This is a history of Don Fnordlioni's Play-by-email game, played from November 5, 1996, to October 26, 1997, as seen from the perspective of Ralph Melton, who was playing Shangri-La. Before the Beginning: Deck Design In one of my earliest messages about this game, I wrote, "I'm playing for the benefit of an audience, here. (Or at least, I think I am.) I want my audience to say 'Cool! I didn't think of that!' I want to make this game full of enlightening and cunning Weird Shit." The theme of my deck was "The Best Offense is a Good Defense." (It's not necessarily true, but it sounds good. And in this case, it worked.) The purpose of this deck was three-fold: 1. To be very defensive myself. 2. To incite others to attack each other. 3. To be able to sell my services to people attacking each other. By doing this, I hoped that I could grow with a slow, steady progress, while everyone else kept each other down with attacks on each other, and I profited from every deal. As I've phrased this principle at times, "The person who profits most from a war is the arms dealer." Some of the elements of this strategy were as follows: Defender: Shangri-La's special ability fit directly into the principle of strong personal defense. The Vatican and the Goldfish Fanciers also fit into that defensive theme. Inciter of violence: NWO: Australian Rules, of course. NWO: Fear and Loathing would also heat up the game. Beyond that, the biggest way I could heat up the game would be to be an available arms dealer. Arms Dealer: If I could get NWO: Australian Rules in play, then I could use the Spear of Longinus to aid any attack to destroy for free, and draw a Plot for doing so. NWO: Australian Rules would also heat up the game, by getting other players to attack each other. I also had a theme of alignment meddling, with the Orbital Mind Control Lasers, the Pollsters, and NWO: Fear and Loathing. If I could get these into my control, then there would be a lot of alignment bonuses in play, and I could sell my services with the OMCLs and the Pollsters to swing those bonuses. (If there is one +8 from a common alignment due to the NWO: Fear and Loathing, then the Pollsters could affect the roll by 10 with just one token, and the OMCLs could reverse an alignment to affect the roll by 16 by changing the bonus from a +8 to a -8. Pretty cool.) The Nuclear Power Companies were also included for their arms-dealing uses; when people are mixing it up, it's very likely that someone will do something that another player would like to be cancelled. I also included three Sorry, Wrong Number Zaps, intending to use them to set up other player's attacks. The plot control provided by the Rosicrucians would let me get the right Plot when I needed to. I planned to win with a sudden Shangri-La victory with the Orbital Mind Control Lasers and a Kinder and Gentler or two, powered by Shangri-La actions (for which I had the Perpetual Motion Machine). I had about 20 points of Peaceful power in the Groups deck, with only the more powerful or more useful Peaceful cards; to win, I'd have to use cards to generate more power. (When I first sent the deck to Don Fnordlioni, I said in my commentary, "This deck doesn't stand a chance of winning by the Basic Goal." Well, we all surprise ourselves...) I conspired with Daniel on deck design before the game began. I don't feel ashamed of this, because our pre-game conspiring didn't pay off in the game at all. We had conspired to try to achieve a Fratricide together, with me playing with lots of ways to assist attacks to keep Power Structures small, and him playing Cthulhu to deliver the coup de grace. (That Fratricide plan didn't work at all.) One specific collusion we arranged was for him to have Stonehenge, since I was planning to have the Spear of Longinus; I could use the Spear to protect him from attacks to destroy. (This gambit did become real--but only in the endgame, when *I* had Stonehenge and *he* had the Spear of Longinus.) Daniel decided to play a Cthulhu deck with a side theme of Magic, and included a gambit of Unmasking as he Adepts of Hermes. (When he first mentioned to me that he would include an Unmasked! in his deck, I thought that he meant to unmask as Shangri-La). These are my impressions of the other decks people were playing: Sam Lindsay-Levine played a somewhat weak and group-laden Bavaria deck. (I eventually found a version of his deck, with some differences, in the archives of the inwo-digest.) DeltaS may have been playing a Network information-broker deck, akin to Dan Myers' "God Knows, We Can Find Out" deck. James Eddleman seems to have been playing a slow-growing Gnomes of Zurich deck, with a focus on slowing the whole game to his pace. Robert Dubisch (Rob the Radii) appears to have been playing a Discordian version of a Green deck. Beginning: Starting the Game I had a bit of uncertainty about what to choose as my lead puppet. I tried to make a deal with DeltaS to let her lead Japan, which would help me towards victory; that deal didn't work out. I considered leading the Nuclear Power Companies, the Rosicrucians, or the Vatican. I ended up leading the NPCs, because I suspected that James might have them, and I'd rather that they bounced. This may not have been a wise choice, because I ended up feeling that the NPCs were very vulnerable to Discordia's Green deck and to Zurich's CFL-AIO. On the other hand, the did give me bargaining power, and they never actually got attacked, so perhaps it was well done. First Round On Cthulhu's turn, he ATOed the Rosicrucians, took over Texas, and brought out the Book of Kells. The ATO of the Rosicrucians disappointed me a bit; I'd been hoping to ATO them myself, and I felt that they were important to my success. Bavaria brought out the Perpetual Motion Machine, which was another disappointment for me; I'd been planning to get it myself, since an extra Illuminati action would be a big help for powering Sorry, Wrong Numbers and Kinder and Gentlers. I seriously considered playing my Forgery on the Pepetual Motion Machine. Early on, I tried to start the deal-making with a public message about the Nuclear Power Companies, stating my own interest in deal-making and suggesting that I'd use the NPCs as a bargaining chip. This didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped; Bavaria made remarks about deals being made to be broken and solicited a bribe, and Discordia said 'I have a card in my hand that I know you wouldn't like.' I also sent specific messages of greetings and potential deals to Zurich, to Discordia, and to the Network. The message to Zurich achieved a satisfactory cease-fire in which I promised not to raise the hue and cry against him. From Discordia, I learned that Discordia would "deal with the Perpetual Motion Machine" in return for amnesty towards the Orbital Mind Control Lasers. On the Network's turn, I tried to raise paranoia about the Bavarian Illuminati with a message to everyone else about the possibility of a quick Bavaria win. I later learned that Bavaria wasn't nearly so much of a threat, but raising them as a specter helped me anyway; On my turn, I made an automatic takeover of the Vatican, took action tokens, and knocked; I didn't have enough power to make another attack, and I didn't want to forge the Perpetual Motion Machine until I knew what Discordia had in mind. Towards the end of the first round, Bavaria extended a tentacle of alliance to me; I tried to deal with this carefully in such a way as to establish an alliance without promising that I would refrain from winning without him. This alliance with Bavaria turned out to be enormously rewarding to me. On Discordia's turn, he took the Orbital Mind Control Lasers and played a Deasil Engine on Bavaria's Perpetual Motion Machine. I attempted to slap down my Cover of Darkness to get the PMM for myself. First, though, Bavaria played a Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know on the PMM. I decided not to cancel Bavaria's Secrets, since I didn't want to anger Bavaria--but then, Discordia offered to play a Hoax on the Secrets if I would promise not to forge or destroy the Orbital Mind Control Lasers. After getting assurance from Cthulhu and Bavaria that they would be willing to Forge the OMCLs for me, I agreed to Discordia's deal. I played my Cover of Darkness to get the Perpetual Motion Machine for myself. (Discordia discarded a Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know to power the Hoax, which meant either that Discordia had gotten unlucky, or that he had a lot of plot-cancellers in his deck. Since he never played another Plot-canceller, I think he got unlucky.) Second Round From my point of view, the most significant events of the second round were all related to attacks between players. First, the Servants of Cthulhu played an Atomic Monster on Discordia's California. I negotiated with Discordia about letting them have the Red Cross or about using my Secrets to cancel the Disaster, but we didn't come to an agreement; he wanted more from me than I was willing to give, and vice versa. On the flip side, I mentioned to Bavaria the possibility that he might trade his Bribery to the Servants of Cthulhu, and this did come to pass. Cthulhu rolled a roll that induced him to use the Bribery, and I was then able to make a good deal with Discordia: I used the Nuclear Power Companies to cancel the Bribery in exchange for Discordia's giving me his Nuclear Accident and a promise of amnesty to the Nuclear Power Companies, and we discussed exchanging the Red Cross for the Orbital Mind Control Lasers--until Cthulhu made a deal with the Network, offering a turn of amnesty to them in exchange for their use of a Computer Virus to change the roll back down to a destroying roll. The second major event of the turn was Bavaria attacking to control New York (which controlled Stonehenge). As I look back on my saved messages, I realize that I actually incited this attack by whispering to Bavaria about how powerful Cthulhu was. This makes me feel a bit sheepish for not adhering well to my alliance to Cthulhu. Bavaria had a 4 or less to take over New York. He asked all of us for help in trimming Cthulhu down to size. I replied with an explanation that yes, it was important to bring Cthulhu down to size, but a successful attack would put Bavaria in a commanding position. Bavaria replied, "If you want, I could give you New York or something if you thought this would be too much; we just need to take Cthulhu down a notch." This was simply too good a deal to pass up. I asked the Network to give me amnesty for her turn, and spent my Shangri-La token to aid the attack, so that I could accept New York with the Vatican. Honestly, I think Bavaria gave me too much here; this meant that they had spent all their action tokens to no point, and put me substantially closer to victory. But from my point of view, it was an utter blessing. The Network's turn and my turn passed without significant incident. The Network told me what Plots she saw when she looked at Bavaria's deck, and this turned out to be useful to me later. She also managed to make an attack that brought her up to 70% of victory conditions. On my turn, I ATO'ed the Supreme Court, moved New York to a better position, and drew a Group card, since I didn't have anything I could effectively take over in my hand. I drew my Orbital Mind Control Lasers card, which made me start to think about how to get another player to Forge the Orbital Mind Control Lasers for me. I had been trying to incite the Gnomes of Zurich to attack Bavaria's I.R.S.; I changed my focus to try to incite Zurich to attack the Network, and to try to incite Bavaria to forge the Orbital Mind Control Lasers and use them to attack the Network. The Gnomes did take away the Phone Phreaks from the Network, with the help of Discordia and me, and then gave the Phone Phreaks to Discordia, to look like less of a threat. In exchange, the Gnomes asked for defensive help from me; I agreed, but with an attempt at a threat that was almost comically unsuccessful. I had seen plenty of examples of threats going wrong, because people were upset about being threatened; I wanted to make my threat mildly enough that it didn't provoke Zurich. So, I pretended to screw up by not editing the 'To' headers on a reply to a message of Zurich's, so that I sent to Zurich a message apparently intended for Don Fnordlioni only, saying "if Zurich attacks me, I'll defend him with Stonehenge, so that W.I.T.C.H. is more effective against him." I wanted to show Don Fnordlioni what I was doing, but I couldn't let the message headers show Don Fnordlioni's name, so I BCC'ed Don Fnordlioni on that message. I then sent a message to Don Fnordlioni explaining the scheme, and a message to Zurich apologizing for my "error". This plan backfired, though: Don Fnordlioni responded to my apologetic message to Zurich (before he'd seen my explanation), saying in jest, "Very clever, Ralph, "accidentally" slipping up and letting James know how you would make him pay for double-crossing you. hehe." I didn't realize that Don Fnordlioni had been joking, and so I got huffy about Don Fnordlioni revealing my plans--thereby revealing my plans myself. To top it all off: James received my second apologetic message *before* he received my first 'accidental' message, so he offered not to read the message I'd gone to such lengths to leak to him. It was *quite* a comedy of errors. This attack also let me get NWO: Fear and Loathing into play, to heat up the action. When I played it, I sent messages to Discordia, Cthulhu, and Bavaria, explaining how to this was for their benefit as well. It suited me well for Discordia to have the Phone Phreaks; I figured that would help keep a lid on the Network, since the Network would have a lot of Computer Groups, so they would have to either save action tokens for defense or be attacked by Discordia, with the large bonus conferred by the Phone Phreaks. (The same sort of logic was behind my encouraging Bavaria to take over the Federal Reserve, with its bonuses to control Banks, from the Gnomes of Zurich.) Discordia went on to use those bonuses to take over the Network's International Weather Organization. Third Round Cthulhu then had a boring turn, only taking over Count Dracula and the Necronomicon. On Bavaria's turn, I tried to guide him to make a Privileged attack Zurich's Federal Reserve. I wasn't successful, though; he made a non-Privileged attack on Texas with Bill Clinton, instead. I think that part of the reason was that he didn't want to do everything I said. I didn't want to help; I figured that'd put Bavaria a bit too far ahead, and that would make things unstable. But Texas was ridiculously well-defended, so I didn't feel a need to get involved. I considered the option that Bavaria might be trying to make a cunning feint, but I didn't consider it likely. After Bavaria added the C.I.A., I did cancel Bill Clinton's action, with a mealy-mouthed explanation to Bavaria that this was really for his own good, since it restored the C.I.A.'s action to him. This didn't completely work; Bavaria tried to sway me with promises--and I didn't feel it would really work for me to tell him, "No, I'm planning for you to stay balanced against the other players." It was about this time that I found a version of Bavaria's deck in the inwo-digest archives. This turned out not to be as useful to me as I'd thought it might be. Perhaps if it had showed a cunning and unexpected trick, it would have been more helpful. The Network just ATO'ed the Cattle Multilators and knocked. Maybe she was conscious of the risk of taking over a Computer Group with Discordia's bonus. At the beginning of my turn, I was going to have to get rid of Plots, and I was unlikely to be able to use the Nuclear Accident myself, because the only Violent places in play were in the hands of my allies. So I offered it to Discordia and to Cthulhu, with provisos about not using it against me and that it be used immediately, before I got action tokens, so it wouldn't remove tokens from the Nuclear Power Companies, to see if I could get any benefit from it. Cthulhu expressed an interest in it, though he didn't have much to give me, and Discordia did not reply; so I ended up giving it to Cthulhu . I drew useful cards that turn: a Hoax!, the Angel's Feather (which would strengthen my defensive armor-plating), a Pizza For the Secret Meeting, and a Good Polls. I offered the Pizza for the Secret Meeting to Bavaria (suggesting that it could be used to take the Network's N.S.A.) in exchange for him using his Suicide Squad to destroy Discordia's Orbital Mind Control Lasers. My purpose was twofold: getting rid of the OMCLs would let me use my Forgery to bring out the OMCLs of my own, and getting rid of the Suicide Squad would put my Resources (including my planned-for OMCLs) at lower risk. I made arrangements with Cthulhu to use W.I.T.C.H. to ensure that both the OMCLs and the Suicide Squad were destroyed by Bavaria's venture. It was during the negotiations with Cthulhu about the Nuclear Accident that I first seriously voiced the idea of giving him two resources for a group for a mutually beneficial win. (I see now that I'd mentioned it when I first found that he had an Unmasked!/Adepts combo in his deck, back in November--but I'd forgotten about that by April.) At about this time, the Network left the game. This meant that the only group that could be affected by the Pizza For the Secret Meeting was the Rosicrucians. I didn't mention this to Bavaria, and he was still willing to go through with the Pizza deal. (And I believe he did have a N.S.A. in his deck, so perhaps it was a good idea for him after all.) His Suicide Squad attack had the effect I wanted of destroying both the OMCLs and the Suicide Squad, without even involving W.I.T.C.H. Cthulhu and I started dealing in earnest; we agreed to a complex scheme in which I gave him the Nuclear Accident (contingent on him not using it in a way that would harm me), he would Forge the OMCLs for me on his next turn, I'd take over two Magic Resources, and we'd trade two Magic Resources for a Group. For the body of my turn, then, I ATO'ed the Pollsters (I didn't feel that I'd need the Red Cross or the Moonies, and the Pollsters could be particularly useful with the Moonies in play), brought out the Spear of Longinus, and knocked. To get rid of a Plot, I gave the Forgery to Cthulhu, who got rid of a Plot by Car Bombing Bavaria's Bill Clinton--but this didn't quite work as planned, because Cthulhu drew a plot for the Car Bomb. At the same time, it occurred to me that a Privileged Attack could be very handy for the endgame ploy that I was planning with Cthulhu--so I asked him if he had a Privileged Attack in his deck, not expecting him to have one. As it turned out, he did. Our plans had crystallized enough that Cthulhu used the Rosicrucians to draw an Unmasked! for killing Bill Clinton, and discarded his Combined Disasters. When the Gnomes began their turn, I got panicky--they were effectively at 8 groups towards victory with their ATO, and they could make several highly effective attacks to control Banks. I tried to drum up public support against the Gnomes; one of the ways I tried to do so was offering to Bavaria to play the Sabotage that I knew Bavaria had. (Bavaria accepted the deal, and gave me the Sabotage.) At the same time, I asked Zurich what his plans were; he reassured me that he was planning just to take action tokens and knock. So my panic went down, and I gave the Sabotage back to Bavaria. Bavaria, though, was sufficiently inspired by my paranoia (or sufficiently concerned by the prospects of the defense the Lawyers would provide against him), that he played the Sabotage himself. I sent a message to Zurich explaining my role; this inclined Zurich to talk to me about cancelling the Sabotage. He was hoping at first for me to use the Nuclear Power Companies; I argued that I needed to save the NPCs to prevent Bavaria from taking over a Clipper Chip. Zurich was eager enough for an ATO that he agreed to give me a Hoax! and a Hubble Trouble to burn to power it, and to Forge the Orbital Mind Control Lasers for me, in exchange for me playing the Hoax. This was an excellent deal--the Orbital Mind Control Lasers were very nice, but the chance to get a Hoax out of his hand was as useful or more so. (I didn't think this was that important at the time; I thought it was just gravy. In retrospect, if I hadn't had the OMCLs to help the attack on Zurich and to deflect the Deasil Engine from the Perpetual Motion Machine, or if he'd had one more plot-canceller, I would probably not have won. So that was more key to my success than I realized.) On Discordia's turn, they ATO'ed the Comic Books and asked me if they'd get flack from me if they tried to take over another group. I wouldn't have given them flack, but I agreed that I would use the Orbital Mind Control Lasers to help them take over the CFL-AIO from Zurich. Discordia, Bavaria, and I began on a plan to take away the CFL-AIO--which got canceled when we realized that Bavaria shouldn't actually have had an action on his Illuminati. The net effect of this was that Zurich got more paranoid, and Discordia didn't actually act to take over another group. Fourth Round By the time the fourth round began, Cthulhu and I had a solid plan. We had a laundry list of things to do, including protecting ourselves until my turn came around, and setting ourselves up for our shared victory. As per plan, I gave Cthulhu a Good Polls and the Red Cross, to boost his defense until my turn; in exchange, he gave me the Privileged Attack to use on my turn, and the Truck Bomb, which I was to try to get Bavaria to use on Zurich. Zurich tried to play a NWO: The Magic Goes Away to block Cthulhu--this would have put a major kink in our plans for three reasons: 1) We needed automatic takeovers to get to our planned victory; 2) it would have taken away the action tokens from the Rosicrucians, preventing Cthulhu from drawing the necessary Plots, and 3) it would have prevented us from protecting me from Disasters, by having Cthulhu aid them with the Spear of Longinus to make them magi, to which I was immune from having Stonehenge. Ctulhu won the speedplay roll, and made his ATO--but from then on, I was aware that I might have to cancel the play of the NWO: The Magic Goes Away. I tried to do this by negotiating for a Red NWO with Discordia and Bavaria--to no avail. I also wrote to Zurich about the NWO: The Magic Goes Away. I put my foot in my mouth and said that I felt threatened by it--forgetting that I had just threatened him with an attack on Discordia's turn. Oops. Cthulhu then bought the Death Mask as per our plans and knocked. At the beginning of Bavaria's turn, Cthulhu played an Unlucky 13 on him, because we knew through the Network's long-ago use of the N.S.A. that Bavaria's top Plot card was a The Weak Link, which could be used to destroy one of Cthulhu's resources and therefore thwart his victory. We also had hopes of coaxing Bavaria to use enough of his action tokens in an attack from hand that he wouldn't be able to draw the Weak Link to thwart us. Bavaria, on his turn, had no groups to ATO--persumably, all of the groups in his hand were in play already. He ATO'ed a Resource instead, the Crystal Skull. This was good for our plan of stripping him of action tokens; it meant that he would have two tokens after the Truck Bomb, and we could strip another away with the Nuclear Accident--so we could get him down to one action token, so he couldn't draw The Weak Link. I did persuade Bavaria to use the Truck Bomb on the CFL-AIO, with my help with the Orbital Mind Control Lasers. (I had an ulterior motive in directing Bavaria against the CFL-AIO; the CFL-AIO could mount a stiff attack to destroy my Nuclear Power Companies, with a +10 bonus and the Fear and Loathing.) The Truck Bomb apparently caught Zurich by surprise; he had a Deasil Engine in his hand, but didn't use it on the OMCLs before the Truck Bomb hit. (Bavaria also wanted help in taking over the Federal Reserve on a later turn. I was very amenable to the idea, but I wasn't planning on there being another turn for him to do so, so I had to choose my words of assent very carefully.) After the Truck Bomb, Zurich returned the NWO: The Magic Goes Away to his deck. He explained later that "he didn't want it taken and used against him." Presumably, he now felt that he was far enough from victory that he could no longer afford it being played. On my turn, Zurich played a Deasil Engine on my Orbital Mind Control Lasers. I breathed a sigh of relief; I didn't need the Orbital Mind Control Lasers, and I *did* need the Perpetual Motion Machine. So I didn't cancel the Deasil Engine. I did, though, respond to Zurich, trying hard to project an attitude of stoically accepting a great comeuppance, to make him feel that he'd really dealt me a blow. Zurich said, "Rest assured the Gnomes' thirst for vengeance has been quenced in relation to our, normally, peacful neighbors. The Bavarians are a different story. Have anything useful for them?" I offered them the Sorry, Wrong Number I had just drawn, and I offered to try to coax Cthulhu to play the Nuclear Accident on the Pentagon--which was already part of our plans. Zurich expressed a mild interest, but didn't make an offer--and I realized that if I didn't get something from Zurich in exchange for getting Cthulhu to play the Disaster, then it would be clear to Zurich that the Nuclear Accident was serving our own ends, even if it couldn't destroy the Pentagon. So I wrote a message to Zurich, saying 'I'll go ahead and do it, but I still want a minor favor from you in exchange', so that if he didn't give me anything, it would look like I had misjudged whether I would get anything from him, instead of looking like I had ulterior motives. As it turned out, he did give me a minor favor: he told me that the card he'd returned to his deck was the NWO: The Magic Goes Away, which allowed me to relax about that. The Nuclear Accident actually was successful at Devastating the Pentagon, which was an extra bonus. It allowed me to later make a deal of bringing Relief to the Pentagon in exchange for Bavaria's NWO: Fear and Loathing. According to our plan, Cthulhu drew his Unmasked!, and I brought out the Spear of Longinus. I then used the Privileged Attack Cthulhu had given me to take over the Moonies. I led from the Vatican, since that had the Angel's feather linked to it to let me reroll a failed attack, and I couldn't relink the Feather and then give it to Cthulhu. I aided with the other Shangri-La action token, to power the Privileged attack, and with stonehenge, so that W.I.T.C.H. could change the roll by 2 if necessary. This, I think was the *most* secure attack I've ever made. A coincidental post by Aaron Curtis on the INWO list revealed a fly in the ointment, though; I couldn't use the Angel's Feather, and then give it away that turn. We quickly made contingency plans--Daniel would use W.I.T.C.H. first, if necessary, and then I'd use the Angel's Feather only if necessary, and our shared victory would be delayed since I couldn't give him the Angel's Feather. All this preparation turned out to be redundant; I succeeded in my attack, and no one meddled with the roll. Everything up until the declaration of victory proceeded as planned. Cthulhu unmasked as the Adepts. We traded my two Magic Resources for his Red Cross. (There was some debate about whether the-Illuminati-formerly-known-as-Cthulhu could hold the Angel's Feather without any Peaceful groups; this was answered in the affirmative by Steve Jackson.) I then used the Red Cross to give Relief to the Pentagon in exchange for Bavaria's NWO: Fear and Loathing. The reason I wanted the NWO: Fear and Loathing was to be able to counter a NWO: Interesting Times if it were played. I then exposed my two Sorry, Wrong Number plots, the NWO: Fear and Loathing, and my Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know (but not my Hoax!). My logic was twofold: 1) I knew that there were no Plots that would let them take exposed Plots from me, and 2) Seeing my defensive potential might dismay them into not trying to thwart me, and if they attacked anyway, they'd be planning to fake me out to draw my obvious cancelling abilities--and then I could do a counter-fakeout with my still-hidden Hoax. I offered Zurich the Sorry, Wrong Number that we'd discussed earlier. The first motivation was to stick with my polite, deal-making persona, even though I figured that he wouldn't want it. I then realized that since the-Illuminati-formerly-known-as-Cthulhu could immunize me against Disasters with the Spear of Longinus/Stonehenge combo, it would be in my best interest for Zurich to play the Sorry, Wrong Number on me, since it would prevent him from using that Illuminati action for other purposes. The problem, though, was that I couldn't very well tell Zurich "Sure, go ahead and play the Sorry, Wrong Number on me; I don't mind"--if he knew I didn't mind, he wouldn't play it. So I tried to insinuate the idea of playing the Sorry, Wrong Number on me into Zurich's mind, so that he would think that he was double-crossing me by playing it on me. I did this by offering him the Sorry, Wrong Number, deliberately not making any restrictions that it be played on me (though I couldn't highlight the fact that I was making such restrictions), and saying 'if you promise not to play any Disasters on me'--an easy promise for Zurich, because if he had any Disasters, he would give them to Discordia, who had a better attack with Disasters. This insinuation didn't work, though--Zurich replied "But what would it matter?" and I couldn't answer him, either with the answer of how it would seem to do him good, or the real answer of how it would help me. Our victory appeared to have been confirmed at the end of July--and then Zurich drew a Plot, which I figure must have been a Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know. And then nothing happened for more than a *month*. (except for Discordia using the Phone Phreaks to move the Supreme Court after three weeks, and Zurich giving Discordia a Plot. It seemed irrelevant to me, but I was happy that the Phone Phreaks' action had gone away.) At the end of August, Discordia and Zurich tried to come to an arrangement with me; they could thwart me, they felt, but they couldn't thwart me *and* thwart the-Illuminati-formerly-known-as-Cthulhu. So they were urging me to go along gently, so that both I and tIFKaC could be thwarted. This was very good negotiation on their part--they did very well to try this approach. I, of course, wasn't willing to accept that blindly; I said that I wouldn't consider their proposition unless they showed me the cards they planned to use. Thus, I learned what they had in store for me: a Crackdown on Crime to be played on New York, an Are We Having Fun Yet that could cancel the Nuclear Power Companies, and a plot-canceller (which I believe to be Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know, otherwise Zurich wouldn't be able to play it.) Their plan for thwarting the Adepts was to use the Are We Having Fun Yet?--I had forgotten about Bavaria's Sniper, so I thought they meant to use the AWHFY? to cancel the Adepts' special ability. I thought things out very carefully, and concluded that the Hoax! I had in reserve would let me defy all the cards of theirs that I knew about (though it would leave me completely dry of action tokens, and I'd have to use my Martyrs to power the Hoax!). So I wanted to get them to go ahead and follow that plan--instead of coming up with another possibility that I might not be able to thwart. I drew a useless plot with the action tokens from New York and the Pollsters, since I'd concluded that they wouldn't be used in any of the possible things I might do. I then claimed that their plan to thwart the Adepts wouldn't work. Discordia responded by pointing out that their plan was to use the AWHFY? to allow Bavaria's Sniper to be played on Count Dracula--that was an 'oops' on my part, and I apologized. I responded with the much weaker claims of "still, that's only a 4 or less to thwart the Adepts, and anyway, at least the game will be OVER after a month and a half of delay." Not so lucky, though. There followed two weeks of delay while Don Fnordlioni's life turned topsy-turvy; finally he told me the plot that I'd drawn. Then I waited another two weeks for something to happen. Sigh... Finally, things began to move again. Zurich played the Crackdown on Crime; I cancelled it with the Nuclear Power Companies, in order to force them to use the Are We Having Fun Yet. Discordia played the Are We Having Fun Yet, as I expected; I riposted with my exposed Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know. (I could have played the Hoax! instead--the outcome would have been the same--but I decided that since the outcome would be the same, I would choose the more dramatic approach by keeping the Hoax hidden til the end.) Zurich responded with a Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know of his own, cancelling my Secrets. I responded with a Hoax!, powered by my last action token (from the Supreme Court), with a Martyrs to provide the necessary power. (This combination of six stages of thrust and parry was very impressive--I don't think I've ever seen that many in a previous game.) And I finally gave in to the temptation to gloat a bit, because there was nothing I could do if they managed to cancel my Hoax, and I no longer had any secret plans that I was worried about revealing. So what the heck; why not succumb to the urge? Our opponents were extremely fortunate in the endgame. They almost had enough oomph to thwart me, even though I was very well protected. Some analysis of other ways the endgame could have happened: * I thought it was reasonable to sacrifice the Orbital Mind Control Lasers; my plan didn't require them, and I saw the plot-canceller that I would have had to use to save them as more useful to preserve my victory than the OMCLs. However, if I *had* kept the OMCLs alive, I could have used them to remove the Criminal alignment from New York, thereby eliminating the Crackdown on Crime--and there would have been no way for them to cancel that. I still believe that I did the right thing given what I knew--but I'll grant that the way I played was not perfectly suited to what they had to stop me. * If I hadn't played as I did on Zurich's last turn (and Zurich hadn't made the deal he did), things might not have gone nearly so well for me. + If I had used the NPCs to cancel Bavaria's Sabotage, Zurich would have two Plot-cancellers by the time he drew on my turn--he might have used one on the Truck Bomb, but it would have gone harder for me. (Actually, maybe not--if he had played the Hoax! before he drew another card, he would (I think) have discarded the Secrets to pay for the Hoax!, much as Discordia did in round 1.) + If I had used a plot-canceller of my own, then he would have had two Plot-cancellers to my one. + Furthermore, if he hadn't given me the Hubble Trouble to get rid of, he could have given it to Discordia, who could have powered it with the Phone Phreaks--so I wouldn't be able to use the Nuclear Power Companies to fend off thwarts. + If I hadn't made any deal with Zurich at all, I wouldn't have gotten the Hubble Trouble out of the way, wouldn't have gotten the Hoax! out of the way, and might not have been able to get out the OMCLs, and might not have been able to use the Truck Bomb ploy--things might have gotten much worse. * If Zurich had played the NWO: The Magic Goes Away at some point, (even after my ATO) I would have cancelled it--I needed my ATO, and I felt I needed the immunity to Disaster that the Spear of Longinus/Stonehenge combination could give me. This would have left me with one fewer plot-canceller--they would have been able to thwart me. * If Zurich had played the Deasil Engine on the Perpetual Motion Machine, I would have canceled it--I needed both action tokens for my plan to work. So I'd have one fewer Plot-canceller--but I would have kept the OMCLs, which would give me an easy shot at clearing the Crackdown on Crime, as mentioned above. I credit my victory to luck, to a certain extent, and to a great extent to the strength and quantity of my negotiation. My willingness to make deals garnered me the following things: * The Perpetual Motion Machine * Amnesty from Discordia (who could have done a number on the Nuclear Power Companies) * New York and Stonehenge * The knowledge of the top Plots of Bavaria's deck * The destruction of the OMCLs and the Suicide Squad * A chance to get two harmful Plots out of Zurich's hand *and* get the OMCLs without violating my agreement to Zurich * And, of course, a mutually beneficial deal with the Servants of Cthulhu (and the knowledge that such a deal could be done)