Pandora's Box Phenomenon

[12678]

I have had the good fortune to have the PB in a number of recent games and sometimes I can figure out what it is up to and in others I have virtually no idea. I was thinking a cool thing at the end of each game would be for the PB to have an explanatory box so that all could see what is was up to in a given game.

What are some of the things other gamers have experienced with the PB?

In one of my games, I am convinced it is ADDING ships to my key each turn and then SUBTRACTING them on others. Crazy.

In yet another, it seems to be providing a "portal" for EVERYONE to see what it is up to by showing up on everyone's game turn. But these are just guesses, lol.

I heard someone tell a story about an old FBI Black Box that actually blew up the world it was sitting on around T10!!

[JimE]

"I heard someone tell a story about an old FBI Black Box that actually blew up the world it was sitting on around T10!!"

Yes!! We used to play hot potato with that!!

[phx1jsa]

Last game I had it, I did not even notice grabbing the world it was on, so was very surprised when I started getting random world spies showing up on my map. I thought it was a glitch until I noticed I had captured a world with Pandora's about the turn when the worlds I had not visited, or even any world connected to them, started showing up.

[phx1jjm]

I knew a girl named pandora….never got to see her box though....

[12678]

I think that once you get into the box is when the bad juju starts happening. At least that's how it goes down in Greek mythology (as I recall). LOL

[JimE]

I can now report on the game I just won. Partly due to the Pandora Box effect (sorry e3imiags) which intimidated and scared off my opponent (It was a two player game, each with 2 positions).

It basically lied to both of us, but as I owned it I could see what it was doing!!!!

I had a fleet of 2 ships, reported as having 104 ships. It was wrongly showing the ships on that fleet as 104, which was actually the fleet number. This scared the living daylights out of my opponent, as it was only about turn 4 at the time we ran into each other, and he saw this "massive" fleet. He could not figure out how I had managed to make so many ships in that short time.

Heheheheheh.

[12678]

That is one bizarre usage of the Pandora. Never heard that one before. I have it currently in another game and it is producing the spy reports that someone else mentioned above. I think whatever the Pandora does should be explained as part of a "reveal" in the Final Game Report.

[drwr]

I kind of like keeping the behavior a secret, even after game ends. It makes it harder to enumerate the list of possible Pandora's Box behaviors. You might figure out what you *think* it does in a given game, but maybe you're not 100% right; or maybe you were but it's slightly different in the next game anyway.

David