This is why I love this game! We've paused for a bit, but at a tense moment... very possible that any 4 of 5 players in our current game will have a win within the next two turns. Same players and factions and largely decks as last game: Minbari/Vorlon, Centauri/Shadows, Centauri/Refa, Narn/Military, Non-aligned/Diplomacy.
While I did shuffle my deck, its like I put my last game's discard pile at the bottom and played the remaining cards this game. I drew my nasty "shotgun Sabbat" cards... a nasty Neutral character build designed to punish Intrigue meddlers... finally got my Narn Rabble, despite 6 United Fleet cards in my deck last game, I drew none then... but got all 3 into play now, Ja'Doc is in my ranks, etc. Even my agendas have all been different draws. But familiar friends have shown up too. Support fleets have stayed evasive but the big multiples have come up well and I briefly had "Onslaught" as my agenda to leverage Border Raider into bringing more Narn military to bear.
I did have some speed bumps this time that I didn't last time. It took a long time to hit any leadership characters, I went almost the entire game without drawing any of my three fleet support bases and only hit 1 salvage yard... so I'm killing off and rebuying fleets constantly. Additionally, I voluntarily hobbled myself by not ever going to war.... with a war deck. But I know that soon other players will start putting cards in their decks that mess with states of war and I need to know if the deck can run off its conflicts and agendas if war is removed as an option.... seems it kinda can.
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| I've got victory if I can hold the lead this turn... but look at Shadows, Vorlon, Non-Aligned, etc |
So to our game state now...
Minbari/Vorlons: have a massive Vorlon influence to leverage, and as we're in the Shadow War, they've got a very large fleet presence
Centauri/Shadows: Equally large Shadow footprint and a strong combination of Shadow and Faction influence... has completed 3 of 5 Nanotech plague against the Non-Aligned
Centauri/Refa: He's fought a long and brutal civil war with the shadow player... but staying alive and has Emperor Refa in play
Myself: as mentioned above
Non-Aligned... the most spending influence for most of the game and tons of Diplomacy. Civil Servants is a monster with Non-Aligned Agents/Aides/Captains... he's also got momentum and successfully pulled off two Taking Credits last turn... conventional wisdom is he's going to double Alliance next turn.
Very interesting.... can't wait to see what happens in the next few rounds
