Oligarchy Update.

A while back we held our first Oligarchy event which was sealed and then we followed that up with a constructed event at a Gambit Sunday. During that event there were some great games and Will has been looking at the results which he posted on FB...

"After today's Oligarchy games, we discussed developing some future events aiming to encourage play as well as developing the narrative / storyline. I recorded today's results and it was clear that the dominant factions were Crime and Illuminati, with Government and Media showing poorly (as much due to my poor deck building as anything else) no Religious faction played at all, and the other three in the middle.

The objective of future events is to develop the rich storyline potential of the year 2080 through the results of pre-constructed tournaments which themselves have faction specific goals based on previous tournaments. Faction and Player ranking / tables will run in parallel.

The ideas I have for the mechanics of the tournaments at the moment are below, and we can add flavour (storyline) if we can agree these.
• Games are one-offs not best of three - aim for all players to play each other (possible up to 7) but swiss if 8 or more.
• Try to get three or four more mini-tournaments during the year (may be able to run something at Conquest?)
• Players earn Player Rank Points by entering a mini-tournament (+1), winning the mini tournament (+2), or coming second (+1) so first gets 3, 2nd gets 2, everyone else gets 1.
• Each player plays with a Dominant Faction deck. Dominant Faction deck must have minimum 50% of non-IP/AP in one faction (the Dominant Faction). The Dominant Faction of each players deck is revealed at start of tournament
• Factions earn Faction Rank Points for each win

Initial Faction Specific goals are based on today’s results:
• Strong: Crime / Illuminati
• Weak: Government / Media
• In the middle: Military / Corporate / Eco
• No show: Religious

As Government and Media showed poorly and Crime / Illuminati scored well the goals are designed to promote the battle between these factions (the former targeting the latter) by offering the opportunity to earn extra Player Points. Military / Corporate / Eco will earn the Player no additional points but will have a bonus available each round. Religion, having not shown up for the fight, have a bonus and a drawback.

For the next tournament Faction Dominant decks have these goals / benefits:
• Government and Media: Any win against Crime or Illuminati will earn the player +2 Player Ranking Points
• Crime and Illuminati: Any win against Government or Media will earn the player +1 Player Ranking Point
• Eco: starts each game with 1AP and 1IP (not cards, just the IP/AP)
• Military: First Character deployed enters with +1 Power Base
• Corporate: After taking their starting hand (i.e. after deciding not to mulligan, or after mulligan taken) player draws two extra cards (starts with ten cards)
• Religion: Each win (against any deck) will earn the player +1 Player Ranking Points; each loss will earn the player -1 Player Ranking Points

The subsequent set of Faction Specific goals can be based on the reletive performance of each faction and on how the goals / benefits worked (or not)

We could add today’s results to the Player Rack Points table (thanks to all that took part) or not (so new people joining are not disadvantaged)

Any thoughts?"