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Time Control: The Errata and FAQ
With apologies, we must admit that the rules-as-published are lacking in both clarity and correctness. A new and exciting version of the rules, re-written for clarity and correctness, incorporating all errata, and expanded with illustrated examples, may be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here. The official errata to the published rules may be downloaded in plain text format by clicking here. The following are the official errata to the Time Control rules. These errata have been incorporated into the Time Control Revised Rules, and so refer only to the previous rules.
Losing the Game
Summary:
Any player with four (4) or more Problems of a single Problem type (C, S or T) loses the game. Page 4, the following paragraph: "You lose Time Control if you have three or more Problems of each category - three or more Technology Problems (T), three or more Culture Problems (C), and three or more Society Problems (S). The last player left is the winner. The winner can be content that his or her civilization won't be utterly destroyed in the coming conflict." is errata'd to: "You lose Time Control if you have four or more Problems of a single category - four or more Technology Problems (T), or four or more Culture Problems (C), or four or more Society Problems (S). The last player left is the winner. The winner can be content that his or her civilization won't be utterly destroyed in the coming conflict."
Time Control Abilities
Summary:
When taking Time Control, a player may either complete an action without interruption or force another player to complete an action without interruption. The player forced to take an action makes all decisions regarding that action; what sort of action, which tokens, &c. Page 6, the following paragraph: "A player with Time Control may either announce and complete a single action (either an Agent action or Cashing Out) without interruption, or force an opponent to announce and complete a single Time Agent action without interruption. When forcing an opponent to announce an action, the player with Time Control makes all decisions regarding that action. For example, a player with Time Control may force another player to snap a specific agent, or to attack a specific agent and commit an additional agent to sabotage in that attack, or to attack a Time Wave and add the Time Wave token of the controller's choice. Players cannot be forced to Cash Out." is errata'd to: "A player with Time Control may either announce and complete a single action (either an Agent action or Cashing Out) without interruption, or force an opponent to announce and complete a single Time Agent action without interruption. When forcing an opponent to announce an action, the forced player makes all decisions regarding that action. For example, a player forced to take an action may snap a specific agent, or attack a specific agent and commit an additional agent to sabotage in that attack, or to attack a Time Wave and add a Time Wave token of her choice. Players cannot be forced to Cash Out."
Time Wave Duel Value
Summary:
Time Waves get +1 per token when attacking Time Agents. Page 8, the following paragraph: "One player takes the part of the Time Wave and draws a single Fate card. To find the Time Wave's total duel value, the duel value of the drawn card is increased by three for each Time Wave token in the Time Wave. This duel value is then compared to the duel values of each Agent under attack:" is errata'd to "One player takes the part of the Time Wave and draws a single Fate card. To find the Time Wave's total duel value, the duel value of the drawn card is increased by one for each Time Wave token in the Time Wave. This duel value is then compared to the duel values of each Agent under attack:"
The Frequently Asked Questions all refer to the previous, unexpanded, unillustrated, un-errata'ed rules, and may be downloaded in plain text format by clicking here. Q1: Missing Problem types? Q2: Re-using duel tokens? Q3: Why not always duel low? Q4: Limit on re-duels when tying? Q5: Tie for lowest value? Q6: What does a Pre-historian know? Q7: What happens when a player is eliminated? Q8: Time Agent with no Duel Value? Q9: How to distribute Fate cards? Q10: What if no one launches/no one takes any action? Q11: Last-page reference incomplete? Q12: Take Time Control and force someone to make a Time Wave in their own Timeline? Q13: On-line demo wrong? Q14: If only one player has Time Control, what happens if there is a conflict between other players? Q15: Do Agents have to be in the same Time Zone/Timeline to Aid/Sabotage? Q16: What do "surreptitiously" and "rochambeau" mean? Q1: On page 15, it is written: "Each Problem has a name, an icon, flavor text, and rules changes and are organized into one or more categories." And also: "Problems belong to one or more categories: * Cultural (C) * Societal (S) * Technological (T)" But there are some Problems that do not have _any_ Problem category. What's the deal?" A1: The rules are overstating the case a little. There following four (4) Problems have no Problem category by design: * Materialistic * Paranoid * Anti-individual * Politicized Science Q2: When I re-duel, can I use the token from the duel just previous? A2: No, you cannot. While dueling and re-dueling, the tokens you are using may be used only once each. When the duel series is over, any tokens you kept from the duel series may be used in any subsequent duels. Q3: Why not always duel with your 1 or 2 first? You can reduel no matter what and if you cheese a win somehow, you'll get re-dueled anyway. A3: That's one strategy. It's a trade-off between how badly you want to win a duel and how badly you want to deplete your opponent of Time Control tokens. By playing a 1 or 2 first you are in effect forfeiting your re-duel by almost guaranteeing that you will have to re-duel. If you're just trying to run your opponent out of "good" tokens, well then ok. But if you are actually trying to win a duel, then bad for you. Players who find that opponents are trying to run them out of tokens can just duel with the Fate deck and save their tokens for Cashing-out and Time Wave duels. Q4: When dueling for Time Control, if two players tie every time, is there a limit on the number of re-duels? A4: Nope. But bear in mind that even in the freakiest of circumstances where two players both using Time Control tokens tie in a duel and then tie in 20 re-duels, the 21st re-duel will be with Fate cards, and cannot be a tie. Let me know if this ever happens to you. Q5: Page 6 refers to players tying for low value. When and how does this happen? How is a tie for low different than a tie for high, since there's just two people dueling? A5: In a 3 or 4 player game, more than 2 players may duel for Time Control at the same time (as opposed to Agent Duels, when only 2 players may ever duel). The first paragraph on page 6 under "Taking Time Control" ("...if any player disagrees, all contentious players may duel for Time Control. There can be only one winner, no matter how many players duel...") alludes to this, but does not spell it out. So, in a 2-player game, there is no such thing as "tying for high" or "tying for low", but "tying for low" has some small importance in Time Control duels in a 3 or 4 player game. Q6: What does an expert in Pre-historical history really know? A6: They know what _didn't_ happen then. Q7: What happens when a player is eliminated? A7: In a 2 player game, of course, the game is over. But in a 3 or 4 player game; all of that players Agents are discarded, and all of her Problems are shuffled back into the Problem deck. Her Timeline board stays in the game, and may be used by the remaining players as normal (Agents may invade and move, &c.). Any Time Waves created on that board are advanced and grown as normal, and attack Agents as normal, but are simply discarded when they reach TODAY. Q8: Rules state that an Agent with no Duel Values automatically loses. How can this happen? A8: In an Agent vs. Agent duel, never. But in a Time Wave attack, it is possible. If, in a 3 or 4 player game, there are more than 31 agents being attacked by time waves and all players are out of Time Control tokens, there will not be enough Fate cards to go around. Some Agents will have no duel values, and the Time Waves themselves will have no Duel Values. Those Agents with no duel values, even when attacked by Time Waves with no duel values, still lose. BTW, Agents with no Duel Values is a very rare event, I'd be excited to receive a detailed email (timecontrol@thompsonindustry.com) from anyone this happens to... Q9: Ok, so during a Time Wave attack, how do you decide which agents get Fate cards if there are not enough to go around? A9: All Agents must get their tokens and Fate cards first, then a card is drawn for each Time Wave. If there are no Fate cards left for the Wave, that Wave has no Duel Value and the Agents in that time zone are safe UNLESS the Agents themselves have no Duel Values, in which case they lose. Ok, but no one wants to have an agent with no value, right? In general, if players want to use a common resource such as the Fate deck and cannot simply agree on who goes first, they can rock-paper-scissors for it. Q10: What if the game never begins because everyone sits around waiting for someone else to commit during launch, or everyone has Launched to Yesterday and no one wants to be the first to break formation? A10: There are, at least, two answers to this question. One is: if people really want to play that timidly, then I guess there is no game. The other answer is this: Super-cautious or extremely defensive players can be beaten by aggressive players. If you find that you and your opponent have both launched everything to YESTERDAY, send a Brawler down to your PRE-HISTORY (moving zone-by-zone, of course). Then send down your Pre-Historian. Then 1 or 2 generic agents. Follow that up with your other Brawler. Now invade your opponent's Timeline, sending the Agents in the same order. At some point, your opponent must interrupt what you are doing or face a "Time Wave machine" in PRE-HISTORY. The Pre-historian, and the 1 or 2 generic agents, can create 3 or 4 token Time Waves (that grow to 4 or 5 tokens in his ANCIENT TIMES). It will take either a Historian and 2 or 3 other agents to diffuse that Time Wave, or his two Scientists and a tightly-managed bunch of other Agents to shepherd that Time Wave up to YESTERDAY and flip it. So, what does he do? Go right after your little cadre of problem-makers? Try and stop you early-on when you are moving a single Brawler down your Timeline? Just make mirror-moves and do the same to you? Invade your YESTERDAY and try and wipe out your Agents? Sitting passively in YESTERDAY opens you up to this kind of trouble. Q11: Is the "Fast Play Reference" on the back of the rules missing information? A11: Not "missing", but the information is drastically condensed. In all cases, the new revised rules are superior, including the expanded "Quick Reference" on it's back page. Q12: Taking Time Control: Is it really the intent of this rule to allow you to completely control and dictate the complete action of an opponent? A12: No, but the original rules are worded that way. On page 6, please replace the existing last paragraph with the following: "A player with Time Control may either announce and complete a single Agent action without interruption, or force an opponent to announce and complete a single legal Time Agent action without interruption. When forcing an opponent to announce an action, the player forced to announce makes all decisions regarding that action; which of her Agents will perform the action, what the action will be, which of her Agents will may provide commit aid or sabotage, &c." It is with profound embarrassment that I recognize that this error in the rules has slipped through so many levels of checking. Q13: Page 5 states when a player announces an action, no other action involving those tokens can be announced until the action is resolved. But the on-line Flash demo shows a player trying to escape from a duel by moving away. Which is correct? A13: They both are. Your interpretation of the rule is correct, and the demo attempts to show: * Orange player announces an action (the brawler attack) * Green player interrupts (scientist snaps) * Orange player interrupts (attack) * Green interrupts (snap) * Orange gets fed up and duels for Time Control Remember that interrupting an announced action cancels that action. Announcing and interrupting actions, and taking Time Control to prevent this, is at the heart of the game. Q14: If anyone can interrupt during the action phase, it seems like there is a potential for a stalemate. For example, let's say it's a 3 player game, and player 1 won the duel for time control. Player 2 announces an attack on player 3, but player 3 interrupts announcing he is snapping back to the Present. Player 2 then interrupts by re-announcing the attack on player 3, but player 3 interrupts again announcing he is snapping back to the Present. Only player 1 has time control, so there seems to be a stalemate between players 2 and 3. Am I missing something? A14: You are missing the fact that Player 1 has Time Control. No other player may attempt any action of any kind until that player has announced and completed an action. Q15: When rendering aid or committing sabotage, the rules say you have to be in the same Time Zone, but don't say anything about having to be in the same Timeline. Can Agents sabotage from any other Timeline? A15: No, Agents wishing to Aid/Sabotage must be in the same Time Zone of the same Timeline as the Agents who are dueling. Q16: On page 17, what do "surreptitiously" and "rochambeau" mean? A16: "Surreptitiously" means "secretly." "Rochambeau" means "rock, paper, scissors." >>Ordering Information |