Critical Collapse

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Critical Collapse

A GAME OF CONSEQUENCES

The Rules Tutorial 2 Continued

Phase 4) Count Territories for Political Points.

Like phase 3, count the number of territories under your control, that is territories with your Nationality Units on them, (since this is the first turn every body has 10 territories with a value of 1 Political Point each this comes to 10 PP's per player) These PP's are added to any PP's the players may have had from previous turns. The players can now record this information on their Handouts.

Phase 5) Withdrawals from the World Bank, Loans.

On phase 5 players are allowed to make withdrawals from the World Bank if they have invested EP's on the previous turns during phase 13 in the World Bank, however this being the first turn and only phase 5 means that nobody has been able to make any investments yet. When the players do have EP's invested in the World Bank, the players may collect the interest their EP's have accumulated without any penalties.

Loans: It is also possible to take out a Loan from the World Bank. These Loans do not require repayment or previous Investment, are limited to once a turn per player and up to a maximum of 250 EP's without an Investment or 250 EP's plus any EP's already Invested. Heavy Negative Political Points are incurred per turn as a penalty for such Loans until repaid, making Loans a very risky venture.

Penalties are incurred when a player withdraws any EP's beyond the interest. For every 10 EP's withdrawn past the interest the player incurs one Negative Political Point, if a player withdraws say 11 EP's this counts the same as taking 20 EP's and would incur two Negative Political Points. For example let's say a player invested 100 EP's into the World Bank on phase 13. By phase 5 of the next turn the player would have in the World Bank 125 EP's. The player would then have the option to withdraw 25 EP's without incurring any penalties. The player could also leave it to continue earning interest and withdraw on another turn. As long as the player does not draw past the original investment's interest (or combined investments' interest from other turns) the player will not incur any penalties. The World Bank gives a 25% interest compounded every turn. See phase 13 for more on the World Bank.

Phase 6) Purchase Industrial Units and Liquidation. Here the players are able to purchase Industrial Units or liquidate Units previously purchased.

Some Units may require Resources the player has not acquired yet . There are still some units that the player can purchase without Resources, these are the University, City and Mining Units. Industrial Units are defined on the Industrial Chart Handout. First however let us look at a basic Unit description, followed by an in depth look at these Units.

Note: There can be no more than five Industrial Units in one territory.

Before going into phase 7, which is where we invest in Research, we are going to give an example of buying some Industrial Units and explain how we are going to supply them with Resources. So we will be looking at the Research Charts, we will cover Liquidation later when we have something to Liquidate.

In the example above Player A has his Nationality Units identifying his territories. Player A decides to check out the Economic Research table before purchasing any Industrial Units to get an idea of his strategy. Player A knows that he only has 100 EP's, if he wants to invest in Economic Research that will cost 50 Ep's, yet if he purchases a University Unit for 35 EP's, Economic Research will only cost him 15 EP's. This still comes to 50 EP's. But there is a benefit with the University Unit, and that is Player A can also invest in Technical and/or Military Research for only 30 EP's more! The combined value would be 185 EP's.

Player A decides that a University Unit should be a mandatory purchase. Also a Mining Unit seems to be a good idea because it is the only way to acquire Gold and Steel and he needs a Steel Unit to build Refinery or Factory Units, so Player A buys a University Unit and a Mining Unit for a total EP cost of 40 EP's leaving him 60 EP's to utilize or save for the following phases. He makes a note on his Player record Sheet that he now only has nine Farmland territories, the Mining Unit inhibits Farmland. Below shows where Player has decided to place his newly purchased Units.

The other players follow in playing order sequence until every one is done with phase 6.

Phase 7) Invest in Economic, Military and/or Technical Research. This is where it can get tough, where to invest? Without Resources it is impossible to sustain an economy, but without a strong defense and intelligence agencies, one is vulnerable to attack and Technology always gives an edge.

The Military Research Chart will give the player some idea of what can occur at each level of MR. Since this is still the first turn and we are just beginning to learn, we will look this chart over and weigh our options. But first let's go over what Player A needs.

Player A has already purchased a University and a Mining Unit, both require a Produce Unit each in order to be supplied on phase 14. Once those two Units are Supplied Player A will receive two Positive Political Points, if they are not Supplied he will incur -2 PP's. If he invests in Economic Research he will be able to roll for Produce and as long as he doesn't roll a one or a two he will grow at least two Produce Units, He could wait for the World Market but that is risky, he might be the low bidder and get nothing. Player A decides he must invest in ER. He deducts 15 EP's and circles L1 for ER on his Player Record Sheet. He also decides to invest in L1 Military Research, another 15 EP's deducted. Player A now has 30 EP's left just enough to roll for Produce, Steel or Gold. He will also receive an additional two Positive Political Points on phase 8 for L1 ER and L1 MR. That will give him a total of +12 Political Points, enough to run a good Intelligence Operation, which is open to him because of his investment in MR. See I.OP. The other players make their investments, each in their order of play.

Take a few minutes to go over the Research Charts with each other, see what each has to offer, by this I don't mean only the Research Charts but also each of the other players. You may decide that it is more economical if one of you produces the Oil and someone else grows a lot of Produce, this gives focus and direction. Since this is your first gaming session (although that doesn't really matter), go back a phase and change your original investments if the players have new ideas or strategies. Experiment!

Continue on to Phase 8.

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