u/BoardGameDude69

Like the title says! How often do table politics come up in your games? Does your table carry over grudges? Do players conspire behind the scenes before the game? I know boat-floating & “clean slates” exist and I have my strong opinions on boat-floating but my favorite aspect of the game is the political maneuvering/manipulation.

Share with me some of your political techniques and machinations! I figure this is more relatable to in person games lol

Greetings! Just wanted to pick at y’all’s brains for a second on house ruling Alliances. I’m a huge fan of the OG Dune board games rules/conditions for making an alliance and winning with 2 players. I’d like to incorporate something like that, where certain conditions trigger the ability for 2 players to unite and push for game together without having to do predetermined teams and making it a choice. So far I have the following:

- keeping the 14/10 to win as well as any other mechanical aspect ie cohabitating, no washing trade goods, no promissory exchanging, etc

- a galaxy changing event would have to happen to make or break an alliance (like Dune’s system). I have a few of these in mind: planet destruction, mecatol exchanging ownership, Fracture appearing, etc

- only 2 people in a “team/alliance/union/federation” (I’m still workshopping the name so it’s not an alliance so it doesn’t confuse anyone on promissory notes, etc)

Regular alliance mode just splits the map into 2 game states and cuts the number of potential allies, trade partners, etc in half which takes away from the fun of the game. This would allow players (my table loves allying together) the opportunity to push for game while not forcing the whole table into pairs. My only concern is if anyone breaks an alliance if there should be a penalty to stop someone from breaking for game? If y’all see any issues with a system like this, lmk! Would love any and all feedback!

We play in person 5-8 man games about once a month with PoK only atm but will be adding TE soon!

Share some of your epic game moments here! Would love to hear some epic stories of diplomacy or battles!