Illuminati ®

An old page, with a couple of ideas about the older game.

I haven't played the newer game (INWO) too much yet, so no great insights or ideas there, but there are plenty at the sjg. In the older game (Deluxe Edition) we created and playtested a new group and a new Illuminati. The group is mostly for fun and weirdness, the Illuminati actually adds an interesting dynamic to the game.

Illuminati: The Babbage Society

If you arrange the Illuminati on a grid with the two axes being Money and Power, you will notice a rather large gap around Bavaria. Of course, you knew this intuitively since they always won. Anyway. Using the group envisioned by Michael Flynn in his novel Country of the Blind, we created a group called the Babbage Society.

The legend

Briefly: the Babbage Society has perfected what Asimov called psychohistory: a mathematical way of forecasting the future. They use this to influence the events of the world towards their own elusive ends, and strive to preserve their own existence. And they've been doing this since Charles Babbage's time! (mid-19th Century).

Our implementation:
POWER: 7/7
INCOME: 10
GOAL: collect 40 points of resistance
SPECIAL POWER: turn over three cards at the beginning of their turn, choose the one they want, and put the others back in the order they choose.
Actually, I'm considering lowering their power and giving them the ability to "dissolve" several points, or a percentage, of resistance instead. This idea makes more sense, but has not yet been playtested..

Playing Babbage

Collecting groups with high resistance is of course difficult, but rewarding. Babbage's power is not great (but on new system would effectively be so for taking over uncontrolleds), but the special power is a key advantage. The ability to look ahead means Babbage can arrange to get more special cards or, should they desire, feed them to allies (which is easier). They can strongly influence when a group turns up or, in some games, prevent a group from ever surfacing! How the power is used depends on whether the uncontrolled groups are drawn from one or two decks. Babbage is much stronger if only one deck is used, and this variant should be tried, but probably not unless there are 5 to 7 players (else this ability is severely unbalancing).

Two decks allows some intrigue. Did you put the good card on top? Or not? You should realize that this information (and action) can be very valuable, probably even worth megabucks or favors.

Your nemesis is Network, whose special power can negate your own advantage, depending on when they play, and how the other players use them. You should make deals with others that make it advantageous for them to allow you to exercise your power unconstrained. Network can turn over two, but you can arrange things so certain people get certain cards (if Network doesn't follow you immediately), which is bad.

Of course, you could always ally with Network!

Group: Psi-Phi

Created because we wanted our SF/Fantasy group at U.Va. to be a bigger part of the game. Main points: Psi Phi can be controlled by two Illuminati simultaneously, or one twice! (Trust me, this actually work,s and makes for interesting games!)

Here's a schematic of the card: Two incoming arrows, and two outgoing arrows.

                 +--------^--------+
                 |                 |
                 >                 >
                 |                 |
                 +--------^--------+

Stats

POWER: 2.5 (two on the turn it was taken, 3 the next, etc.)
RESISTANCE: 5 (or so we liked to believe) INCOME: 1d6 - 2 (depending on whether the movie did well that year)
ALIGNMENTS: weird, and your choice of liberal or conservative; we were never really sure ourselves

Playing the card

If you consider Psi Phi to be two groups on one card there should be no conceptual difficulties. The first takeover proceeds as normal. Group is put in power structure. The second takeover also works just the same, but tokens are needed to keep track of the controlling group, and the appropriate in-arrow. Note, the power of the group is relative to the phase in which it was taken, so unless both arrows of Psi Phi were taken on the same turn, the different controllers have groups with different power.

Likewise, income happens twice if the group is controlled twice. Income is random in both phases.

Favorite technique: Attack Psi Phi to control. Then use Psi Phi to take the other part of Psi Phi. This closes things off neatly and almost guarantees your second attack. It is a safer arrangement than some, but if someone takes the "first" Psi Phi from you, they will get two incomes and two groups.

Psi Phi, you will note, is a perfect card for joint victory conditions. It also can be a sneaky way to up the number of groups you control (controlled twice, it counts as two groups).

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