Hey guys. Just recently bought Shards of the Throne yesterday, and we're planning on having a game with it this weekend.

I'm really interested in the political intrigue system. I think it will add a lot to the game. However the new political card looks like it gives you almost no incentive to take it. The only benefit you get is being able to choose 1 of 2 cards to vote on. The old policital card gave you 3 Action cards, a command counter, and the ability to determine what we vote on next (That's almost the same as choosing the 1 of 2 carsds immediately).

I want the political intrigue system to come into play, but I'm worried that it won't be viable due to how useless that strategy card will seem to some people.

What do you guys think?

Their loss.

I for one LOVE the new political system with the promissory notes and representatives and for me, that alone is incentive enough to choose it.

We use assembly II, a much more fun strategy card in our opinion

We decided to just use the political intrigue system with the original policital card. It worked really well in my opinion. Just treat all votes as if you were using political intrigue, but keep all the benefits from the original political card (3 AC,s 1 CC and a choice of the top 3 political cards to be played next).

If revealing your Spy first, selecting the Speaker token, drawing 2 new PCs that can be used as trade goods, choosing which player to select an agenda (if any still have Political Cards), and choosing whether or not there is a Voice of the Council vote isn't enough, some folks will allow you to draw 1 or 2 Action Cards when playing with Assembly II. Discuss it before the game begins.

In a 4 player game, where it comes up every game round, 3 or even 2 ACs seemed a bit much to me. For the Yssaril, that could mean 4 ACs per round with no hand limit. Do the math, that is a lot of extra ACs.

DarkAvenger211 said:

This is something that I've never understood about both the Political Intrigue and Mercenary features: why tie them to cards at all? Both additions should have been treated like variants, just like every other game addition.

My friends and I took out the ability for players to trade in Political Cards for Trade Goods. It made Assembly II pretty silly. People would of course take it to be the speaker, but then we would lazily see if anyone had any PCs they hadn't traded in for TGs already. It usually ended up rather unspectacularly with someone having a card that we didn't care about but voted on anyway. We've already agreed that for our next game we'll be using Political II (with the Initiative Strategy Card to make sure someone is the speaker), but that still doesn't make it that great. I'm going to lobby for getting 1, maybe 2 Action Cards to go with it. Otherwise, Bonus Counters will probably end up being the best reason to pick it.