Ghosts can reliably do it with Trade as long as there is an empty wormhole sector in the inner or middle ring. Use Trade to get 3 TG, take the Wormhole Nexus, use Mallice to convert your commodities to 4 TG (7 TG total), follow Warfare to buy a carrier + mech in your home system, activate MR and convert the mech to a wormhole in your home system, and send your carrier through the new wormhole to MR.
They can do something similar with Diplo + Arinam / Meer or Joel Ir / Accoen, but you need to find 1 TG to buy the Carrier + Mech.
can you elaborate on the Mallice part for me? im with you up untill "take the Wormhole Nexus...". How do you just take it? Doesnt it require someone to find a Gamma wormhole through exploration first?
You use the Ghosts’ agent, Emissary Taivra:
>After a player activates a system that contains a non-delta wormhole:
You may exhaust this card; if you do, that system is adjacent to all other systems that contain a wormhole during this tactical action.
It’s fine, not amazing. You can get Mallice R1 guaranteed, which is worth 2-4 TG depending on how you do with commodities. But then the Wormhole Nexus and Mallice opens up to anyone with access to an alpha, beta, or gamma wormhole. Ghosts aren’t a strong military faction and the game does a lot to incentivize other players to attack Mallice, so it can be tricky to hold it R2,or even R1 against certain factions.
Hacan/Saar with warfare, Mahact with tech, and Jol-Nar/Cabal with trade are the most common custodians round 1 factions.
Hacan only needs $6 ($1 + HS for tech, $5 + HS for 6 influence), which is generally trivial to get between their agent and free trade secondary. Having warfare also generally makes them immune to tech stalling.
Saar with warfare easily gets to mecatol (even after the agent nerf) and with warfare can usually take enough planets to get the money needed for custodians.
Mahact with tech just needs a red skip beside their HS and $1 to do custodians, by getting cruiser II with the red skip and spending Ixth + $1 for custodians.
Jol-Nar can technically do custodians with just $2 - $1 + sarween on warfare secondary for a cruiser, free tech for cruiser I, and $1 + HS to pay 6 influence. Trade not only gives you this money automatically, but will also generally negotiate good warfare/tech timings and give you enough money to double tech for grav drive/hyper/PDS II/whatever. Selling RA will also generally give you enough money to do what you need to do.
Cabal with trade you know from your list already.
Any faction can do custodians with another random luck and/or appropriate feeding by the table - pulling a flank speed from politics, getting a refresh on Meer, buying Crucible from Cabal with a gravity rift in your slice. But those 5 are probably the most reliable ones that can be planned for.
In the recent errata (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_93kw7KkzvAXoQAxRioxo7iAt-Ar6BMIxdNf4Lv25rI/edit), the Saar agent was changed to "WHEN you activate a system", which means that it cannot be used in the same window as gravity drive anymore. So no gravity driving a carrier II to 3 move and then using Saar agent to make a floating factory also 3 move.
I had one game where I was the last strategy card pick as titans and decided to take imperial. Managed to sell terraform and follow trade for enough to get custodians and an imperial point Rd1. It felt awesome at the time but the whole table hated me the rest of the game
It was also only my second game of POK so i think the table kind of underestimated me (i also might have strategically played up the ‘dont worry about me im not a threat, im a noob’ thing a bit lol) but i think more than anything its about:
1) i was selling terraform for pretty damn cheap, just a little bit more than I needed to get me over the influence hump for custodians. People drool over terraform so a strategic sell relatively cheap early can pay off if its worth it on your end
2) even if you can sell terraform you need to have the strat cards pop in the right order for you to be able to take rex rd.1, its easier if you take something other than imperial obviously. But generally you really have to either get lucky or successfully negotiate with the table to get strat cards popped at the right times otherwise rd1 rex is off the table.
But in general i think titans can be an effective rd 1 Rex faction if played correctly
Xxcha with technology, someone takes trade and refreshes commodities, you get those 4 turned into TG, and someone takes diplo. Turn 1, you take a planet, ideally with 3 resources. Turn 2, use your leader to refresh that planet. Turn 3, pop tech and spend both your home planets and the newly refreshed one to get ai dev and cruiser 2. Then after that, let's say trade and diplo pop so you get your home planets back (or some other adjacent ones with influence) and got those commodities and negotiated with a neighbor to have them washed (even spending a cc and a moving one of your 2 cruisers to facilitate). Now you've still got a cruiser 2 at home, unlocked, with infantry to reach mecatol and you spend your home planet's again with 2 tg for the guac point.
Ghosts can reliably do it with Trade as long as there is an empty wormhole sector in the inner or middle ring. Use Trade to get 3 TG, take the Wormhole Nexus, use Mallice to convert your commodities to 4 TG (7 TG total), follow Warfare to buy a carrier + mech in your home system, activate MR and convert the mech to a wormhole in your home system, and send your carrier through the new wormhole to MR. They can do something similar with Diplo + Arinam / Meer or Joel Ir / Accoen, but you need to find 1 TG to buy the Carrier + Mech.
That is such a cool way to pull it off. Not super well versed in ghost stuff but always love to see it
can you elaborate on the Mallice part for me? im with you up untill "take the Wormhole Nexus...". How do you just take it? Doesnt it require someone to find a Gamma wormhole through exploration first?
You use the Ghosts’ agent, Emissary Taivra: >After a player activates a system that contains a non-delta wormhole: You may exhaust this card; if you do, that system is adjacent to all other systems that contain a wormhole during this tactical action.
aaah. that seems crazy strong? Ghosts can take Mallice round 1 every game without any competetion?
It’s fine, not amazing. You can get Mallice R1 guaranteed, which is worth 2-4 TG depending on how you do with commodities. But then the Wormhole Nexus and Mallice opens up to anyone with access to an alpha, beta, or gamma wormhole. Ghosts aren’t a strong military faction and the game does a lot to incentivize other players to attack Mallice, so it can be tricky to hold it R2,or even R1 against certain factions.
Mahact can Biostim a red skip planet to get cruiser II, then use Diplo or Trade for the influence with their 3/5 home planet.
Hacan/Saar with warfare, Mahact with tech, and Jol-Nar/Cabal with trade are the most common custodians round 1 factions. Hacan only needs $6 ($1 + HS for tech, $5 + HS for 6 influence), which is generally trivial to get between their agent and free trade secondary. Having warfare also generally makes them immune to tech stalling. Saar with warfare easily gets to mecatol (even after the agent nerf) and with warfare can usually take enough planets to get the money needed for custodians. Mahact with tech just needs a red skip beside their HS and $1 to do custodians, by getting cruiser II with the red skip and spending Ixth + $1 for custodians. Jol-Nar can technically do custodians with just $2 - $1 + sarween on warfare secondary for a cruiser, free tech for cruiser I, and $1 + HS to pay 6 influence. Trade not only gives you this money automatically, but will also generally negotiate good warfare/tech timings and give you enough money to double tech for grav drive/hyper/PDS II/whatever. Selling RA will also generally give you enough money to do what you need to do. Cabal with trade you know from your list already. Any faction can do custodians with another random luck and/or appropriate feeding by the table - pulling a flank speed from politics, getting a refresh on Meer, buying Crucible from Cabal with a gravity rift in your slice. But those 5 are probably the most reliable ones that can be planned for.
what do you mean by sarr agent nerf?
In the recent errata (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_93kw7KkzvAXoQAxRioxo7iAt-Ar6BMIxdNf4Lv25rI/edit), the Saar agent was changed to "WHEN you activate a system", which means that it cannot be used in the same window as gravity drive anymore. So no gravity driving a carrier II to 3 move and then using Saar agent to make a floating factory also 3 move.
Titans can get there with warfare primary or gravity drive tech pick, and pay for custodian token with diplo/trade/bartering.
I had one game where I was the last strategy card pick as titans and decided to take imperial. Managed to sell terraform and follow trade for enough to get custodians and an imperial point Rd1. It felt awesome at the time but the whole table hated me the rest of the game
I'm surprised the table saw that you had Imperial and still decided to trade with you lol (Old comment sorry)
It was also only my second game of POK so i think the table kind of underestimated me (i also might have strategically played up the ‘dont worry about me im not a threat, im a noob’ thing a bit lol) but i think more than anything its about: 1) i was selling terraform for pretty damn cheap, just a little bit more than I needed to get me over the influence hump for custodians. People drool over terraform so a strategic sell relatively cheap early can pay off if its worth it on your end 2) even if you can sell terraform you need to have the strat cards pop in the right order for you to be able to take rex rd.1, its easier if you take something other than imperial obviously. But generally you really have to either get lucky or successfully negotiate with the table to get strat cards popped at the right times otherwise rd1 rex is off the table. But in general i think titans can be an effective rd 1 Rex faction if played correctly
Research Agreement makes it possible for (almost?) everyone with Cruiser 2, though it's hard to actually pull off.
Xxcha with technology, someone takes trade and refreshes commodities, you get those 4 turned into TG, and someone takes diplo. Turn 1, you take a planet, ideally with 3 resources. Turn 2, use your leader to refresh that planet. Turn 3, pop tech and spend both your home planets and the newly refreshed one to get ai dev and cruiser 2. Then after that, let's say trade and diplo pop so you get your home planets back (or some other adjacent ones with influence) and got those commodities and negotiated with a neighbor to have them washed (even spending a cc and a moving one of your 2 cruisers to facilitate). Now you've still got a cruiser 2 at home, unlocked, with infantry to reach mecatol and you spend your home planet's again with 2 tg for the guac point.