From: joe willette Subject: Review of New Edition of Deluxe Illuminati Hi Folks, Just picked up the new edition of Illuminati Deluxe (not INWO the CCG!) and thought I'd write a little review after an all day 4 player session on Sunday. Background: Illuminati Deluxe has been one of our favorite games for at least 10 years. I have probably played this game many hundreds if not thousands of times going through 3 sets of decks (my wife took one to grad school before we got married). I also bought a pristine copy before it went out of print several years ago. In other words, my opinions are a little biased :-). This new edition is a major graphical update with some subtle changes to the game itself. Basic Gameplay: The basic concept of the game is to build a power structure around one of eight secret societies or Illuminati's. Each player randomly selects an Illuminati at the beginning of the game and reveals this to all other players. While anyone can win with a large enough power structure, victory is more often obtained by meeting the special victory conditions of each Illuminati. For example, the Gnomes of Zurich must collect 150 megabucks and the Discordian Society must place 5 groups of "weird" alignment into their power structure. Each Illuminati has a power and income rating along with a unique special power. Groups consist of everyday organizations such as "The Loan Sharks", The International Communist Conspiracy, and Empty Vee (MTV). Each group has ratings for Power, Resistance, Income, and Alignment(s), and may have a special power itself. Each player turn consists of collecting income, picking a card, placing the card face up in the pile of uncontrolled groups (or keeping it face down for yourself if it's a "special event" card), conducting 2 "actions", and transferring money. Actions consist of making attacks, moving groups around your power structure, trading with another player, etc. Attacks can be made to "control" (place in power structure), "destroy" (permanently remove from play), or "neutralize" (remove from someone elses power structure to return to the uncontrolled pile. Attacks can be made against either uncontrolled groups or or groups in someone else's power structure and are based primarily on a power minus resistance differential (power minus power if attacking to destroy) with modifications based on alignments and whether or not the group is already controlled. The differential represents the number that must be rolled (or less) for success. Money can be thrown in to alter this number up or down with the caveat that a natural "11" or "12" always fails (so "10" is the best you can set your attack to). The kicker is that with few exceptions, anyone can throw in money to help or hinder anyone else's attacks. This makes for a wide open game, where diplomacy and successfully hiding your strength are crucial as you can get ganged up on at any time. While it takes a couple of plays to really understand the game it becomes extremely intuitive once learned. Basicly, you can do just about any kind of deal you can come up with-almost a training course for negotiation (and psychological warfare!). Games usually take 1-2 hours and set-up is very quick. Also, the sense of humor that runs throughout the card makeup is brilliant and greatly adds to the gameplay. Components of the new edition: The cards are beautiful and fully illustrated in full color, done in the style of the INWO cards and meeting if not surpassing their quality (the originals were done in black and white). There are a few new cards which I will describe below. The money is a bit of a step backwards though as the plastic chips have been replaced with cardboard chits that may have better graphics but aren't nearly as sturdy. Gameplay effects: The rules are identical to the previous editions with the exception that "The Network's" victory condition has been raised from 20 to 25 transferable power points. This seems like a mistake as "The Network" already has one of the most difficult special victory conditions. I've sent email to Steve Jackson games asking for clarification. In the meantime, we are using the old value of 20. The only mod we noticed to the old groups is that "The Survivalists" now add a +2 to the resistance of the entire power structure it's part of-making them a little more useful. The new groups are excellent. They consist of "The Militia", "Recyclers", "Copy Makers", and "Chinese Campaign Donors". "Recyclers" are the most useful as they can spend 5 megabucks to draw an extra card. The "Chinese Campaign Donors" are the most humorous. They are a communist group that temporarily becomes government (for a +4 modifier) when trying to control a government group (he he). No big changes here, but just enough to add a little new spice without ruining the classic perfectly balanced game. A ton of new cards are planned for release later this year with the Y2K expansion. Bottom Line: If you don't have Illuminati and this at all sounds interesting to you, this is a must buy. I have so many games that get played once or twice, but this one has provided countless hours of entertainment and functions on many levels. If you do have have Illuminati, I'd still go for it. The new graphics are extremely impressive and somehow make the game seem fresh again. Also, IMO this beats INWO hands down (I've always hought that CCG's took too much preparation and perversely rewarded those who spent the most money collecting cards). Even doing the "one with everything" method we could never get INWO to coalesce into the tight, tension filled sessions we obtained with the classic version. Joe Willette