Cologne City Grid held a constructed tourney on February 20th. For the first time, we tried a format that awards extra victory points for innovative deck designs - this means that in effect, there is a penalty for decks that are standard fare like PsychoTycho or Precision Bribery. Decks were reviewed after the tourney was over and classified according to bit engine, card draw engine, and so forth. Details are as follows.
GMP for Innovative Decks
The two decks you'll be using are divided up into 8 categories (see below). Under each category, there is a list of components you should avoid in order to gain an "all clear" mark. At the end of the tourney, each player will be awarded an amount of GMP that corresponds to the number of "all clear" marks he or she got. In effect, this means that one could get as few as zero points or as many as eight, which makes deck strategy choice a serious consideration here. This format was experimental of course, and although we had fun trying it, people have already suggested improvements. The AI (Holger Janssen) has pointed out to me in private email that someone with zero bonus points cannot win the tourney: In four rounds, all you can get are about 8 GMP, and if there are opponents who gain 8 bonus GMP alone, they have effectively bested you. That had not occurred to me, admittedly, and we'll have think about this problem for future tourneys using this format. Some changes have been implemented in the following list:
CORP
Bit Engine
Accounts Receivable (more than two)
Credit Consolidation (more than two)
BBS Whispering Campaign (more than one)
Rent-To-Own-Contract (zero)
Advancement Scheme
Project Consultants (more than one)
Management Shake-Up (more than one)
Systematic Layoffs (more than one)
Shrinking Agendas reducing Grey or Black Ops Agendas (more than one)
Shrinking Regions reducing Grey or Black Ops Agendas (more than one)
Agenda Set
Tycho Extension
Corporate War
Corp Downsizing (more than one)
Offense
Manhunt (zero)
Schlaghund (zero)
City Surveillance (more than one)
RUNNER
Bit Engine
Organ Donor (more than two)
Top Runners' Conference (more than two)
Loan from Chiba (more than two)
Lucidrine Booster Drug (more than two)
Zetatech Software Installer (more than two)
Card Engine
Bodyweight Synthetic Blood (more than two; or more than three, as long as no Jack'n'Joes are used)
Jack'n'Joe (more than two; or more than four, as long as no Bodyweights are used)
Breakers/Tag Protection
Bartmoss Memorial Icebreaker
Access through Alpha
The Deck
Kit
Scaldan (zero)
Viral Pipeline (zero)
Armageddon (zero)
Inside Job (more than one)
Security Code WORM Chip (more than two)
Taxman (zero)
Highlighter (zero)
Microtech AI Interface/R&D Protocol Files (both)
Precision Bribery (more than one)
As soon as one item of a category is present in a deck (e. g., I have three Inside Jobs, but none of the other cards mentioned under "Kit"), the "all clear" mark for that category is forfeit.
Comment to this article by Richard Cripe. Back to the Goodies page. Back to the Cologne City Grid page.