I was thinking, what do people think about the possibility of getting multiple versions of the Affiliations over the course of the game? Not different Affiliations, but ones with different stats.

It's something they're doing in Netrunner, with multiple versions of the various Identity cards for each faction. But there's more going on on an Identity card. The card determines what your minimum deck size is, how much influence (which is used for out-of-faction cards) you have in building your deck, and each Identity gets a special ability, like reducing the cost of the first card of specific type each turn or damaging the opponent when you perform certain tasks.

The Affiliation cards don't have nearly as much going on; they're much more like the House cards in A Game of Thrones, which generally don't really DO anything, they just establish which faction you are and provide you with a list of the phases in the game. But the Affiliation cards do provide two important stats: they all provide 1 resource and establish our starting reserves at 6 cards. It's the fact they include that "Starting Reserve: 6" I find the most interesting, as they could have easily left that off and just trusted us to know that we all get 6 cards to start with. It could just be FFG being user-friendly, providing as much pertinent information as they can on the Affiliation cards, but it could also be that they're leaving themselves design room to someday alter that number.

Would people be interested in seeing something like that? An Affiliation that provided more resources, at the cost of a smaller hand, or a larger hand at the cost of not having resources on your Affiliation card? Alternately, they could go a step further and add additional conditions, like smaller or larger decks.

Reducing maximum deck size while providing a resource or card boost could be interesting, seeing that it may be possible that running the minimum deck size is not the optimum build. BUT I think the current set up is a good balance to save players from themselves. New affiliation cards that affect the way a player draws cards really starts to force extra choices. Getting new cards with an extra resource, or with multiple affiliates might be neat, but then..power creep.

This is something I would like to see, yes. I like the idea of having different experiences with each play, and how you make the most of what you start with is certainly one of the ways I like to see a game develop (it's a point of principle for me that I never mulligan in card games). I always expected we'd see something like this in LotR, which currently sees each hero start with three resources - even when they're a disenfranchised dwarf. Changing the little things like this keeps it interesting, to me, and can help to keep it thematic. Although, I've always said, if you had a thematic SW game, it would involve the Imperial player being able to play everything in his hand each time at the very least, to be representative of the near-limitless resources of the Imperial war machine.

But I'm sure it would still be interesting!

spalanzani said:

But can't a successful mulligan also be thought of as a way to make the most of what you start with?

It is entirely possible we might see different affiliation cards in the future which could be why they were sure to note the starting reserve on the cards to allow themselves that possibility down the road. Or they did it as a reminder only. Only time will tell.

This would indeed be very cool, along with "missions" (like quests with different stuff to do) and so on. I'm -really- curious about their upcoming multiplayer model, and to see if it retains some of the extra features of the old coop game like different space/land arenas and so on. So very many possibilities!

I would like to see us eventually get an alternate version of the Rebel Alliance and Imperial Navy cards that read "New Republic" and "Imperial Remnant," respectively.

MarthWMaster said:

I can't say as I'd agree, as for me, the game starts during set-up. I'm probably a bit strange like that!

MarthWMaster said:

Yes, indeed! I'd be very excited to see that, it would be a good way to expand the game into new directions without changing too much of the flavour.

It would feel very weird to have old republic/separatist/New republic/imperia remnant fighting each other across vast spans of time and lacking context.

I definetly think they would have to design different, exclusive sets for the main timelines. I wouldnt mind fighting old republic vs separatists, new republic vs imperial remnant and so on.

AshesFall said:

Surely not - it would feel like you are playing WotC's Star Wars Miniatures, but without the miniatures!!

AshesFall said:

i agree. Keep the game in one time frame.

AshesFall said:

Personally, being able to mix things up is part of the appeal of these types of games for me. I want to have Darth Maul and Darth Vader teaming up to wipe out Bastila Shan and Mara Jade.

A Game of Thrones already has more than a few cards that can't exist side by side canonically and I have to imagine FFG is going to make a cycle of cards out of the Dunk & Egg stories pretty soon since they're already mining A Dance With Dragons for material.