Khellendros, on 12 September 2018 - 02:18 PM, said:
Although it makes sense to go for D'rek or Morgoth from an action card discard perspective
Nom and Tapper both have full AC hands, too. Nom in particular has that dreaded Experimental Battlestation card.
Khellendros, on 12 September 2018 - 02:18 PM, said:
for the public execution, having IH get it would give me one extra option at the strategy card phase as the Speaker token would pass to Morgoth.
In other words, I'm open to bribes
IH has Speaker currently and (iirc) wants TECH. Given his current tech tree he'll probably go for Light-Wave Deflector and Carrier 2 so that (with wormhole generator and slipstream for 3 movement) he can move his entire fleet to virtually anywhere. This also sets him up for several possible stage 2 objectives (3 unit upgrades, controlling homeworld planets, etc).
Morgoth is 2nd pick and wants LEADERSHIP so he can fulfill the 6-CTs objective.
So let's say IH is the target of Public Execution.
IH is now last SC pick, so he definitely won't get Tech. He will probably still research one of the two above technologies with the secondary, but with only 1 of them such extreme mobility will be hampered for at least one round, more like 2.
Morgoth gets first pick. He chooses LEADERSHIP. I play Public Disgrace and he repicks. Now, he said before that in that case he would just take POLITICS and reset things for next round, in which case so be it, everyone downstream will be happier for still having LEADERSHIP and TECH available as picks. I don't think he actually will, though, because since he wasn't executed he already has 7 ACs, the 2 more from POLITICS is wasteful unless he has 2 he really wants to play early, plus he can't make himself Speaker so it's back to IH.
Instead, I think he'll take TECH, TRADE, or CONSTRUCTION, none of which are earth-shattering for the rest of us. And most importantly, it lets POLITICS come downstream again for someone in the middle to pick and break the trend of it always being around IH and Morgoth.
Overall, I think it's worthwhile, it hampers 2 leading players and opens up more options for everyone else.