Without it, people will run out of credits fast. It serves the purpose of making sure everyone sends in lists each cycle, and at 72 hours it really isn’t much of a grind. Would at least need to propose an alternative credit source

per clucky

This issue has been raised before - the current system forces players to choose between putting all their credits on their “target” institutions, or spreading out more to earn an income. It also means adds a balancing mechanic - without it, once a player gains a lead, they could easily maintain. This makes the game far more strategic, and is how the game is intended to be played. Remember, credits don’t actually give you anything - they only help you get other things. If you just keep spreading your money out, you’ll be rich, but powerless.

I would suggest, instead of making it hard to earn an income, creating some sort of system of “taxation” to discourage not using the credits you earn in earnest attempts to influence. If you’re bothered by hoarding, I think that will achieve what your looking for much better.

Per southpointingchariot.

Fair point on needing a way to pump Credits into the system.

But if a mechanic is “you must do this every time you are given the option to, there is no reason not to, and you will fall behind if you forget or fail to do so” then it’s a grind. There isn’t much of a strategic dilemma under the current ruleset - unless I’m about to win, I’m never going to put all of my Credits onto the Institution I want, as I’ll have no Credits to spend in next Cycle if I win. Players will almost always want to keep some Credits back for next Cycle, and it’ll always be a no-brainer decision to invest them in 1-Credit Bids.

@Kevan, yes, it will be necessary to invest some in 1 credit bids. But some will have to be used to target. Look how many institutions were not influenced last round. A strategic player will have to balance these two things.

1 Credit bids present a good system to allow players to earn income in a way that forces them to balance between short and long term gain.

After thinking this through, CoV to

I have also submitted a proposal that introduces a more interesting way to accumulate credits.

“you must do this every time you are given the option to, there is no reason not to, and you will fall behind if you forget or fail to do so”

I would suggest a rule along the lines of “If a Player did not submit directions during the cycle, they are considered to have directed 1 credit to every institution” but that wouldn’t go well with Powered/Unpowered switches.

per spc
but I think koen’s idea is a good one as well.

[south] I suppose I’m mostly just bothered by the mechanical inelegance of forcing people to make fake bids for Institutions that they don’t actually want to bid for. If “bid” means “offer an amount of resources for, out of a desire to control” but also “press the ‘get 1 free Credit’ button”, it becomes a little harder to build further mechanics on top of that.

A general rule of “if a player has leftover Credits, they are doubled, to a maximum of 5” would have the same effect, and would make it easier to build coherent mechanics on the verb “to bid”.

@Kevan, this seems to be a matter of taste, as such, I don’t find your objection unreasonable. I personally find the system elegant in its interweaving of mechanics, though I suppose it may appear sloppy to some. I would also note that the word “bid” is not used anywhere in the rules - though I have no objection to using it as a placeholder in these discussions, I do not feel compelled to tether the structure to that idea.

I personally don’t see Directing as ‘grinding’ - it is the core action of game play, it cannot be used to take an advantage through incessant repetition, and is set on a consistent cycle that seems beyond the scope of grinding time. If your concern is that there is an obvious choice, I would argue that attempting to hit every possible institution each round will be a bad strategy in the long run. If your concern is that players may miss out on an opportunity to “grind”, something along the lines of Koen’s suggestion seems perfectly reasonable, if a bit unnecessary. But if it is a matter of distaste, I suppose I feel more or less contrary - I personally think its kinda cool.