No, see, that’s just an internal audit. 
Globalsec, first Corp and Runner faction!
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Why’d that be bad? More like interesting. Mr. Robot
In case you havn’t met THE BOSS yet…
Seriously, I want a ID with “The Conflict Solution” as the tagline. (The “solution” being “breaking ALL the legs.”)
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Because Sunny’s whole flavour is that she is a CORPORATE Runner. Many of her cards revolve around the resources GS provides for her. For her to hack GS, even as Security Testing, would be a huge flavour fail.
Somebody’s gotta test their security. Who would they rather have do it than themselves? Sure it might not be something they could present as findings to the public, but as an internal security measure, it makes a ton of sense. If not even someone who works here can hack these servers, we golden.
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“Lidiah Maucher”. Second german name after Haas.
“Boy did we get that runner good! Scorched her whole block to ash, and with a gas leak no less!”
“Uh, sir, HR is calling again. Something about a death in the internal affairs unit.”
The only reason I think that they’ll do it is because they are running out of ways to not give Weyland the cards they need in faction.
corps kill people within their own corp all the time.
look at Georgia Emelyov
thematically, Sunny is testing internal security and stumbles across something she shouldn’t be, then gets taken out as a security measure
double post, but i’m updating the OP with an overview video from GenCon with a better in-depth explanation of gameplay, mechanics, win conditions “it’s possible for everyone to lose. one person will always lose. not everyone can win”
I mean, obviously YMMV, but one of the things I liked about Archipelago was how it seemed to be subtly critical of colonialism? Like, the grinding cycle of capitalism meant the best way to play the game was the way that was most harmful to the natives and the other players, and you end up in those spirals of greed. I could be misreading this completely, but I picked up so many hints of it through the art and mechanic and I’d be surprised if it wasn’t intentional!
Don’t want to start a huge derail but my only personal complaints are the art is a little skeevy, and while I don’t have problems playing a game as awful people (as a wargamer) I might feel uncomfortable introducing it to other people. I do think the game is genuinely attempting to critique colonialism through its mechanics, though.
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That’s definitely a fair comment. And tbh it’s a little troubling just how many board games portray conquest and colonialism as an unquestioned force for progress and success!
If you’re interested in a game that deals with this is a very interesting but also horrifying way, I suggest looking into Dog Eat Dog.
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Take a look at Endeavor… I feel it has an interesting take on those themes.
But also, in general, board games do have to have a win state. ‘Conquest and colonialism’ just declares that you did the best by the game’s metrics. There’s an element of reading too much into the mechanics. Mechanics do carry meaning, but the mechanics of a game can stand on their own.
(For computer games, I’ve seen this argument used against the Civilization series of games, as it implies that ‘other’ civilizations are ‘inferior’ or ‘worse’… I like using Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri as an example of what could be done in that genre without using historical civilizations/societies, which ties those things to real-life history inextricably. But in the ‘historical’ game, you can build a land-locked ‘Tokyo’, and have the Great War of 1933 between the Allied powers of Russia, England, and Spain against the Axis of America, Japan, and India.)
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We’re in danger of veering dangerously off topic here, but I don’t mind because it’s an interesting conversation 
There’s a great video by Errant Signal on the Civ series which makes the point the criteria by which your Civilization is judged is from a very Western perspective; note for instance that Barbarians are placed on the same level as roving monsters (they can’t be reasoned with), and not even really people. You’re driven by the motivations of a ‘state’ from even prehistory times, and encouraged to expand and conquer.
I hadn’t come across Endeavor, I’ll check that out 
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Yep. I’ve seen that. I follow Shamus Young, and Campster is a regular on his DieCast and Spoiler Warning series…es… (How do you pluralize series?)
But yeah. This game seems intriguing at least! 
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(It’s still just “series”)
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Aah, I’ve been a fan of Shamus for years after stumbling across twenty sided tale randomly, probably a decade or something ago now.
Sometimes these games that promise political intrigue like this can’t quite back up the promise of back-room wheeling and dealing with action on the tabletop. I’ve got faith in the designers though, so I’ll be keeping my eye on the previews (and then undoubtedly buying it anyway).
My read on it after seeing the TC video is that they’re taking correct steps. The game in general reminded me of Dead of Winter, and seeing that the secret objectives are as simple as ‘Do better than This person’ gives me a lot of hope for the game. I feel those secret objectives will end up driving about 50-60% of the game, with the Assets driving the rest of it. The Threat marker probably won’t end up being terribly important.
My greatest fear with the game is that the ‘traitor’, the Federalist, can’t take actions in secret to try and undermine the rest of the game. That was one of the best parts of Dead of Winter, where the traitor can totally take an action in secret to screw up what was going on, and leading to a bunch of finger pointing and blaming very quickly. It makes me think the game might be more like Battlestar Galactica. (Which is still a good game, just not one that I really love.)
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