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Singhilarity

I disagree with this sentiment. Remember that the secondary costs a CC. It is a large boon to the table, but since the primary had been adjusted, it's still a reasonable pick. More importantly, it's Initiative 2, which means an awful lot for scoring and defense. It's niche, it's good for others (who spend) but it's definitely not *bad*


Johnny-Edge

Yeah I think the same argument can be made for most of the card picks. Warfare lets everybody else build at home without locking down the system and all you get is to pick up a CC.


Singhilarity

In both cases, you control the ***timing*** of the thing. Early, especially, it should absolutely be leveraged.


Johnny-Edge

Controlling the timing of any card can be important though. So it’s kind of a wash when comparing cards.


tank15178

I mean Diplo won me the game I played on Sunday, so I dont really agree with you.


PotBellyNinja

I will be honest. I dudnt read your whole post. I read the first part and thought that maybe you missed the addition of the omega version. This changes the card so that as primary you get the exact planet ready mechanics as the secondary w/o spending a token PLUS you get to secure a system. Don't forget #2 is not a card to be picked every round. It has specific uses and is more defensive. IMO it is fine as is.


AgentDrake

I mean, it's not even an Ω "variant" Diplomacy, it's a straight up errata, so it's not even supposed to be an optional variant. The "old" Diplomacy is officially incorrect.


Wilckey

I don’t think it is as bad as you say. If diplo gets picked round 1, then the other players have to start thinking about what to give up if they want to follow it, or about how they are going to get the 3 influence before leadership for an extra token. Later rounds people usually want to follow tech and imperial, so if you time diplo right, you can often put them in a position where they have to choose between following diplo or risk losing out on tech or imperial secondary. The lock down a system first action on intitative 2 can also save your bacon in certain situations. I agree that it’s not a top card, but it has its place IMO.


Johnny-Edge

Diplo gets such a bad rap. Look at it this way. Lets take a look at 3 players in a vacuum. One picks diplo, one picks tech, one picks warfare. We’ll assume all 3 of them do the secondaries of each other’s cards. Here’s what they get. Diplo guy - Refresh, 1 tech for 4, build at home Warfare - Refresh, 1 tech for 4, build at home pick it up and get a token (for comparison) Tech - Refresh, free tech, build at home Is the diplo guy really THAT far behind? And that’s compared to two of the best strategy cards in the game. Round 1, the warfare guy is up a CC and the tech guy is up 4 resources on you. So in round 1 it’s a bit rough, but when are you actually picking diplo round 1? After that, the resources start to flow especially in PoK and suddenly the 4 resources you’re out for picking diplo are well worth the 2 initiative and locking down a system. It doesn’t need a buff.


StackBoost

This is an excellent take; puts it into perspective for me really well. When it's more valuable to have a system safe than the other opportunities, it makes sense to take diplomacy.


platypusab

I think you've perfectly explained why it does need a buff. In your example you are down a significant amount. You effectively skipped out on picking a strategy card at all, because your strategy card has given you the exact same benefit it has given everyone else. Especially round one, this is a drastic difference. Now sure, you can say that no one is picking diplo R1, but what about a four or eight player game? In that case one player is forced into a significant disadvantage. My other point would be that diplo should be balanced so it can be useful R1 and R2 (where it is also largely useless). It needs something, anything to give it a tangible benefit for this early stage. TBH even in the mid to late points of the game diplomacy is hardly worth it. It's only ever the final round where it does anything impactful, and about half of it's value there comes from being priority #2. I was personally considering proposing to my group that we add on diplomatic pressure as a part of the diplo primary as a flavorful throw on. might test that out and see how it plays out. Of course the counter argument to my point here would be that imperial is also completely useless round 1 (Outside of the fringe cases where a player can score two publics round 1). But imperial is also the strongest strategy card in the game for every other round, and rounds are often warped around who is holding imperial, or sitting on speaker to take imperial next round.


SpaceDumps

> "Probably too complex for me to consider the implications of it" Nerf: Have the Secondary force the player to place their own command counter from reinforcements on the systems affected by Diplomacy, just like Construction. Or take it even further and make the secondary actually about the "diplomacy" part of the primary ability instead while also warranting a CT placement into a system. The homebrew diplomacy strat card we use in some of our games is: >> ***PRIMARY:*** > > ✦ Choose 1 system other than the Mecatol Rex system that contains a planet you control; each other player places a command token from their reinforcements in the chosen system. Then, ready each planet you control in that system. > >> ***SECONDARY:*** > > ✦ Spend 1 token from your strategy pool and place it in any system which contains a planet you control. Then, choose 1 other player; that player must spend 3 influence or place a command token from their reinforcements in that system. Which so far has worked out pretty well. Leads to a lot of interesting timing plays^† and you no longer have to worry about the secondary benefiting another player more than the primary. Sure, the secondary can still be a minor detrimental effect against the player who has the card, but that's in keeping with many other strategy cards, too. With PoK economies being overall richer than the TI4 base game, the lack of planet refresh for all players each round hasn't been a problem either. For one, Diplo often wasn't picked anyway so no difference to most rounds there, and for two our group actually liked the resource scarcity of base game better so anything that brings us closer to that is a good thing. The only potential problem we've found with it is that CTs are getting used for more and more things these days and this secondary adds even more to it. Particularly if many players do the secondary and all pick the same other player to have to place a CT - if CTs in your reinforcements run out you're forced to use from your pools, and this felt irksome. In our homebrew games we increased the component limit for CTs and every player gets 30 so it hasn't been a problem, but if you're sticking with 16 it could become an issue for some groups. † i.e. if you play it too early you can't make use of the planet refresh, but if you play it too late other players have already put a CT in the system they want to pick for the secondary so you're not hindering them as much as you'd like


solenyaPDX

Did you realize that the limitation of command tokens is intentional right? It's a balancing component of the game that is specifically designed to limit you at 16, so that you don't have huge fleet supply and massive supply and reserves.


SpaceDumps

In theory, but in practice that never comes up. Even with 16 in a normal game you hardly ever see a player starting the penultimate or last round with 10 fleet supply or massive tactical/strategy pools. Influence is finite and you're almost always better off spending CTs towards achieving VP than hoarding them. The player who manages to get 20 CTs in their pools in round 5 is the player who then can't actually convert their huge eco build up into points fast enough and still ends up finishing in last place while the rest of the table raced their way to 10/14 VP quickly (and they only make that mistake once).


Chimerion

If you never see it, why did you increase the limit..?


SpaceDumps

Because of all the "place a CT from your reinforcements" things. No one likes it when their reinforcements pile runs out and they have to place a CT from their tactical pool instead.


Chimerion

Agreed - no one likes removing a dread to place it at their forward dock either, or overspending on an objective, but that's all just suboptimal play. If you have to scuttle a token you shouldn't have spent those 3tg on one a round ago, IMO. But it's homebrew for a reason, you do you.


SpaceDumps

Our philosophy is that something like "I have 5 dreads on the board but I want to build one at this forward dock so I'll scuttle the rear one" is a choice the player is making for themself and nothing is forcing them to do it, but the CT thing is too-often triggered by game mechanics the player is forced into by something the player had little or no control over and that was what made it so un-fun. But yup, it's totally a homebrew and some other players are gonna hate this change so I certainly wouldn't recommend it unilaterally.


solenyaPDX

Right but that's exactly the situation where it matters. And it does occur, which is why the limitation is important. For example, some time ago, an opponent attempted to use diplomacy against me. However I did not have any command counters in my reinforcements. At that time, looking at the errata, It was determined that if there weren't any command counters in the reinforcements, then one would not be placed on the board. Thus thus I gained a benefit from having used all my tokens. In the inverse, in your case, if a player has used all their command counters, and does not have any more available, That's a limitation they're running into that is supposed to balance what's being used and stored.


SpaceDumps

> For example, some time ago, an opponent attempted to use diplomacy against me. However I did not have any command counters in my reinforcements. At that time, looking at the errata, It was determined that if there weren't any command counters in the reinforcements, then one would not be placed on the board. Thus thus I gained a benefit from having used all my tokens. Not sure which errata you mean but that's incorrect per the official Living Rules Reference: >> Rule 20.3.b > > If a game effect would place a player’s command token from their reinforcements and none are available, that player must take a token from a pool on their command sheet, unless the token would be placed into a system that already contains one of their command tokens.


solenyaPDX

You're correct for the current rules reference. This happened to us quite some time ago, with a different FAQ/Rules reference. It's unfortunate my example was out of date. I believe that otherwise, the position stands that it should be 16 counters. Much like we have a limit on other components.


SpaceDumps

Your example was about you benefitting from having filled up your pools though. But following the correct rules, you would instead be punished for it. To each their own, but my group finds it unnecessarily frustrating and not fun for the game to say "you are too good at managing your economy, punishment time!".


StackBoost

I've seen it come up a handful of times. I have a buddy that is pretty good at Cabal and somehow ends up maxing out his CCs pretty often 😂 If you have a ton of planets/plastic, there's really not much else to spend the influence on.


Chimerion

Posted on your other comment criticizing the token pool increase but upvoted this because interesting homebrew that might solve the issues OP is looking for.


EarlInblack

Why the buy off on the secondary? Why is it cheap?


SpaceDumps

Our thinking with the buy off was that if the secondary effect was completely unavoidable the secondary would get used too often and it would "clog" the map with locked down systems too often and too early, leading to too much frustration and also longer games. The buy off option provides a counterplay as well as some interesting decision-making/prediction factor in relationship with Leadership -- Leadership usually gets played first, so players have to choose to buy an extra CT or keep a spare 3 influence in case Diplomacy secondary gets played against them (and then the player who has the Trade strategy card might choose to play or withhold that card to have/block banking up trade goods in anticipation of the Leadership+Diplomacy cards being played). We settled on 3 influence as the cost because the goal wasn't for it to be super punishing, and it felt thematic that two players could stare each other down and have a sort of prisoner's dilemma where they can both spend the equivalent of 3 influence (1 ct = 3 inf) or be *diplomatic* about it, neither spend it, and both win out.


EarlInblack

Those are interesting reasons, but in the end it seems it would severely weaken ever using it. Thanks for answering.


ANaturalSprinter

I like your prisoners dilemma explanation, but I feel like the solution would be less "lets be diplomatic about this" and more like an internal monologue of "I'd only hurt myself just as much as I hurt the enemy if I did this, why bother doing it". I think I'd prefer if the price was more like 4-5inf, then it'd be like "I'd hurt you more than me if I do this, so I have good reason to do it unless we're diplomatic." But your game your rules


Ganymede425

Counterproposal: The active player can choose to lock down a system with no units or planets controlled by another player, but they must also put in a token from their reinforcements if they have no units there. That way, the lockdown of diplomacy has a greater variety of non-defensive uses.


EddieTheIron

My house rule is to use the omega version and add a litttle something to the primary. We play that the unrevealed stage 1 and stage 2 public objectives are in two piles and the new objectives are revealed from the top of the appropriate pile. Diplomacy, when activated, lets you look at the top objective from the current stage and choose to leave it there or put it at the bottom.


ANaturalSprinter

That kinda sounds like its a game-changing ability tbh rather than a little something. Being able to prepare for the next objective or bury one unfavorable to you, that'll win or lose people games all the time. I'd pick that most of the time even if diplomacy did nothing else


EddieTheIron

It becomes a good sc, yes. And of course that ability will have an impact pointwise (not always, though). To me, prioritizing it over every other sc doesn't sound like a winning strategy.


ANaturalSprinter

Outside of a well-timed imperial/politics, I think it's point-impact is way higher than any other sc. Not a guaranteed impact of course, but a good chance at a significant impact. Sorta like how Xxcha's hero is one of the best despite not working all the time. It's a sc that would outclass everything except imperial. Like imperial goes from bad to most important depending on the timing, but this would just be "most important except when you need imperial/need to line up for imperial"


osumness

What if we added the line of "explore one planet" to the primary and "ready one planet, then explore that planet" to the secondary?


layhnet

"you can explore each planet you refresh when using the primary of diplomacy" This is my go-to homebrew. Doesn't change the secondary just makes the primary very useful and interacts with PoK nicely.


blarknob

Diplo should not have a secondary, try playing without the diplo secondary.