This hadn't occurred in my games yet, but I'm starting to think that if the Sol and Hacan ally together they could just hunker down and share the victory, especially if a siegebreaker race like Letnev is in on the conspiracy. It wouldn't matter that they'd need five strongholds since they can wait it out. Wouldn't this drag down the game and be too advantageous, since they wouldn't need to make any risks on offence. Am I off base here? Why aren't other people complaining about shared delay victory?

Xxcha can predict this and steal the win. They wouldn't complain about Sol and Hacan doing this at all.

Xxacha cannot predict the post-turn 8 victory.

Baron Porkface said:

Yes, actually, they can. This is one of several subtle but important differences between Rex and Dune.

From Xxcha victory, page 14:

"If the chosen player wins (alone or as an ally, even as the
Xxcha’s ally) with any victory condition during the predicted
game round, the Xxcha player wins the game instead."

I'm not adding the boldface to "any victory condition," btw, it's like that in the rulebook.

The question then is: Does "during" include AFTER round 8?

Regardless that doesn't solve the problem for the other players.

Fnoffen said:

All victories (including the basic control of strongholds victory) are determined "at the end of the round." (At the end of round 8 for the Sol and Hacan special victories.) If the special victories are to be excluded on the basis that they happen "after" the round has ended, then normal victory is also excluded on the same grounds, and the Xxcha prediction does nothing.

This is ignoring the fact that if the special victories aren't included then the term "any victory condition" is, to say the least, highly misleading. "Yeah, you can predict ANY victory condition, as long as the condition you pick is "victory by control of strongholds," that is." If that's not good enough for you, feel free to send in a rules question to FFG using the link at the bottom of the page.

Baron Porkface said:

Sure it does, as long as you play with 6 (which is really how the game should be played, IMHO.) Hacan and Sol can't afford to sit back and wait it out because for Xxcha to predict either of their victories on turn 8 is too obvious. They have to try and win in an earlier round to avoid that gun to their heads, if they decide to ally. Or ally with other people, not each other, in order to at least get a 50/50 shot of not being the one Xxcha predicted, and then they'll be fighting each other instead of working together. Even if the each go for their special victory, Hacan will trying to prevent Sol's victory as much as anyone else. The dance continues.

And a really sneaky Xxcha might predict a turn 7 or turn 6 win from one of them, just to trip them up if they do join forces and try to win early.

I'm not denying that this game has a lot of "power combos" that can be put together. One of the best things about Dune was that it was decidedly NOT balanced in any respectable way. It was thematic to the hilt and made no apologies, and yet, any of the factions could come out on top, depending on how devious the player behind the screen was. Compared to Dune, Rex has actually moved a lot more towards a balanced state (which is not to say it's evenly balanced at all - oh, no.) They cut out Truthtrance, they nerfed a lot of the more powerful faction abilities at least a little, but it's still a wildly asymmetricaly experience, and that's what makes it great.

There are certainly "power combos" to be made, but every one of them has a foil. If you know the people playing Hacan and Sol are likely to ally and wait for the end of turn 8, then take Xxcha yourself and predict that win. Play the players, not the game. It really does play best with 6, though. Personally, I never play with less.

Would you say that the XXacha predict Hacan or Sol 8 at the preponderance of your games?