The way the political intrigue system appears to work, since the speaker would reveal a spy first and most spies are vulnerable to other spy attacks, it is obviously riskier for the speaker to play a spy than the other players in most situations, and so forth for the other players clockwise around the table. This is also because many spies have a boon associated with success that can be even more important to guarantee than the outcome of a given upcoming vote. This brings up a couple interesting questions--

Can you really target ANY player with a spy, revealed or not? Can they have gone ahead of you in the spy-reveal order or not? Can you base your decision of a target on what players ahead of you in the spy-reveal did?

The Yssaril and the Yin do not appear to have any way to defend against attacks from spies. The group could easily just pick on them three times and effectively keep them completely out of this potentially significant phase of the game. Since even bodyguards are vulnerable to certain game effects, other players could easily find themselves in the same position. It looks like the Beelzebub card from the Nekro is one such effect (tell me if I'm wrong on here). I can easily imagine a scenario where the Nekro player is speaker and everyone knows the Beelzebub card is going to be played, but according to the rules as I understand them, they all need to send a representative just to get blown up. Is that correct?

Also, a few things about the promissory notes:

Territorial Concession-- Is there really no exception for home systems? Can the recipient now fly into your home system, say "dibs", and after the first round of space combat, provide your primary residence with a nice and hefty dose of X-89? That seems to be a bit too much, don't you think?

Support of the Throne-- I could easily see a scenario where these might pile up for players with a lot of influence during a single critical vote. Perhaps for this one card, it should not be offered in secret. Only one player really need offer such a prize for their to be motivation enough, and this coming up as a surprise win for a player with only 7 or 8 victory points could make for a real dud game IMO.

Please share your thoughts...

Regarding the spy vs spy, the rules are misleading. It doesn't explicitly say if the target of your spy can be already revealed or not, but it does say...

"This ability usually requires the player to choose (target) another player's Representative. the targeted Representative is revealed immediately and the targeting Spy's special ability is triggered."

So if you are the first spy to reveal himself. i do not think you could be targeted by spies further down the line. Also, if someones's card has been revealed by a spy, I don't think another spy could then target him again.

But it could go either way...I guess they will clarify in a future FAQ.

Beelzebul only kills councilors, not bodyguards, or spies.

skatebox900 said:

I doubt that's true. There are other cards that use the word "councilors", this one uses the word "representative". It kills all representatives "including itself" when used. It's essentially sending a suicide bomber to the Galactic Council.

Players should use spies to stop the Nekro from sending a representative whenever possible because all they really do is screw with people. If they are speaker though, it probably isn't good. I wonder how it should be thought of thematically when this is the case. Maybe no one really knows who called the meeting >:-).

The way I would play political intrigue, at least until the mechanic is explained better by FFG, is that everyone puts a councilor card under their Strategy card until the reveal. If a card is placed face-down, then the representation is "by proxy". Thematically, the representative either sends an assistant or broadcasts from a safe location into the conference. If this is the case, the proxy can still be effected by spies, but if it is killed it returns to the player's hand and they are not able to vote for this one round only. If allowed to vote, it gets +0 and is not eligable for a "Voice of the Council" card.

~sinker

brisebois said:

I really don't have a problem with a spy being allowed to target a revealed spy. I mean, if the speaker sends a spy, therefore giving it a gauranteed chance to use its ability, there should probably be a consequence associated with that. That being, a chance for revenge by one of the other players.

A player shouldn't be able to target a representative who was already assasinated; but it might make sense if the first spy just forced a player to vote a certain way, a second spy could assassinate the same rep to prevent this from happening.

Read Belzebul again mate, it says councillors.

Hithlum said:

Yes, you're right. My mistake. I could have swore it was a Spy card also.

Would you care to address my other concerns not involving that particular card?

Hugesinker said:

Political Intrigue: I really see no point in just killing off all of the councillors of one player unless he is in the lead and in that case he probably won't get much laws his way anyway. Also you can still give players promissory notes and trade goods to try to convince them to vote your way.

Territorial Concession: Don't let him get to your home system If he just marched through everything else and got to you home system probably you didn't stand much chance in the first place(or if you are that afraid just don't give this promissory note out?).

Support of the Throne: you can only get 1 Promissory Note per turn so I don't see how this can be an issue.

I'm hoping someone can sell me on taking the Shards Assembly SC (or the Shards Political, for that matter, if you're not playing with Shattered Empire SCs). I confess I don't really get the benefit of the primary ability other than, "you get to let everyone try the new representative cards". As far as I can make out, the player executing the primary gets this:

• 1 extra Political Card (potential for use as Trade Good) in their hand and the Speaker Token (Assembly) if they choose not to resolve one of their own agendas.
• If claiming/keeping the Speaker Token and playing a Spy rep, your Spy gets the first shot which is a semi-random affair.

In order to get this edge, you are letting everyone else get an Action Card and refresh a planet during the secondary.

Please help me see the value of the Primary over the Secondary. I mean,sure, Speaker Token can help during ties and sets you up nicely for the next Strategy Phase. However, previous versions of Political/Assembly also did that and got you a cool 2 free Action Cards. As far as I can see, we're asking a lot from the primary player in order to see the new council rep cards in action.

Hithlum said:

If you have a spy that gives you some kind of boon for success, like an action card or trade goods, targeting them is always a sure bet. Or they're a sure bet for someone else's spy that you do not want to benefit. Or you just don't like the way they are likely to vote and think you might be able to change the outcome. I think those are pretty good reasons.

Hithlum said:

Players can be sneaky bastards at times. Sure, you can distribute your fleet in such a way as to force the battle outside of your home system despite all the action cards, techs, and other nastiness they might otherwise pull to get into your home system, but the necessary paranoia required just that so you can give away this promissory note seems like a bit much. Plus, it doesn't make sense thematically for it to apply to your home system. It seems like a clear misuse of the intent behind the card.

Hithlum said:

I think you can only GIVE 1 Promissory Note per turn, you can take however many are offered to you in that turn. Even if they could only get one per turn, people are going to offer these to players who appear to be behind. They could pile up is all I'm sayin.

Hyperturtle said:

First, there's an error in the rulebook on page 20, under "Assembly II"-- it says:

" The player executing the primary ability of this Strategy Card
draws one Political Card and chooses a player, including
himself, to resolve one Political Card from his hand. "

From the card itself, and the more detailed description on page 13, it is clear that it should say "draws TWO Political Cards" , not one . It's all about getting political cards and chosing the agenda, though often the speaker token is really all a person will be after. If the cards you can chose from are all duds, the appeal of the primary and this element of the game is likely to be hurting. That's one reason I'm a fan of the third party rule employing an agenda board where every player displays one of their political cards (as long as they have at least one) for the assembly-- In my opinion, this is much better than the active player just asking, "Okay, who has a good one that I'd want to vote on?". You also want to encourage people to bribe you to pick a certain person's card. In some situations it can pay off more than the Trade phase and I don't see why Promissory Notes could not be included as part of this. Something else that can add to the value of the primary is timing it to try to get the "Voice of the Council" Special Objective card (If that SE Option is used).

The Reps mechanic, although it looks potentially fun, seems slightly broken to me as-is, or at least in need of a more thorough explanation as I touched on earlier. Regardless of that, I don't think being speaker is a great advantage for your rep card. Sure, you get a chance to try to assasinate before other players can get you, but if you reveal a spy up front, you're likely to get assasinated yourself by someone else.

Great answers guys!

New player here; we came across a unique situation in one of our games:

During a political phase between six players, the surviving representatives ended up being a spy (player 2), a rep with the ability to 'deflect' an assassination (player 3), and a spy who's already played (player 1).

Player 1 and Player 3 have trade agreements, promissary notes, etc, such that they are, for all practical purposes, playing as allies at this stage.

Player 1 has played.

Player 2 plays the assassinate card on his turn on player 3. Player 3 reveals that his rep deflects the attempt onto another player.

Difficulty: only remaining player is Player 1, for whom being killed would negatively affect Player 1 and Player 3's mutual goals.

Can player 3 opt to either not deflect, but not die; or deflect back at Player 2 (the assassin kills himself); or some other solution that doesn't force a player to basically sack his ally? There were varying opinions, and while admittedly it's a rare situation, forcing someone to assassinate an ally (as a defensive benefit) seems counterproductive.

Thoughts?

Just call it as a 'Friendly Fire' incident, a case of mistaken identity. P1 is going to know you didn't do it deliberately and that P2 set it up that way. I'd say a clever move by P2 on that, to have the 'thieves falling out' as it were.