game, it depends on how it's used. Your example is not the best. If the card is For or Against and it has - at most - a "small detriment" to players, then it's a waste of time to use powerful representatives trying to influence this vote. Let this one play out however it will - the outcome literally has minimal impact on the game - and save your representatives for something more important.

You have to send one of your three representatives, and you don't lose them unless they are killed/assassinated by an enemy representative. If you're the first player to reveal your spy (you hold the Speaker token), enemy spies cannot target you. In this situation, I don't see the point of not attempting to get a new technology. If nothing else, you're forcing a small detriment upon your targeted player.

The Nekro are supposed to be weak in the political arena. They have strength in other aspects of the game.

They would still be weak in the political arena, though -- they are never allowed to vote.

Now imagine if the vote was not as obviously one-sided as in your example, the Nekro player can basically direct one players vote, and I think that is the point. The ability is not meant as a way for the Nekro to steal more tech, it is meant as a way for them to influence the political action without actually voting. The steal a tech bit is just meant to be something severe enough to make the other player at least think about voting the way the Nekro player wants them to.

I guess that's why I interpreted it like I did -- because The Nekro Virus may never vote on politics, I saw Asmodai's ability primarily as a way to obtain new technology, not primarily as a way to influence politics.

It's a problem I have with the whole politics phase in general. Most of the time it really seems like politics is just a waste of time. Either you get a card that everyone at the table wants to go one way, or one person has such an advantage in Influence that they win the political vote no matter what. I'd really like to see some house rules that made debating and negotiating and bribing over political cards more meaningful.

Personally, I think the representatives themselves are a nice addition. When playing with the representatives, you could always change the number of Political Cards drawn during different actions or phases. Here are three examples you may try to use and combine as you see fit:

- draw four instead of two Political Cards when executing the primary ability of the Assembly I/II Strategy Card
- add "draw one Political Card" to the effect of the secondary ability of the Assembly I/II Strategy Card
- make all players draw a Political Card (in addition to the regular Action Card and Command Counters) during the Status Phase

To balance out the use of Political Cards as Trade Goods, you could change the rules so that two Political Cards may be used as one Trade Good.

Changes like the ones above should at least reduce the problem with having too few cards with any impact on the game. A more drastic change could be to tweak the deck of Political Cards and/or Action Cards to further encourage politics.

Oh, representatives are one of the best additions to the game. I didn't think I would like them when I first read the rules, but once I played with them I thought they added a bunch to politics, just not quite enough.

If you're the first player to reveal your spy (you hold the Speaker token).

I thought, when using representatives, it was the player to the speakers left that went first (so the speaker revealed last)?

I thought, when using representatives, it was the player to the speakers left that went first (so the speaker revealed last)?

The rules say: "Starting with the Speaker, and continuing clockwise, each player who chose a Representative with the Spy trait must reveal it (...)"

If the speaker didn't have this advantage, there would be even less of a point in choosing the Assembly II/Political II Strategy Card.

The Spy reveal starts with the Speaker but the voting starts to the left of the Speaker, giving him/her the, in many cases, deciding vote.

Politics has always seemed to be a weak area of the game and in my experience the representatives do not help. Maybe because all of my games are with a total of 3 players and the few I used representatives in we had one player with an assassin and the others did not have bodyguards. So by turn 6 all of the other player representatives were dead and those races could no longer vote.

Couple this with a political deck with either boring or universally crippling rules. And you get bleh..There are also agendas that are good a certain stages of the game and are worse choices later. Some people often have buyers remorse as their situation on the board changes, to where that once helpful agenda now causes them pain.

I am always on the look out for simple house rules to fix the politics but here are a few good suggestions:

1. Sort through the deck and get rid of some of the rubbish cards. I believe there are lists online to help you choose the good cards.

2. having a hand of political cards is good because you can perhaps get a good card that benefits you and therefore want to play it. So far I just turn them in for trade goods and rarely grab assembly/political SC.

3. Consider eliminating the ability to cash them in for trade goods or like someone suggested above, make them a 2 to 1 trade (although that could have the opposite effect, making you spend them more quickly).

4. So far Representatives just seem to add more unwelcome complexity and add very little.

5. Having had all of my representatives assassinated a few times, I think you should have the option of voting without a Rep. Perhaps a blank representative card so an assassin can be wasted targeting your faux representative.

6. You could make it so Assassins don't kill, just stop your rep from being used on that vote or perhaps even on the next future vote as well.

7. You can make representatives one use only and after they are all spent, you vote without them. This would make assassins or otherwise powerful representatives become more like that Action card you having been holding on to all game to spring on your opponent at the most opportune time, rather than your default choice for every vote.

8. One house rule I saw used 3 or 4 political cards lying out where everyone could see ( no personal hand of PCs) when someone played the Political card they would choose the one to be the agenda. Once it was voted on you would replace it with a new card. This allows players to look over the choices of agendas and decide if one is worth choosing the political Strategy Card.