Just a quick question after playing this game one time. The ability for Melange Mining is a little awkwardly worded. I just want to confirm that the effect is basically "After an event if the threat meter only increases 1 or nothing at all that player receives 3 capital." The player that was using that corp felt that it was pretty weak since they was only six opportunities for it to possibly be applicable (and there's not always a lot you as one player can do to stop threat gains from effects) and the reward wasn't as great as say, Jinteki wiping out a ton of illnesses for instance. I'm assuming that the Melenge has all general actions is the offset; does that even out the balance? Also it could just be that it's a slow gain instead of bursty like other players that get stuff when things are actively removed.

Just wanted some input from more experienced players, thanks!

You have it right.

MM needs to be harsh at times, especially with new players. New players often prioritize ensuring demand is met and make avoiding the threat increase from events a secondary concern. That is not always the smartest play to make in this game (but sometimes it is). MM really needs to bring their negotiating hat and be willing to force beneficial actions to fail or demand bribes in the form of capital in exchange for supporting offers to meet demand. This can't even be managed at the per action level as a decision to ignore demand and just deal with the issues in the city is one that has to span two turns to be really effective. Also because of the way you can tell what will increase threat on the next event card, you normally have at least one other player that will support you in getting rid of it. Plus you have to be concerned that something may move into the root so you may get support from other players based on board position. Melange has general cards so that they can deal with enemy units, unrest and power outages equally well. Normally they should be drawing Security, Construction and Media cards, but board state/the need for diversity can influence this as well.

To put it another way. If you fail demand all three times during the game the most threat you would get is 21, if you don't trigger illness or fail any events, you can win. If you meet demand three times and never avoid threat from any event card, it is possible to get over 25 threat, especially as items build up on the board and move to the root.. You can play a game tanking demand and just cleaning up the city and still win. Now Haas, Weyland and the Federalist probably won't like that so its not likely that you will be able to have folks agree 100% on that. Investments throw a wrinkle into this which makes the whole interaction very complicated. In some cases it may be more beneficial for MM to meet their investment even if that means they don't fulfill their contract.

I really like how each player has multiple competing interests and not all of them are public knowledge.

Interesting. Thanks for that write up! Is there a specific strategy for the other corporations? It would be helpful when we play again for everyone to have an idea of what they should be leaning towards.

Since we now have the game in germany as well and played our first rounds - just to be sure:

The movement of units into the beanstalk (after being placed by an event-card) and the threat out of this movement does count against Melanges contract-ability as well?

I would have thought that just the effect of the event-card that could create threat counts regarding the contract - since the event-card does just place the units, not produce the threat itself.