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| The players take role of Illuminati societies (The ], The ], The ]s, The Society of ]s, The Network, The Servants of ], The Bermuda Triangle, The ]) that struggle to take over the world. The world is represented by groups cards such as ], two headed Anti-Nuclear Activists, or ]s. Every group and Illuminati has some Power, Resistance and Income values; most the world groups have an Alignment. | The players take role of Illuminati societies (The ], The ], The ]s, The Society of ]s, The Network, The Servants of ], The Bermuda Triangle, The ]) that struggle to take over the world. The world is represented by groups cards such as ], two headed Anti-Nuclear Activists, or ]s. Every group and Illuminati has some Power, Resistance and Income values; most the world groups have an Alignment. | ||
| Special cards represent unexpected phenomena and features, for example increasing Income or Resistance of a group. | Special cards represent unexpected phenomena and features, for example increasing Income or Resistance of a group. | ||
Revision as of 20:49, 7 July 2004
Illuminati is a complicated card game (not a CCG) made by Steve Jackson Games. In short it can be described as poker for geeks. It can by played by three to seven players. Depending on the number of players, a game can take between one and three hours.
Description
The game is played with a deck of special cards, money chips (representing millions of dollars in low-nominal unmarked banknotes) and two D6 dice. There are three types of cards:
- Illuminati
- groups
- special cards
The players take role of Illuminati societies (The Bavarian Illuminati, The Discordian Society, The UFOs, The Society of Assassins, The Network, The Servants of Cthulhu, The Bermuda Triangle, The Gnomes of Zurich) that struggle to take over the world. The world is represented by groups cards such as Mafia, two headed Anti-Nuclear Activists, or Trekkies. Every group and Illuminati has some Power, Resistance and Income values; most the world groups have an Alignment.
Special cards represent unexpected phenomena and features, for example increasing Income or Resistance of a group.
The game is played in turns. The primary Illuminati (player) activity is taking control of groups. During an attack to control the attacker must overcome the Resistance of attacked groups with combined Power of his groups (affected by Alignment of attacker and attacked), money spent, and influence of special cards. The attacked group can be defended by spending money and special cards by other players (especially by the controlling Illuminati if the group is already controlled). After a successful attack to control the card is placed (along the special markers) next to Illuminati, or another already controlled group forming a power structure.
Other types of attacks are attacks to neutralize (a neutralized group is removed from attacked Iluminati power structure and returns to the table - to the world) and attack to destroy (destroyed groups are removed from the game).
Besides attacking groups and themselves the players can trade, form alliances, cheat, steal money from the table and do anything it takes to win.
The aim of the game is fulfilled when Illuminati build a power structure consisting of given number of cards (depending on number of players), or when Illuminati fulfill its special goal like, controlling at least one card of each alignment (the Bermuda Triangle), controlling of combined power of 35 (the Bavarian Illuminati or hoarding 150 megabucks of money (the Gnomes of Zurich).
Expansions
Available expansion sets are:
- Illuminati Brainwash
- Illuminati Y2K
Illuminati Y2K brought two new Illuminati groups to the deck: Shangri-La. and The Church of SubGenius. and a whole slew of new groups (although typeset not so precisely as the original set). Also a minor addition was an optional rule of cancelling privilege status in attacks for control.
Brainwash is a set of optional rules for media brainwash (altering power of one group), propaganda (represented by an included special gameboard - altering the power and Income of all groups of given Alignment), adding attributes to groups, and a few minor optional rules.
The game has attained cult status in some circles, been referenced in some geek media (like User Friendly comic strip). A CCG version of the game is Illuminati: New World Order also released by Steve Jackson Games.
Steve Jackson Games also released two related games. One is Illuminati: Crime Lords which takes illuminated power struggle to street level. This is a separate game based on the similar rules set. The other one is Hacker which is also similar to original Illuminati (modulo terminology) but the players fight for the control of the computer networks.