Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter: The previous parts of this Chapter One introduced readers to the game’s Great Person Investment, Competition, Spy, and “Power, Money (Mina) & VP” cards. This exposition, which concludes Chapter One, proceeds to the game’s Great Person Negate cards.
Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East play testers attest that Negate cards add a fun, dramatic, and exciting dynamic to the game since they can be used with an immediacy that other cards cannot duplicate. They can save your civilization’s day and frustrate your enemy’s evil intent!
But first, to set the mood, a Mark McLaughlin Design Note aside regarding each ACME game card’s biblical quote…
GREAT PERSON NEGATE CARDS: Special Note: A Negate card can be Negated by another Negate card. Here’s an example: Egypt plays the Philosopher King card which Assyria wants to prevent; so it attempts to negate it by playing Corrupter in response. Egypt, immediately attempts to cancel Assyria’s negation by playing a Negation card of its own: Assassin. If there are no further responses, Assassin ends up negating Corrupter, which means the play of Corrupter never occurs: thus Corrupter does not negate Philosopher King. Philosopher King is now resolved. The two Negate cards cancel each other out (as if they were never played) and both are discarded.
Here are the six Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Great Person Negate Cards:
Assassin: This is the card to have in hand to stop any Great Person card played against your Civilization.
Sorcerer: This Great Person negate card can foil the play of another Civilization’s Deity bonus. There are seven Deities in the game and the Sorcerer can negate any of them.
Prophetess: She can negate any but a Must Play Event card (e.g. a Barbarian Invasion). Furthermore, the card player gets to keep her one mina fee!
High Priest: This card is similar to the Prophetess in that it can negate any but a Must Play Event card (e.g. a Barbarian Invasion).
But with the High Priest the card player must pay a fee of a single disk of his Civilization which is removed from anywhere on map.
These next two Great Person Negate cards each provide the card player a binary choice as to its effect:
Corruptor: This is similar to the Assassin regarding ability to negate any the play of Great Person card.
However, it’s the second option which makes this card unique; for it can remove a disk from any in play Investment card.
Prophet: This card negates any Religion card except Handwriting on the Wall (Religion cards will be examined with a subsequent chapter of this article series).
But it is with the Prophet’s second option a powerful ability becomes available to the card player… the ability to exchange Deities (that is, “convert” your Civilization to a different available Deity… including Monotheism).
This exchange can be done even if your Civilization’s Deity is in captivity. During play testing, this card really saved the day for a harried Civilization by getting it out from under and in happy possession of a better Deity than it previously had.
The next chapter of this series, Chapter Two, will review Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Competition, Trade, and Resource (e.g. a desert oasis) cards.
The team hopes you’ve enjoyed this series’ Chapter One and appreciates your interest and support (to those who’ve placed P-500 orders for ACME)!
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