by Brian Davidson
This deck is designed to generate lots of hand-picked Plots, by creating loads of tokens which are exchanged for cards. Once you have all the Plots you need in hand, it should be relatively easy to make either the PfiOS Goal, or the Corporate Masters. Basic Goal is not too hard, either, if it's 12 or less, but it might take a turn or two longer, unless it is as low as 10, because you will need to steal a couple.
Your token generator is NASA. Protect it at all costs! If you lose NASA, the jig is up. It's not impossible to win without it, but highly unlikely unless your rivals are foolish enough to let you sneak a Basic Goal win past them. Fortunately, you have lots of Government Groups with decent power to help defend, and NASA should never move away from the +10 proximity region.
Make use of Bermuda's Special Ability at the end of every turn! You must clear Germany's and England's control arrows so that they can make more attacks to control. A detailed listing of what each card is for follows after the Strategy section.
Lead Bank of England, or the UN if they bounce.
UN or NATO. If neither is in hand, go for Germany.
Try to get the Bank of England out as quickly as possible, if it bounced as a lead. It is the key to your deck, along with NASA, which must follow soon after. You will probably need to get a Nation out first, to attack the B of E with. Germany is better earlier, so it can start building up tokens, but England is all right, too. Get out whichever of NATO/UN you don't already have. As soon as you get NASA, use Blitzkrieg on it, then give the token to Germany or England to use for another attack. Don't play many power boosters or alignment changers early on; it will make your strategy too obvious. Play it cool until you have NASA and at least two or three Nations on the board. Get the Center for Weird Studies out if you draw it, but it can wait for a bit. You'll probably need an ATO for Hawaii later, as it doesn't have Alignment bonuses for you, but it does have low Resistance and won't be needed quite yet, so use your ATOs on Resources, especially the Big Prawn and Crystal Skull.
Do NOT play your Clipper Chip or the OMCLs yet!
At about turn three, the fun starts. Use Germany and/or England to bring out the token-spawning pair of Brazil and China. Drop Let's Get REALLY Organized! on NASA, use Privatization to make it Corporate, and move them over to it, using Bermuda's reorganization ability at the end of the turn. Now is also the time to start powering up, but don't go all out just yet. Boost England with the Big Prawn (adding anything, whatever will bring confusion to the enemy!), and use Dictatorship and Emergency Powers if you have them. You should have at least one if you've been using the B of E and Crystal Skull correctly. This will make England a target, but with 14 power out of nowhere, it'll be hard to attack successfully. People will start worrying, but not a lot can hurt you directly, except the NPCs, and they can only stop one action or ability per turn, unless they somehow get extra tokens. Once you get Hawaii out there and hanging off of NASA, they'll get four tokens per turn. Even if China, Brazil or Hawaii get hit by a Disaster!, they can and will still help you as long as they are not totally destroyed, and you should be able to give them relief quickly if they are devastated.
Here's where it gets really cute. Use the Bank of England's token to draw two plots, and use the Crystal Skull to search for the ones you want. Pull one you don't need, and discard it using the Center for Weird Studies to get another token, which can be used by B of E to draw two more Plots! It's sort of a "Buy two, get one free" situation. Then have NASA give the B of E another token. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The Center can only be used once per turn, but it's really just a bonus here. You'll already be drawing lots of Plots. Now it is time for a decision.
Time for powering up! Get out your Clipper Chip and all of the other power boosters you have left. Do you go for the PfiOS, Corporate Masters, or try and steal some from a rival to make the Basic Goal? PFioS will be obvious to most good players, since you're heavily Government, but Corporate Masters should take them by surprise. A lot of folks forget that Hawaii is Corporate, and with Chicken in Every Pot and Bigger Business in play, it counts double for this Goal! Play the NWOs you need and start cashing in! If you don't have enough to manage PfiOS, then steal the OMCLs from a rival with Forgery, so he can't stop you, and go for Corporate Masters by Privatizing or Attitude Mutation-ing any one of the non-Corporate Groups you have. NATO if probably your best choice here, as they suffer from Chicken in Every Pot, but would gain more from Bigger Business. It may cost some tokens, but you should have plenty to spare.
If you can't make the victory bid quite yet, you can also use the OMCLs with the Center for Weird Studies on your next turn to change TWO Alignments, and set up a devastating control attack on a suddenly vulnerable rival, to win with the Basic Goal.
In a game with no ATOs, this will be a little harder, especially getting the Resources out. I don't recommend this deck for a two-player game. Still, it's not impossible if you go purely for the Corporate Masters Goal. Suggestions for replacements are below, after the cards.
Blue and Yellow NWOS are troublesome, especially Anti-trust Legislation, which will force you to move the token-feeders. You can move them back, though, using Bermuda's Special Ability once it's gone. For Blue, use Fear and Loathing to replace them early on, then shift to Chicken in Every Pot at the end. Bigger Business can be held to counter any Yellow peril. Losing the NWOs might make PfiOS unreachable, but you should still be able to manage the Corporate Masters Goal, which should be something of a surprise in such a Government oriented deck.
Several Media Groups and Plots, and a few odd others, can hurt you. Not much you can do about some of them, but you have plenty of power to defend yourself. There's always SMWNMTK and AWHFY, and Beach Party if you are devastated by a Disaster!. Plot cancellers are somewhat annoying, but that's why you have a couple, as well. Turnabout is fair play, right?
Kill the NPCs' token with Nuclear Accident before you go all out. Use it on England if you have to hit one of your own Places, but it's likely someone else will have at least one out on the table. Even if Discordia has the NPCs, this will protect you from them. Discordia can be problematic in other ways, though, as you very nearly can't touch them at all.
You can live without Blitzkrieg, but it's so nice to use with NASA.
If you do drop these, you may want to add another Disaster! or maybe another Assassination!. Extra Secrets or Hoax!es would be useful, too. Place defense cards like Air Magic and Earth Magic are always helpful. I thought about the Druids, too, but they're not of any other use than defense to this deck. A Censorship would be nice if you expect to face Media-heavy decks.
I had considered using a Suicide Squad and Cover of Darkness to get the OMCLs away from someone else, but eventually chose the Forgery option. You might prefer the other way; it's two cards either way, one Plot and one Resource.
I also thought about throwing in the Holy Grail and a Midas Mill for Germany, but decided the deck was too Group/Resource-heavy already. The State Lotteries were a possibility as a Group, too, but they'd probably have to replace one of the token-givers. I don't want to sacrifice any of the existing Groups; they work too well together. I suppose you could drop England and use the boosters I assigned to it for Germany instead.
Replacement Groups might include the Supreme Court, or maybe even another Place and the Flat Earthers, if you really want to go for extra Plots. If you're going to do this, consider Al Amarja for the Place. It's defensive benefits are tremendous. Other Resources to consider are the Perpetual Motion Machine for more NASA or B of E tokens, and Holy Grail/Midas Mill as noted above.
For a two-player, or other no-ATO type game, you might want to consider some situational Groups, depending on what you expect to be facing. If it's going to be another Government-heavy deck, try the Tobacco Companies or Wall Street. The Eco-Guerillas will be useful against Corporate decks, as will the EPA if the NPCs are out there. Discordia really doesn't hurt you all that much, as you probably won't need to attack them at all.
There's always Bill Clinton or the Congressional Wives for bonuses to take over your Government Groups, but they are pretty obvious. A bit more subtle is the Federal Reserve. With the Bank of England also in play, people may be expecting you to Unmask as the Gnomes of Zurich. Let them. Smile knowingly and wink. Of course, you could do it anyway, by adding an Unmasked and a Gnomes Illuminati. This might be useful if you expect to face a Gnomes deck.
You might also consider Unmasking as Bavaria, as it gives you a few extra points of power for their Goal, as opposed to using PfIOS, but since you have a potential 81 points if all of the proper NWOs and Clipper Chip are out, an extra two points is kind of trivial.
Above all, concentrate on token generation and misdirection. There's plenty of opportunity for both with this deck.
First posted: May 22, 1998
Last modified: Fri Jun 19 14:14:23 EDT 1998
Ralph Melton ralph@cs.cmu.edu