Illuminati Expansion Set 3

Game Review

reviewed by Samuel Brown Baker II


Designed by Steve Jackson and Allen Varney
Steve Jackson Games Inc. PO Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760
Released: April, 1985
Catalog No: 7115
Price: $4.95
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: Fair
****

Transcript of a conversation between reviewer (S.B.) and PL. Recorded 12:53 a.m. 4/1/85.

SB: "Since you have admitted to being one of THEM, what do you think of the new expansion kit for Illuminati?"

PL: "The components are good for the money. I thought that the cover illustration was a very good likeness of the Earth as seen from the Seventh Level. There's a nice full color map, the markers are the cut-out kind. But, hey, what do you want?"

SB: "What of that silliness about not telling anyone you have the large counter reading 'Fnord'? "

PL: "This is a secure line?"

SB: "Yes."

PL: "It had better be or you're a dead man. "

SB: "Believe me, it is."

PL: "I was greatly disturbed that Jackson chose to include that. It will now be harder than ever to tell who is one of US. It will be noted that you told me about yours. "

I have two complaints about the components in Expansion Set #3. One is that you still have to cut out the counters. I find this to be a nuisance. I would gladly pay an extra dollar for die-cut counters. The other complaint is that there are no cards for the new Illuminati. You are expected to use the one precious card that comes in Expansion Kit #2. 1 do wish that Steve Jackson Games Inc. would produce blank Illuminati and group cards so that the many variants that have appeared in the Space Gamer magazine and elsewhere could be used without it being obvious which cards have been added to the game.

Illuminati Expansion Set #3 adds rules for brainwashing, propaganda, and building up power, resistance and income. There are also three new Illuminati: The Atlanteans, The Masters of Voodoo, and The Telepathists.

The propaganda and brainwashing rules are based on the 2d6 roll for success used in the basic game. As always, a roll of 11 or 12 means failure. A free attempt to brainwash and a free attempt to propagandize the world have been added to the sequence of play. You may also choose to brainwash and/or propagandize as part of your two actions.

Brainwashing is an attempt to subtract or add one alignment of a group. The group may be yours, one of your opponents, or an uncontrolled group. The attack is made just as an attack to control. If an attack to add an alignment is successful, then a marker is placed that shows the new alignment. A successful attack to subtract an alignment produces a marker that says NOT Communist, for example.

Changing an alignment is a twostep process. The first attack, for example, would make the group NOT Liberal. The second attack on a subsequent phase or turn would be used to add the Conservative alignment to that group.

Propaganda attacks are used to advance an alignment throughout the world. A player's entire power structure is used to attempt this shift in world opinion. Not all of the alignments have propaganda tracks. Fanaticism is absent. As it says in the rules, the world is not likely to become fanatic in quite the same way.

There are five propaganda tracks, one track for each pair of opposite alignments and one for Criminal. World opinion may be moved a maximum of three points in favor of any one alignment. Each point boosts the nontransferable power and income of all groups of that alignment by one. Resistance to the attack is dependent upon the number of boxes that you wish to move the track.

SB: "I'm not terribly worried. You noticed how the Weird and Criminal alignments got swapped around?"

PL: "Yes, that was clumsy of them."

SB: "I don't think so, I think it was deliberate and the misspelling of the word errata is a signal. "

PL: "You are becoming more and more dangerous. We may not be able to ignore your activities much longer."

Building up power, resistance, and income may only be done twice in a turn and comes at the expense of other actions. You simply state that you are doing so and place a marker indicating the increase on the group or Illuminatum. A powerless group that has had its power pumped up gets a control arrow and may be destroyed.

The Atlanteans need seven Peaceful groups IN PLAY to win. This is a very powerful group and a deadly victory condition for the UFOs to pick since the UFOs may do all sorts of strange things to deceive the other players and leave it to the deck to determine when they win. I have won as the UFO player twice with this as my victory condition and a third time by making this seem to be my victory condition. Once this condition has been chosen by the UFO player people are totally paranoid about it in future games.

The Masters of Voodoo need to get any two propaganda tracks to level three to win. Their propaganda attacks are always privileged.

The Telepathists victory condition is to collect groups with a total resistance of 30 or more. They add six on any attempt to brainwash.

SB: "Oh come on, PL, you've been threatening me for months now and nothing has happened yet. I know you have the clearance, so what IS the reason that the Telephathists collect resistance?

PL: "Surely you realize that I can't tell you why they do that; it would be a gross violation of security It would be a good way to lose my Clearance 15, if I have one. After all, one can never be certain that one is not being watched. "

Whether you will like this expansion set will depend on your own view of the game. Personally, 1 find a great deal of delight in the absurd combinations of alignments that occur as the players try to further their own purposes. Turning the Loan Sharks into a government agency and placing them under the control of the IRS was very amusing. These additional rules also give you something useful to do when the only groups that are uncontrolled are wimps. If nothing else, you can give one of these one point of power and present it to Cthulhu. All of the people who played the game with me enjoyed the additional options. About half of them, however, did not like the slower pace of the game. As it stands, the expansion kit can double or triple the time it normally takes to play the game.

We tried letting each player (including the Network) draw twice as many cards as normal. This shortens the game to more manageable proportions.

I found the expansion very enjoyable and recommend it to Discordians everywhere. The word for the day is frog. Novsibirsk. Remember the alien mamosa tree. Fnord.

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© Copyright 1986 by Dana Lombardy.
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