Has anyone played this? What's the learning curve like? I have only played simpler games like Ticket to Ride and Wingspan
>>93245644I played it... god, 15 years ago now. I know it was out of print for a long time, I know the version that had booster packs was hard to find and expensive, the "one with everything" set goes for a fair amount of money.Anyway, I remember it being a pain in the ass to play, I loved the idea but it suffered from the "open endgame" problem where everyone has to direct more resources at blocking others' wins than they do at trying for their own win. Honestly, that is its main problem. Like many games that don't have a strict limit, you have fun up until the game is 80% done, then it becomes a game of draining everyone's resources until nobody has a dick-on-you card left and hoping it happens at a point where you're positioned to win.I lent my copy to someone in 2010 and never saw it again, and didn't care to replace it, even though in 2005 I snorted the entire Illuminatus! trilogy on a trip to germany and loved it.Learning curve ain't too hard, individual cards fucking with the rules is where you'll trip up. Finally, all the political references are now 20+ years out of date, which means thata) you may not get some of themb) the conspiracies may seem remarkably tame compared to what you've seen emerge in the last eight years of western politics
>>93246229Good insight, thank you. It sounds like the problem the game faces could be resolved by a time or turn limit
>>93246720A time limit or turn limit might work, I think more time than turn since it's easier to track. There's not any sort of turn tracking native to the game.I think I saw a port of this come out on steam recently and it got shit reviews because the interface sucks.>one search laterYeah, it's over 20 bucks and he interface is shit, plus half the fun of the game is the verbal shitposting. It's a game you want to cultivate an atmosphere for, not a game where you just want to autistically enginewank. It unironically looks like the best way to play it digitally will just be to import it into tabletop simulator.Also, they've "updated" all the art for the modern day, which of course means it'll be largely toothless compared to how it was in 1994.
>>93245644Yeah I used to play it all the time in the early 90s with my brother and friends at the local comic shop.>>93246229That's not the same game as OP posted. The game you're posting came out later. It reused a lot, but was a completely different game.After illuminati came out, but before the CCG remake of illuminati came out, they published pic-related, which is way better than either of illuminati games. It follows a similar structure to the original illuminati but was a lot more fun.
>>93245644>>93246967Oh sorry: to answer your OP question: the learning curve is easy. Twenty minutes to learn the rules and be playing, max. It's not a terribly complex game.
>>93246815Nah in the original game (the one OP posted), victory conditions are different per faction and have global conditions as well. They're pretty easy to hit and games don't last that long. Especially for the Gnomes of Zurich.
