Discussion of Attribute and Locations

I’ve had a few NB chats with players and few questions have come up, I figured I may as well clarify some points.

Players can wait indefinitely to place their attribute point but sooner is better so let’s discuss them, I’ve also tweaked two pieces of rules, the first isn’t a tweak but a something that got left out then tweaked.

Diplomacy Bonus: Player with a 5 in Diplomacy add 2 vote for each weak Elector or Poor Planet they control (not including Homeworld), players with a 4 or higher add 2 vote for each average Elector or Planet they control, players with a 3 or higher add 2 votes for every Strong Elector or Rich Planet they control, again Homeworlds never count for this.

Electors come in 3 types, weak, average (avg), and strong.
Weak – Possesses 1d3+2 votes and no militia
Average – Possesses 1d6+3 votes and 1 militia
Strong – Possesses 1d6+4 votes, 1d3 militia, and roll on the Elector trait chart
Planets grant 2 votes for poor, 3 for Average, 4 for Rich

So a player with a 4 in diplomacy is picking up an extra vote for each average or rich planet and average or strong Elector. It’s my opinion that Diplomacy was previously the weakest attribute by a fair measure. The ramifications of this is that high diplomacy can now pull more votes from a smaller territory, and also has a strong motive to acquire planets and electors. They still have their edge on Embargoes and House Raids, which makes their ability to engage in Embargoes pretty significant.

Next is raids, it was felt that they are too expensive to conduct, and I am inclined to agree, so they will be reduced by 100 MS per Legion, for both raids and House Raids. The troop transport table has been adjusted to reflect this. Fundamentally though, while raids were more about hurting another player than turning a profit this balances it a bit more IMO.

Also added to combat were notes on who goes first if multiple players attack the same place in a round (near the end of the combat section) and some clarifications about when attacks happen. Remember, every asset that has a location has its own unique location and nothing else but troops is ever there. These locations are all effectively different worlds, even if the location is listed as being on Dune or Ecaz the Fremen or Ecazi faction doesn’t control them all, you’re not attacking them by going there, etc. Even owning a Planet (say Deneb) doesn’t mean you own everything there, you basically get tithes and hang out in your capital, there could be a weapons factory owned by another player ‘there’ but ‘there’ is for game purposes another planet called ‘Deneb – Eastern City’ and owning Deneb – Eastern City doesn’t imply any ownership of Deneb itself, and you’d still pay the normal transport fees to travel to Deneb to attack it. A bit bizarre, but game practicality has to beat flavor and I used up around half the known Dune Worlds just making up factions, I’ve already had to lift them from other series or in one case the USDA label of a juice box.

Getting back to attributes, you gain a lot by pumping something up to a 4, or a 5, more attributes will be available, both typed and generic, but you lose a lot by being weak in others, you've got a pretty clear path if you decide to go 4-2-2 on you attributes and have a prety clear weakness if you leave a 1 in something, but lets discuss the 3/3 combos

DC - A heavy combat and diplomacy route favors expansion, overt expansion mostly, seizures are not subtle or quiet affairs though with a high diplomacy you don't see a lot of gossip and you could probably try to offer an olive branch to the guy you just took something from to stay quiet or work on known NPC locations like the luxuries. Planets and Electors is the good combo for this emphasis. You don't need to expand as much with your vote bonus from planets and electors, but you also don't get raided as much from your Diplomacy score, and your combat is high enough to allow lots of legions for garrison work. You are also more able to set up alliances and embargoes can be nasty, particularly if supplemented with your own attacks.

CI - Raids, raids, raids plus a healthy number of assassinations, you take bruising from too much expansion because more locations means more raids, but your pretty resistant to raids.

DI - Comabt obviously is not your thing, so expansion is a bad idea, but Locations aren't the only source of income (CHOAM Stock) an you still benefit from planets and electors. Your big advantage is you don't get randomly raided much and you don't have a lot of troops to move around and expose you, your very resistant to Court Gossip, your also really good at it.

In my opinion it tends to even out, players need to adapt their strategy to their attributes, and need to adapt their attributes to their preferred strategy in fairly equal measure.