This feels uncomfortably arbitrary - if we give the Emperor gamesmaster-like powers (which could extend, here, to repowering a Disconnected Institution because it’d make for a really good narrative twist), we start playing a different game.

I prefer predictability. I don’t want to have to refigure my moves on the last day.

14 hours is not enough for players in certain time zones.

Recognizing the concerns of others - however, I am still worried about penalizing players for directing early, when institutions are modified.

Either way there will sometimes be a need for last-minute direction changes, but it’s a lot easier to figure a plan b for an institution being unpowered than it is to figure a plan b for an institution’s mechanics changing significantly.

It’s all about trusting the Net to decide whether the change is significant or not.
If you Direct credits to an Institution, and then it gets Unpowered because someone proposed to fix a potentially-flawed wording, you have lost a move completely (you don’t even get the +1 restocking credit).

@Yonah: If you were about to Influence, say, the Bank, would you really prefer for the Bank to switch from “doubles the amount of restocking credits” to “Unpowered so you get nothing”, rather than switching from “doubles the amount of restocking credits” to “gives you one credit for every other player who directed credits to the bank”?

Another system could be that if the Net posts in a comment to a proposal “DO NOT UNPOWER”, enacting that proposal does not count as modifying any institution for the purposes of the Unpowering rule.

@Koen: Well, I’m trying to play optimally, so if I see a proposal might be enacted before the cycle ends I’ll make a plan B. In the former case, that plan B requires me to think through all the implications of the new bank, decide whether to shift resources from other targets, etc. In the latter case, I just say “oh, no bank this cycle, guess I’ll put those credits into my other main target the legion.”

COV

Yonah: Last minute changes to your directions are what I’d call “grinding”, and shouldn’t be necessary, because they favour Players who can be there at the right time (and encourage people who can be there to actually be there, which makes me uneasy)