Played my first game tonight, it was great despite losing. The game came down to the wire, in fact, it came down to (my alliance) trying to get the Sol special winning condition but this caused some questions about the winning condition from the opposing alliance.

The rule book states:

The Sol player wins the game if he fulfills both of the
following conditions:

• No player has won the game by controlling strongholds
(alone or as part of an alliance) by the end of round 8.

• The Sol (or no player, not even an ally) controls the
Imperial Palace and the Mecatol Power South.

This can be interpreted in two ways depending on how you read it.

In either interpretation is is clear that the Sol player wins if no one occupies both positions and he does not occupy either position. In other words, both places are devoid of units.

It is also clear that if either place has enemy or ally units in it the Sol player does not win.

However, what if the Sol player occupies one area but not the other. It would appear according to the rules "controls the
Imperial Palace AND the Mecatol Power South" that the Sol player would have to occupy both areas or none at all to fulfill the winning conditions but this does not make sense to me.

Any opinions or official rulings?

My opinion is: the alliance with you was the worst decision I made during that game.

TK

dwculp said:

The logic in this statement is broken up as follows:

[The Sol OR No Other Player] controls [The Imperial Palace AND Mecatol Power South.]

In other words, yes, Sol does achieve his special victory if he controls one and no one has units in the other. This is also how the Fremen special victory worked in Dune, if that carries any weight for your games of Rex.

This was our conclusion as well, but (of course!) not everyone in the other alliance agreed. I predict we will have similar problems the first time we use the "Betrayal" cards.

TK

I'm not so sure about that, because the special victory for the Federation of Sol reads as follows:

"You win if no player has won the game by the end of round 8 and if you (or no player) control the Imperial Palace (sector 16) and Mecatol Power South (sector 12)."

If the Sol player has control of one area but not the other, then the special victory condition has NOT been met because neither "you" (i.e., the Sol player) nor "no player" is controlling BOTH areas.

In other words, the Imperial Palace AND Mecatol Power South must BOTH be controlled by the Sol player OR they must BOTH be under no one's control.

If one follows the logic mentioned by Steve-O, then the only way for the Sol player's special victory condition to NOT be met is for someone ELSE to be controlling BOTH areas. Otherwise, no ONE player is controlling BOTH areas, no matter who is in which area. You could theoretically have the Hacan player controlling the Imperial Palace and the Lazax player controlling Mecatol Power South. "No player" is controlling BOTH areas, so the Sol player would win.

Wh0isTh3D0ct0r said:

The rule doesn't say anything about one player controlling both of them, you just read the word "both" into it.

I'll grant that you're on somewhat firmer ground here than in the other thread, in that it's genuinely ambiguous as to whether the "no player" takes wide or narrow scope over the "and," but it's hard to believe that they'd make a random change to the rules that makes Sol way more powerful, and if they did, they'd almost certainly mention this outcome, since it's so much more likely than any of the others. As stated, the rules don't give any indication that it's even possible for "no player" to control both of them under circumstances in which either of them is controlled.

"Both" = "And"

As in, "BOTH Imperial Palace AND Mecatol Power South". It is an understood when your follow the grammatical structure of the sentence.

The special victory condition does not say, "If the Imperial Palace and Mecatol Power South are EACH controlled by the Sol player or no player." The word "each" is being read into the sentence by Steve-O. If it did say "each", then I would agree with Steve-O's conclusion.

I guess we'll just have to wait for the ruling, then!

You have an odd habit of condescending to people who are about to be proven right

We shall see.

However, there is no offense intended. Your point of view is valid, and possibly even correct. For now, though, I simply disagree with the interpretation of the rules.

What frustrates me is how often FFG has ambiguous rules in their games. I've never seen a game of theirs that did not have ambiguity like this. This is one of the reasons why I like Dominion by Rio Grande Games so much. The rules are extremely clear, and if you follow the exact wording on the cards, there is little or no ambiguity.

Wh0isTh3D0ct0r said:

No offense is taken, either, at least on my part. You're welcome to your own opinion.

For whatever it may be worth, the interpretation I provided is definitely how this special victory condition works for the Fremen in Dune. (Sol is the re-themed Fremen faction in Rex.) It's how I intend to play the game until such time as FFG explicitly says otherwise.

Wh0isTh3D0ct0r said:

Likewise...after posting that, I worried that my tone would come across as more hostile than playful.

I tend not to blame designers too much for ambiguous language. It's pretty unavoidable, even for a game as seemingly straightforward as Rex. Dominion certainly isn't immune either, though DXV and Rio Grande obviously have put quite a bit of effort into hunting down and illuminating the various sources of confusion (and FFG seems to be increasingly mindful of the need for such things, as demonstrated by the fact that they have a Race Advantage Clarifications page in the first place, even if they don't quite anticipate everything).

Another consideration I was just reminded of on BGG is that, on your interpretation, the Sol victory completely overrides the Hacan victory in 3-4 player games, since, with Mecatol Power South closed, it's impossible for any player to control both of them.

Not necessarily.

In both interpretations, the Sol player would not win if anyone ELSE is controlling the Imperial Palace.

The only difference is that in my interpretation, the Imperial Palace would also have to be controlled by no one, including the Sol player, for him to win by special victory. So, it really comes down to: who controls the Imperial Palace, the Federation of Sol or no one?

Don't forget, also, that one could always win in other ways, like normal victory or betrayal.

Ah, whoops, yes, got that backwards. Even so, it's another thing that one would expect them to mention in the clarifications, if it were indeed the case that if "you (or no player)" actually means "no player" whenever you're playing with fewer than 5.

Here is the response that I received via email from FFG (and it doesn't get any more official than this):

:::MESSAGE BEGINS:::

"1. If the SOL player occupies one area but not the other, this still counts towards his special victory condition (and he would win the game).
2. If ANYONE besides the sol occupies either (or both) of these areas, the Sol cannot win the game with his special victory. This includes one player occupying one or both areas, or two different players occupying both areas.

I hope this answers your questions!
-Corey Konieczka
VP of R&D
Fantasy Flight Games"

:::MESSAGE ENDS:::

So, I guess I stand corrected. My humble apologies.

Wh0isTh3D0ct0r said:

so basically Sol's special victory condition is "…and if no other player control the Imperial Palace or Mecatol Power South."?

Isn't this easier to read?

revolution.hk said:

Depends on who's doing the reading. That text seems perfectly clear to you (and to me, by the by), but a rules lawyer playing Sol with that text would probably argue that OR means he only needs one of the two to be uncontrolled in order to win. There will always be rules lawyers who seek to manipulate the text in their favour, and they generally do so by picking apart the text in any way they can. No matter what is actually written. I don't think the text that FFG used is particularly misleading, but of course there will be those who seek to pick it apart for some advantage.

Yes. That's usually how I describe it to new players.