Blinded by Frankenfood

by Keith Page

Boy, this stuff looks nauseating. I bet if it were poisoned it could cause blindness or even death in large numbers. Gosh!

Illuminati

Group Cards

Plot Cards

I've always thought that the biggest problem with Bermuda's goal was that if you needed an alignment, you needed a specific card to get it, thus loading your deck down with as many as 10 plots of dubious other quality. With Frankenfood, you can pull out any groups you like, within reason, and still hammer a large number of alignments into your puppets at the last minute. Because you need places and Science groups to make this thing work, you can also toss in a few other goals...

Lead

Japan. It's a big group that can slurp up your science groups like candy. It's not the necessary lead in a multiplayer game, so if it bounces you're not in much trouble, except for the fact that your enemy was planning on controlling some of the groups that could give you trouble. Germany is the alternate lead.

General Strategy

Play it cool, and don't let the things that other people do bother you. If someone brings out a place or a Science group that you have in your hand, without question destroy that group with the help of your agent. Use your NWOs to defend against World Hunger, Global Warming, Don't Forget to Smash the State, End of the World, WW3 (sometimes), Gun Control (sometimes), and other nasty effects that no one was counting on. Your goals are obvious to no one, so if you have to, bribe poeple to stay away from your plot hand, and hide your actual goal cards well in deck when you find them. Try to think up excuses for destroying other peoples' Science groups, a good one happens to be the overpowered goal associated with that attribute (Blinded by Science). Use Bermuda's power every turn! Once everyone gets paranoid enough, pick a goal and stick with it.

A note about hiding goals: A good rule of thumb is to stick your goal (24/the number of groups you control) cards away in your deck. If you draw a goal on your opening hand, hide it 12 cards down, but if you have 8 groups, you might need it 3 draws away or less

Bermuda Special Goal

Blow up others' Science groups, or at the very least, make sure you pull your victory bid when less than 6 Science power has actions. Control at least 3 Science groups and at least 2 places. Part of this depends on luck, you have to draw 2 or 3 Frankenfood, and this deck has no good plot manipulation. Also, don't go for Population Reduction first, and then switch to this one, you have hurt yourself too much. At the cusp of victory, Hubble Trouble is handy for cancelling a critical Science action that could go to destroying a Frankenfood. You need several places because sometimes you need to add opposing alignments, which doesn't work. Use your alignment builders for alignments that you don't have, with few exceptions. If Shangri-La is in play, you may wish to Big Prawn Japan Violent, and then either control the CDC or Frankenfood Dino Park Peaceful (hey, pacifist disaster-happy dinos eating gengineered goodness) to keep your Peaceful power low. Last but not least try to unleash your NWOs before you start spreading Frankenfood around, people tend to get upset to the point of digging for plot cancelers when their favorite Illuminated political movement goes south. Grin when you win with Japan Weird Liberal Peaceful Government Fanatic.

Population Reduction

Only Japan is not huge. Since huge places are often popular, many of yours may act as agents. Use with the CDC and BttSM and you are in business. With INWO and Dino Park your Atomic Monsters (that escaped from their shipping crates) reach Chthonic powers, so use them well. Don't expect to win if you Atomic Monster Japan. If WW3 comes out, you could be really hurt, so use an Atomic Monster to at least strip the action token off of a potential Nation. You can win by nuking all of your own huge places, especially with Bermuda's special power, but it will be slow and probably obvious. You can use the Orbital Mind Control Lasers on your opponents Huge Places, kill those Huge Criminals with the FBI, and kill those havens of Liberal thought (not to mention truth and beauty)(sorry) with Newt Gingrich.

Blinded by Science

You normally want to nuke opposing scientists, but be on the lookout if a few Science groups (that are not Computer, the Network can one-up for hostile attacks to control) are looking ripe for the taking. This is, weirdly enough, an outside win, you only have 7 Science groups, and someone else may have to pitch in. Save the Nazis for the end, as that will draw much suspicion in the midgame. This goal is also useful if someone sees it or suspects it enough to attack your structure, as you can discard it to throw people off your tail.

Creepy Card Ideas

Germany
A Conservative Huge Place that gives a bonus to control Scientists and is easier to kill than Australia.
Canada
A very, very good agents card under the right circumstances. Bring it out only if you can prove no Green decks are in the game. The same cautions go for France.
California
Dies nicely. And those Power Rangers make a satisfying ::crunch:: noise when your Atomic Monster steps on them.
Drug Companies
Key agents card, also a Corporate group than isn't disaster- bait (Hawaii), isn't blasphemy-bait (Nuclear Power Companies), and has low resistance in regards to a Japanese attempt at control (Phone Company)
Dinosaur Park
Give Dinosaur Park to Germany, then Germany can defend your entire power structure with it's hopefully large pile of actions
OMCLs
Use to draw attention away from the Big Prawn, which you want to keep alive, if only to keep that place from getting devastated
Deasil Engine
These are for defense against other peoples' engines. It's not so bad if the Lasers bite the dust, but if the Big Prawn goes down, then someone's on to you.
Attitude Mutation
This plot can be used in defense very well, as it can cost nothing to use and it can cause flibberty-gibbert in the enemy ranks when a key group of your is no longer whatever alignment

Problems with the Deck

It has no plot manipulation or hand defense. Some Savings and Loan Scams and Double Crosses could go a long way to keeping your goals safe.

Variants and Substitutions

The cards I picked, I picked out of personal preference. I just thought that Bermuda, Blinded by Science, and Population Reduction can work wonders together, so feel free to play fast and loose with this deck if you like

That's about it, keep it safe, don't try to kill your opponent with your dice, and have a great time at WorldCon!


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First posted: December 28, 1998
Last modified: Mon Aug 24 15:27:41 EDT 1998

Ralph Melton ralph@cs.cmu.edu