Re-Release of Illuminati Card Game

William Tanksley writes "Anyone here remember the Illuminati card game? It seems that Steve Jackson Games got enough complaints about the horrid MagicTheGathering-clone version they'd released, and they're finally releasing an updated, full-color version of the original game."

Other tabletop games for geeks....

• RoboRally (Wizards of the Coast)
  
  Program your robots a turn in advance to navigate around a maze containg hazards, conveyors, turntables etc. Confused by the fact that you may not have the right program cards, another robot may bump into you throwing your calculations off, and the robots shoot at each other. Long.
  
  
• Ricochet Robot (Hans Im Gluck/Rio Grande)
  
  Much simpler, and yet far harder. Move robots with no brakes around a board to reach a target. You have to hit things to stop. Usually there is nothing in the right place to bounce off of. So you have to move several robots. Sometimes you have to work out 20 or 30 moves in your head, and then announce before anyone else gets there. (Best call I know of was 63, which involved iteratively bouncing two robots off of eachother).
  
  
• Die Siedler von Catan/Settlers of Catan (Kosmos)
  
  Probably the best board game ever. A sort of colonisation/town building game, with a random board made up of hex tiles. Superbly balenced, and reasonably quick.
  
  
• Mississippi Queen (Gold Sieber/Rio Grande)
  
  Actually, this one is easy enough for non-geeks, but has some of the same sort of puzzles as RoboRally - work out how fast you can go without ramming an island in a randomly twisting river.
  

Euphrat und Tigris (Hans im Gluck) is good but I can't work out how to win. Sixteen-thirty-something (Warfrog) is a very strange twist on the normal board wargame idea.

Needless to say, the best boardgames come from Germany, although there are some good US companies too. Rules translations are sometimes needed from Game Cabinet [gamecabinet.com]. In the UK we have the problem that board games are regarded as something you do at Christmas so you don't have to talk to your relatives.

/. Card

SlashDot
Power:1 Money:1
2 arrows out (L/U)

Special: Once a turn, owner may declare a given group "Slashdotted." This group may not attack, lend power to an attack, or grant money to an attack. If attacked, no money can be spent on defense by anyone other than the group itself, but defender's power is doubled (hard to attack a site you can't reach)

If owned by the network, Slashdot POW triples (3).

(Notes: Pow and money are weak, because the special is strong, and historical concerns. This really needs to be tested in a game-the power may be a little to strong. Pow modifier is a beta idea-/. should become more effective if combined with the network, but how much so depends. A POW 3 card with a special is a pretty potent card. 2 Outgoing arrows is another way to restrict power-game balance is important)

Re:Slashdot card

Some anonymous coward dun said:

What Illuminati really needs, of course, is a slashdot card.

Ah, Illuminati. :) Several of my friends knew it in the original version, so when it was re-released earlier this year (and it's been out for several months...got ours back in June) it Had To Be Bought...and I was introduced to the good, old, original game of Fsck Thy Neighbour in its original form. ;) Very cool game, it is. :3

Seriously, though...the new decks (both the re-release and the Y2K Expansion Pack--which contains a card for the Church of the Subgenius :) do have two blank power cards and two blank Illuminati cards...as a power, I figure a Slashdot Effect card could be done up giving +6 Attack power to any card held by CotSG or the Network... ;) Or maybe even automatic successes on privileged attacks on other Illuminati... :) Alignment is gonna be a bastard though... ;)

Seriously, I think we could come together and actually cook something up for this... ;)

Using Slashdot as an Illuminati would be harder. The Network IS essentially Slashdot :3

You could also do up cards for the Freaks Software Foundation (RMS in beatnik clothes or somethin', alignment Weird Communist Liberal ;) an' other stuff...I think we can let our imaginations run wild on this...

Gods, I think TOO DAMN MUCH on this. :3 Then again, I'm also one of the folks who's given real thought (after one too many incidents of kitty deciding SHE wants to play Illuminati, too, in the way kitties tend to define "read" or "play" or "type on keyboard" by laying on top of what you are doing :) to making up a Ferlie Kitty Card which enables one to randomly rearrange one's OPPONENT'S power structure... :)

Best move in the game?

I remember playing the game years back, the concept was good, the only thing that annoyed me was all the adding etc. (I get a +4, -2, +2, -5, so I need a 7 or more (but I can use card x, if the roll is even, etc)) It took some of the spontantity out of the game.

Personally, my best memory is one of the stories I heard of what allegedly happened at one of the prize competions:

Person A and person B are in the final, very close game... Person A says to Person B, "it's close, be a shame for one of us to lose now. If you conceed, I'll split the prize, okay?" Person B thinks, agrees, and calls the ref over and conceeds. Person A then shows the card "I Lied", which enabled him to default on an agreed deal. The refs found this amusing, judged it legal (and definitly within the spirit of the game) and awarded him the prize.

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