Hi,

I was just looking at the rules for the expansion with the politcal II card, I havn't played it yet.

From reading it, it doesnt seem very attractive to take, the whole politcal intrigue system looks fun but i cant see anyone ever taking the card untill it has multiple bonus counters on it. What is there that makes up for the 2 action cards 1 command counter you are missing out on?

Obvsiouly since i havent played with it yet i hope im missing somthing.

The whole political intrigue system involves a whole deal of... well, dealing. This is where the new Promissory Notes come into play. If you know you have a lot of votes to cast, you can get one player to actually give you what in effect is an extra victory point (I know it's not an actual VP, you just need one less VP to win) just to vote the way you might have voted anyway. And since getting VP's is what the game is all about, it might actually be quite useful at times.

There are, of course, other Promissory Notes which can let you take all of the giving players' money or make him retreat from a system (and yes that may be a Home System...) or force him to vote as YOU want in a future vote.

But doesnt everyone get to do those things?

My question was really wondering what is the advantage given to the person who actually picks the Political II card, besides choosing one of two available agendas. Or is that generaly enough to make it worthwhile?

Being able to vote can be game changing. If you are a politically minded player, then depending on your representatives you would choose this action to try and assassinate the powerful reps belonging to the other players and thus limit, or eliminate, their ability to vote at all.

The main aspect of the Political II card that is different from the others is that you control which political card is played without having to give anything up like the speaker token. The power to choose a card and control the timing on when that card is played is where the real power lays in the card, but I agree that the Political II card is a little bit too generous with its secondary and can really back fire on you. I personally prefer to use the Assembly II card which gives you control of who gets the speaker token and who gets to play the political card while simultanously offering a little less in the secondary depending on the timing. I think its a bit more flexible. But the political II card has its primary perk as having no drawback in the primary within that system. You choose the card, you choose the timing, so with a political minded player this can be extremly powerful if you keep in mind that political card in as a whole carry some of the most powerful effects in the game. If you can control when and what political cards come into play you have effectively one of the most powerful and influencial racial abilities in the game.

Its tricky though and I agree that its really generally not a first pick and finds itself with counters on it with regularity in games I've seen using it.