Hey all!

I'm a long-time TI super-fan, and I'm very happy to have my copy of TI4 in my hands .

I also like how politics has become a more viable strategy in this edition, as the Xxcha have always needed some love! However, during the TI3 days, my group came up with a slight variant that we liked, and I wanted to see what people's opinions were of implementing something similar in the new edition.

So, the change I'm suggesting is as follows:

1) Once the Agenda phase gets added to the game, a certain number of cards are revealed off the top of the Agenda deck, creating the "Docket." How many cards I'm still deciding on, but numbers I'm considering are 5, 10, or the number of players. The docket remains face-up, probably near the objective area, and can be perused by players at any time.

2) The Politics strategy allows you to draw two cards from the top of the Agenda deck, swap any number of the cards you're looking at with cards in the Docket, and then place the two cards on top or on bottom of the Agenda deck in any order. This replaces the normal third ability. It's basically the same, except the extra step of allowing you to replace Docket cards with the drawn cards if you want before putting them on top/bottom.

3) During the Agenda phase, instead of drawing cards off the top of the deck to resolve, the Speaker chooses one of the Agendas on the Docket to vote on. Once that is resolved, the Speaker chooses a second card on the Docket. Once that's resolved, the Docket is refreshed with two new Agendas. The rest of the Agenda phase is unchanged.

The idea is that it allows players to see some of the possible laws they could vote on and develop a strategy. The Speaker now has the power to determine which of the Docket Agendas get voted on, meaning making the Speaker mad is a surefire way for them to call a vote on the Agendas that you don't want brought to the floor, and makes the Politics card a bit stronger, as they get to choose who has that power.

What do you guys think? Too much? As I said, political domination has become more viable, but it still suffers from a high degree of randomness, as if beneficial Agendas don't come up, your massive voting power doesn't really mean anything. Let me know! There's a good chance this is a horrible idea, but I think there's at least a moderate chance it has some merit.

I haven’t yet had a chance to play 4th, so I can’t comment on how significant politics as written is, much less these suggestions, but I’ve been doing something similar in 3rd for a while and it worked great.

I totally agree with you that, in 3rd at least, politics was too random and there was very little incentive to take the politics card as it didn’t really give you any sort of advantage.

7 hours ago, Absol197 said:

Hey all!

I'm a long-time TI super-fan, and I'm very happy to have my copy of TI4 in my hands .

I also like how politics has become a more viable strategy in this edition, as the Xxcha have always needed some love! However, during the TI3 days, my group came up with a slight variant that we liked, and I wanted to see what people's opinions were of implementing something similar in the new edition.

So, the change I'm suggesting is as follows:

1) Once the Agenda phase gets added to the game, a certain number of cards are revealed off the top of the Agenda deck, creating the "Docket." How many cards I'm still deciding on, but numbers I'm considering are 5, 10, or the number of players. The docket remains face-up, probably near the objective area, and can be perused by players at any time.

2) The Politics strategy allows you to draw two cards from the top of the Agenda deck, swap any number of the cards you're looking at with cards in the Docket, and then place the two cards on top or on bottom of the Agenda deck in any order. This replaces the normal third ability. It's basically the same, except the extra step of allowing you to replace Docket cards with the drawn cards if you want before putting them on top/bottom.

3) During the Agenda phase, instead of drawing cards off the top of the deck to resolve, the Speaker chooses one of the Agendas on the Docket to vote on. Once that is resolved, the Speaker chooses a second card on the Docket. Once that's resolved, the Docket is refreshed with two new Agendas. The rest of the Agenda phase is unchanged.

The idea is that it allows players to see some of the possible laws they could vote on and develop a strategy. The Speaker now has the power to determine which of the Docket Agendas get voted on, meaning making the Speaker mad is a surefire way for them to call a vote on the Agendas that you don't want brought to the floor, and makes the Politics card a bit stronger, as they get to choose who has that power.

What do you guys think? Too much? As I said, political domination has become more viable, but it still suffers from a high degree of randomness, as if beneficial Agendas don't come up, your massive voting power doesn't really mean anything. Let me know! There's a good chance this is a horrible idea, but I think there's at least a moderate chance it has some merit.

I like how your house rule sounds. I'm going to test it with my group in our next game.

Politics in 3rd edition had two significant disadvantages. First and foremost, there were too many cards and while most would agree that "more" is better, in practice, like action cards the result was that about 50% of the effects where completely useless and had zero impact on the game, leaving the political phase pretty benign. The second issue was that there were no significant advantages to being the "political" race, aka, any race like the Xxcha that had an advantage in the political phase where considered borderline useless.

Three things have changed in the new edition that may sufficiently improve politics that alterations might not be necessary. First, there is considerably less Agenda cards and every card was ramped-up to have a greater level of impact. Secondly during the political phase you will vote on two separate Agendas each time and several players will know what the top cards are because they are arranged during the political phase giving those players an opportunity to prepare/setup the events to ensure they benefit from them. Finally you exhaust during voting, which means that control over the political phase will depend a lot on the actions of each round (what was already exhausted) and how voting goes in the first vote cycle will affect the second.

All and all its hard to say without having played the game to what extent the impact of these changes will be and how positive/negative they are, but its certainly on paper an improvement over the old system. Fundamentally speaking the core issue with the old system wasn't so much the system as it was the cards themselves, they where just poorly conceived in terms of impact so they often had none, which was really at the heart of the issue.

I also am not entirely sure that the Xxcha ability has been that significantly improved within the scope politics to give them sufficient control over the Agenda voting round to make it a meaningful impact which I think is a missed opportunity. I always felt that the Xxcha should have a major advantage during the political phase, one thing we often house ruled in my circles was that the Xxcha could search the political deck (instead of drawing a card) when playing political cards. This often meant that when the Xxcha played a political card, something important/significant was about to happen.

In any case, I think most of us are preparing for our first games, in a few weeks I think we will get a lot more opinions on the subject, right now its still a lot of speculation and I think its a bit premature to talk house rules at the moment.

On ‎11‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 7:42 AM, BigKahuna said:

Politics in 3rd edition had two significant disadvantages. First and foremost, there were too many cards and while most would agree that "more" is better, in practice, like action cards the result was that about 50% of the effects where completely useless and had zero impact on the game, leaving the political phase pretty benign. The second issue was that there were no significant advantages to being the "political" race, aka, any race like the Xxcha that had an advantage in the political phase where considered borderline useless.

Three things have changed in the new edition that may sufficiently improve politics that alterations might not be necessary. First, there is considerably less Agenda cards and every card was ramped-up to have a greater level of impact. Secondly during the political phase you will vote on two separate Agendas each time and several players will know what the top cards are because they are arranged during the political phase giving those players an opportunity to prepare/setup the events to ensure they benefit from them. Finally you exhaust during voting, which means that control over the political phase will depend a lot on the actions of each round (what was already exhausted) and how voting goes in the first vote cycle will affect the second.

All and all its hard to say without having played the game to what extent the impact of these changes will be and how positive/negative they are, but its certainly on paper an improvement over the old system. Fundamentally speaking the core issue with the old system wasn't so much the system as it was the cards themselves, they where just poorly conceived in terms of impact so they often had none, which was really at the heart of the issue.

I also am not entirely sure that the Xxcha ability has been that significantly improved within the scope politics to give them sufficient control over the Agenda voting round to make it a meaningful impact which I think is a missed opportunity. I always felt that the Xxcha should have a major advantage during the political phase, one thing we often house ruled in my circles was that the Xxcha could search the political deck (instead of drawing a card) when playing political cards. This often meant that when the Xxcha played a political card, something important/significant was about to happen.

In any case, I think most of us are preparing for our first games, in a few weeks I think we will get a lot more opinions on the subject, right now its still a lot of speculation and I think its a bit premature to talk house rules at the moment.

I agree that we should play a few games before we come to any definitive change, but I do want to address one issue in your comment. The Agenda phase occurs after the Status phase, meaning all of your planets are readied before you do any voting. You can use each planet on only one agenda, but you can still exhaust all of them in the Action phase and vote on Agendas.

I've thought about this some more, and I think, if I were to use this adjustment in a game, I'd make the Docket equal to the number of Stage I Objective cards. I.e. 5 in a 10-point game, or 7 in a 14-point game. Gives some variety in the Agendas that can be considered without overloading the choices available.

But thanks for your thoughts!

I love this idea. I was thinking about a variant that brought back something similar to the Assembly card of Shattered Ascension, where you play an agenda from your hand (including ones that you can trade via transactions). I think I might like this better.

Yes, you should always play things straight a few times to get a feel, but I definitely encourage you to give it a try soon. Politics in TI4 are light years better than they were in TI3, but there's still room for improvement. I might use this in my next game... if I do, I'll let you know how it turns out. If you listen to the Space Cats Peace Turtles podcast, I was also very intrigued by the idea the guys had to reveal votes simultaneously.

1 hour ago, MikeEvans said:

I love this idea. I was thinking about a variant that brought back something similar to the Assembly card of Shattered Ascension, where you play an agenda from your hand (including ones that you can trade via transactions). I think I might like this better.

Yes, you should always play things straight a few times to get a feel, but I definitely encourage you to give it a try soon. Politics in TI4 are light years better than they were in TI3, but there's still room for improvement. I might use this in my next game... if I do, I'll let you know how it turns out. If you listen to the Space Cats Peace Turtles podcast, I was also very intrigued by the idea the guys had to reveal votes simultaneously.

I'm glad you like it ! I'm definitely going to do things the official way the first time I play (which, Lazax willing, will be this weekend *crosses fingers*), but I've been doing the Docket version for a while, and I think it works well. If you do try it, please do tell me how it goes!

I haven't listened to SCPT (my sister keeps sending me podcasts to listen to and I never do, so it's way down on my list ), but that's an interesting take, too. The only issue I have with it is it infringes on the power of the Speaker a bit. Part of the benefit of being Speaker is that you vote last, so you can see how the political winds are shifting, and cast you votes for the side that will give you the best effect (and in TI4, you know how exactly how many votes to dedicate to the first agenda, to maximize you ability on the second one). I dunno. It's a cool idea, but I'd want to look it over a bit more before implementing it.

I don't think they have anything concrete as a suggested variant. They just mentioned that they were expecting that voting would be a bit more like it is in Game of Thrones, where you can inadvertently overspend on votes, or purposefully bluff. You're absolutely right that it would dilute some of the power of the speaker. However, I'd posit that your variant makes Politics (and with it, the Speaker token) more desirable and powerful, esp. if there's an agenda on the docket that you really want to bring into play (or eject before it can screw you). Also, as Speaker you'll have 7 options (the 5 on the docket plus the ones you drew to swap out) to pick from for voting, up from 2. Perhaps that increase in power would help balance things out since you lose the advantage of voting last.

I'm intrigued by the SCPT's idea, but if I try it, it won't be for a while. However, I've decided that my next game will absolutely use your variant, unless I end up teaching a bunch of newbies or something. I'll let you know how it goes. Might be a little while, though... Christmas season is murder on weekends (esp. if you're a parent), which is the only time I have to play a game this long anymore.

1 hour ago, MikeEvans said:

I don't think they have anything concrete as a suggested variant. They just mentioned that they were expecting that voting would be a bit more like it is in Game of Thrones, where you can inadvertently overspend on votes, or purposefully bluff. You're absolutely right that it would dilute some of the power of the speaker. However, I'd posit that your variant makes Politics (and with it, the Speaker token) more desirable and powerful, esp. if there's an agenda on the docket that you really want to bring into play (or eject before it can screw you). Also, as Speaker you'll have 7 options (the 5 on the docket plus the ones you drew to swap out) to pick from for voting, up from 2. Perhaps that increase in power would help balance things out since you lose the advantage of voting last.

I'm intrigued by the SCPT's idea, but if I try it, it won't be for a while. However, I've decided that my next game will absolutely use your variant, unless I end up teaching a bunch of newbies or something. I'll let you know how it goes. Might be a little while, though... Christmas season is murder on weekends (esp. if you're a parent), which is the only time I have to play a game this long anymore.

I actually think this is something that makes the Docket variant even better with TI4: when you play the Politics card, you choose someone who is not currently the Speaker to be the Speaker. Which means if this is your first turn playing Politics, you're absolutely right, you'll have seven options to choose from for what Agendas you'll get to vote on. But it also means you can't spam Politics to keep yourself in power; like in accrual Politics, you have to pick your moment. Sure, you can use it twice in a row to shape which Agendas are available, but the second round someone else, albeit of your choosing, will be the one with all that power . You can't dominate Politics.

Plus, at least to my mind, that's good! If Politics has more teeth, it stops being the dummy Strategy that's only taken if there's no other choice. It becomes one to lunge for. Do you take Tech? Getting upgrades is good! Or how about Trade? You could use more money. Oh, but what about Politics? There's a couple of Agendas on the Docket that you'd really like to get through, and no one else at the table would want to call them up for a vote!

Once again, reiterating: I've not had a chance to play yet, maybe it's not necessary, and maybe it's even too much! But I like the theme of it.

I absolutely agree that more teeth for Politics is a good thing. TI4 took things in the right direction to be sure, but but even a little more yet won't hurt at all. Even though I think the agendas are way better now in general, there are still ones that I'd consider duds... mostly the agendas that revolve around electing planets of a certain trait to get small bonuses or penalties. In the docket system, those agendas actually have their place. There might be a super scary docket for you, with only one or two innocuous agendas that won't be a problem. You might take Politics yourself to ensure that the harmless stuff gets voted on, rather than something that ruins your plans like Closing the Wormholes.

Something did occur to me that could be considered a weakness of this variant... with all of the agendas out there, if the Speaker picks something nobody cares about, everybody might save their influence for the second vote. One of the nice things about the sequential draw from the Agenda deck is that only the speaker has any chance of knowing what's coming. That uncertainty makes it a harder decision whether to spend your votes on the first agenda, or save it for the second.

A way to work around this is to say that when it comes time to vote, the Speaker can select an agenda from the docket, or they can draw one from the top of the deck. That one on the top of the deck might be a card they know about (if they drew it and put it back), or it might be random. That keeps the element of potential surprise and suspense while still allowing for more strategic political planning. This way the speaker can select and important agenda that makes everybody spend all their votes... and then pull an even MORE important agenda off the top of the deck, where they had placed it, and catch everybody with their pants down.

Ooh, I like it! Although I don't see the initial concern as too much of a problem; if the Speaker is concerned about not having the votes for the really important Agenda, pick that one first, then pick the one no one cares about. Or even if you're not sure, I might say that them's the breaks in Politics. You've gotta read people and navigate their wants. A potential downside helps cover your previous concern regarding how powerful the Speaker becomes with this variant.

Of course, I love the idea of drawing off the top, too . After a contentious vote, the assembly leans forward in anticipation of which of the other agendas they'll be called to debate...only for the Speaker to call up some arcane rule to allow a bill that just got out of committee am hour ago and hasn't had floor time to be called up immediately! It's a great visual .

EDIT: Although, thinking about it a bit more...I think I wouldn't want to allow that, and here's why.

The Xxcha. Imagine if the Xxcha Speaker calls up an Agenda, then uses their own Veto racial power to discard that Agenda and draw the one they secreted on top of the deck instead! It gives them a unique ability that synchronizes their racial powers with choosing the Political card. Now it's not just defensive, used when someone else is Speaker to cancel a bad policy, but can be used "offensively" while the Xxcha are the Speaker. Isn't that neat?