Disclaimer:  As a whole, I love this game and have had a great time playing it.

There is just one issue I have with the game.

This game is all about Theme and Storytelling and that is a great thing, but for some reason with the conspiracy puzzle, you get +4 victory points for completing a row, column, or diagonal.  These pieces can (and usually do) have nothing to do with each other except for adjacency.

This makes no sense in Theme or Storytelling.  It just seems tacked on for the Euro Game Crowd.  It would make much more sense if you got +4 victory points for making the connection between a faction and the conspiracy.  It also makes for an interesting strategy decision.  Do I make the connection to Mayor Wells and score +4 Victory points when my opponent has 7 Political favors stored up, or do I block the connection, not get the VP to make sure my opponent doesn't make the connection.

Just my 2 cents.  Its a small gripe in an otherwise great game.

JackalopeJay

Just throwing my bit in - Played with my gf + friends today, she was a little behind in absorbing the rules, but she understood the "bingo" aspect of conspiracy tiles completely - allowing her to compete where the others were hording favors/baggage looking at the "bigger picture". This was great for that reason - ordinarily the "noob" in these kind of games fall way behind in VP's.

As for theme, not sure - maybe your character is "starting to make sense" of the conspiracy. How can your character know about the puzzle pieces that others have placed? For me its gossip & here-say, news media etc. Might be silly/non-canon but I like the way you can fill the gaps with your imagination. This game is like a good book for me, not everything has to be how & why - especially with a game so rich in theme as Android.

But, c'mon, Flying cars? :P:P:P

Dr Terror said:

Dude! It's 2000! :P

About flying cars:

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has recently started a Personal Air Vehicle Technology research project.

Also, there were flying cars (Spinners) in Blade Runner. So there. :)

Flavor wise, Kevin Wilson did an amazing job. It has a setting, story, characters, and mechanics that basically all make sense with each other. As for the conspiracy issue, It seems like you'd be getting points for seeing that everything is connected, which you'd do by obtaining bingo status.

Oh, as for flying cars, there have been prototypes already made. We'll undoubtedly get them before we get an elevator to the moon.

I wouldn't be so sure. The space elevator is fuelled by Nasa's Elevator:2010 project. There have been more advancements made than with flying cars.

In the books of  Arthur C. Clarke are space elevators a normal thing. I think i read it in the second book of the space odyssey circle. So those ideas are all taken from old scifi themes like blade runner etc.

Shuriken36 said:

Flying cars are one of those things we probably could do, but probably shouldn't do.

Have you ever been sitting at an intersection, and the light goes green so you push on the gas, and the car stalls?

Now imagine that, only you're eight thousand feet in the air above a densely populated urban center, and your car is full of rocket fuel.

Congratulations. You're Slim Pickens.

Eldil said:

But if we had flying cars, then all of the trafiic rules would be different. You likely wouldn't even have intersections.

Probably you would just slide onto an "offramp" that would curve around and up (or down) allowing you to merge with a stream of traffic going in another direction. You would probably have periodic "offramps" that would go down to ground level, or close to it, which you would use when you were getting near to your destination.

About the real topic, I haven't played the game yet, but it does seem to me that the OP has a good point. I'd rather have bonus points for linking people to the conspiracy, rather than just making a row of tiles that might not connect anyone.

I would agree that it doesn't make much "Thematic" sense, but I think that it makes sense from a "Gameplay" standpoint - it keeps the Conspiracy relevant to the game.  If you draw a bad piece, that piece isn't instantly a waste - it could be used to complete a CRD (column, row, diagonal).  If the person/group that you want linked in the Conspiracy has been blocked, then you could focus on the CRDs.  If your character isn't as good at the puzzle, it still gives you a chance to jump in and get 4 points from it.  It also forces the players contributing to the Conspiracy to make a similar choice JJ outlined in the OP - do I make this connection and give someone else a shot at completing a CRD, do I complete a CRD myself and risk having my connection blocked, etc?

JJ, I actually think that your VP idea sounds pretty cool, and I'm agreeing with you that it doesn't make much thematic sense, but I do think that it can contribute positively to the gameplay.  Perhaps you could try your variation a couple of times and let us know what kind of a difference it makes on the game?  Perhaps one of the FFG Team could shed some light on why CRDs are in and other ideas (like JJ's) are out?  Perhaps I should go to bed, because I've gotten less than 4 hours of sleep a night for the past 5 nights?  How do I know that I'm not asleep right now and this is all just a dream?

Yep, definitely tired.

alterego2012

While we have only played one game, the row/column/diagonal was the MAJOR component in one players overwhelming victory.  I agree that it does not make thematic sense (other than the investigator becoming obsessed with uncovering the conspiracy).  In the end, I believe it was poor play choices of the rest of us (allowing the player to be in a constant position to complete the rows (along with a bit of luck.)

It was just annoying to see this element be such a dominant factor in the victory of the game (completing a link "feels" better.

It seems to me that the 4 point tiles provide an incentive to complete the conspiracy instead of dead-ending all of the paths. If the conspiracy is completed, then there will also be more victory points scored by all players, which compensates for one player getting the 4 tiles.

Allen Doum said:

Surely that would actually be *more* the case if the 4VP chips were awarded for completing paths between the conspiracy and orgs rather than just getting 5-in-a-row?

Bleached Lizard said:

The point is if you connect a Conspiracy path, you are probably already getting additional VP for that connection (otherwise, why complete that particular path).  You don't need motivation to extend paths.  But if you have no motivation to extend the path, you can get extra points by completeing "tic-tac-toe" which might give other players points since the Cnospiracy ling was established, or won't give them points because you screwed them.

How about the above (or in another thread?) suggestion stating that only 1 of the +4 VP tile can be earned on any given turn?

That seems a fair comprimise...no?

As people may have seen from my other posts, I also do not like the simple +4VP for finishing a row of 5.  It is easy points, granted for doing nothing special.  This is out of balance with the other points.  There are a few suggestions:

1. Only 1 conspiracy token is awarded per turn if any row of 5 is completed.  This fixes the situation with a player easily being able to get 8 or 12VP for doing very little.

2. Make the conspiracy tokens worth less.  I'm now ruling that they are only worth 3, but may even drop this down to 2, since there are plenty of other good things and ways of getting VP from the conspiracy itself.  The free favour / baggage on the back of the puzzle pieces, plus the bonus on the front of the puzzle piece is far superior to placing a random piece of evidence on a suspect that might do absolutely nothing for you

3. Only give conspiracy tokens away to someone who completes a row of 5 as long as they are actually linking up two sides.  I'm not really sure what I mean here, so I'll shut up now.