Matrix Games Forums

Curious if anyone else feels like they always have too many Political Points and Strat Cards. It really feels like I mostly just play cards "because I can" and really only once and a while do I actually have a real need to play a card. Is this just me?

Somnetimes I don't have enough certain Strat Cards like spies and officers. I have to redirect the points so I can get more of the cards I need. If I'm getting too many cards of a kind and too many PP I redirect more points into research and development.

How this part feels can varry based on profiles. As those change the options you got, as well as BP and thus PP generation. Just recently I never had enough of either.
If you got too many PP, defund the Supreme Command Council. Or at least focus it away from PP generation.

I think it's fine. As said above, your profile can change giving you different cards, so stocking up on cards is a welcome feature for me at least.

As the game goes on, I get so many stratagem cards that I stop paying much attention to them. And that's the case even when I cut way back on their funding. So I wonder if they should be cut back. (I'm fine with the current amount of political points.)

Admittedly, I don't like this card mechanic in games, anyway - as a general rule, I mean. It works OK in Shadow Empire. It's just not a part of the game I'm wild about (and I am wild about most of it).

And there's nothing stopping me from cutting funding on stratagems to almost nothing, I suppose. That would leave more BP for other things. They don't spoil, either. [:)] They keep. Besides, I don't have enough PP to use all of them, anyway. Having a bunch of different cards means that I have more options for what I can do. And I'm a big fan of options!

So,... I kind of changed my mind as I was writing this. Heh, heh. At first, I definitely agreed that we get too many stratagem cards. But I'm not so sure about that now. I wouldn't want to try to fix something that isn't broken. And I'm having a blast with Shadow Empire!

You get way too many every turn but like many have said, there are ways to reduce it in game.

ORIGINAL: TruJared

Curious if anyone else feels like they always have too many Political Points and Strat Cards. It really feels like I mostly just play cards "because I can" and really only once and a while do I actually have a real need to play a card. Is this just me?

I think that describes it pretty well, at least when you're new to the game.
It does change when you want to play more expensive cards though. I think the most expensive stratagem costs like 120 PP to play.
I've been playing a diplomatic game on the beta version and I've been fairly starved on PP for most of the time, because of how PP expensive these more diplomatic cards can be to play. I'm actually still missing some of the councils, despite having half the planet under my control, because I didn't have the PP for it.

In the game I just finished I ended up with many cards that I never played, and in most cases I didn't want to play them. On the other hand, having the abundance of cards if needed or if the opportunity arose was good. I could see it either way, keeping it the way it is or cutting back some on the quantity. What I really wanted was more fate points.

I’m not sure I’m a fan of requiring cards for retirement and hiring leaders. There should be zero retirement available always with bronze, silver and gold accrued normally. I shouldn’t have to assemble a commission just to retire a dude to prevent him from rebelling. It seems over designed in that regard.

I like the cards. But I think they should be a bit more scarce. In some cases, I think they should expire after a period of time, to make them more valuable and to give us more incentive to use them (as opposed to hoarding them). It could even be a leisurely expiration date -- just something to make me want to play them more frequently.

Yeah, I agree that stratagems should expire after a while of not being used.
The problem is that a lot of these cards are very situational, which causes you to end up with a stockpile of them, since there just aren't enough situations to even play them.

If I am swimming in PP and don't feel I have anything constructive to spend it on, I reduce the Supreme Council PP generation budget and/or increase the stratagem generation budgets from the councils I desire cards from.

If I have lots of cards from a council and don't really need more cards from that council anytime soon, I reduce its card generation budget to zero or reduce its overall budget.

You'll always end up with cards you don't immediately need but might in the future, but drowning in cards you don't immediately need AND on a regular basis having more PP to spend than you think you can constructively do? That's a failure of budgeting on your part: you've been apportioning the national budget unwisely.

I don’t agree with expiring stratagems especially when it has to do with the operation of your empire. You need to be pretty deep into the game for this to be a problem. But getting stratagems expiring during early game would be crushing. It’s the difference between getting rid of a leader about to rebel or not. Or being able to make peace with a neighbor.

Yeah, expiring does not get my vote. It is no problem to stockpile cards, and they can be cards from your profile feats, which can change cutting off access to those cards. Maybe there can be an card exchange for PPs or some other currency, that might be cool.

ORIGINAL: ZiggyMaca

Yeah, expiring does not get my vote. It is no problem to stockpile cards, and they can be cards from your profile feats, which can change cutting off access to those cards. Maybe there can be an card exchange for PPs or some other currency, that might be cool.

There have actually been some technical issues with storing a lot of stratagems (1k or more). But the Beta and 1.04 mostly fixed those. So there is no reason to not store a lot of cards "for a rainy day".

Too many, too little, not enough...I will take too many & hope there is enough when needed. [:)]

Instead of changing the game change your budget

ORIGINAL: TruJared

Curious if anyone else feels like they always have too many Political Points and Strat Cards. It really feels like I mostly just play cards "because I can" and really only once and a while do I actually have a real need to play a card. Is this just me?

Well I do not share your experience. I have almost not enough PP's every turn.
It was pretty ok, then I got an unexpected crisis and was scraping the bottom of the barrel for a few turns.

So no, definitely not enough PP.

Stratagems? Well, some I use run out constantly, others do pile up.
I've suggested a 'max 100 stratagems' in the stratagem 'database' before.
Then you'd need a warning on turn's end, an automatic play all Free Cult Unit stratagems, and an easy way to discard stratagems.

But overall it really does not bother me.
What bothers me more are some vanishing ones I might need (like the Major 'donate' stratagems: I've had some of those vanish that I planned to play next turn).

About PP: some profiles give bonuses to these, so before you can say there's too many you need to play a hard game without those profiles, to see if that's viable.

The only problem I have with it is that the card interface starts to lag by late-game

I think slower game settings give me less cards as well slow down research and development.