So I often ask myself things like "Beyond the typical [PRE] based vote-push mechanisms, what easily-accessible options exist to create more robust ousting via vote?"
Closed Session and Private Audience leap to mind.
These votes simply remove "X votes", Barons and Magaji from the voting equation. Done. The sect that opposes your is finished too. The only people you have to either convince (or shout down) are your same sect-cronies. Considering this, both of these cards are amazingly good and underutilized in the current political environment
Here's the rub, and think about this before you read ahead. Which of those two cards is innately better?
On the surface, it's instinctual to say that Closed Session is inherently better. It costs no blood and can be played by more vampires. I think a little differently though. You might see that is something of a theme in these blogs.
Let's start by counting the largest contributors to a referenda.
- The 53 Princes grossly outnumber 33 Archbishops.
- The 20 Prisci are intended to offset that difference. Unfortunately, they can't because multiple Prisci still only control 3 votes as a block.
- The 19 Justicars balance the 18 Cardinals.
- There are 13 Inner Circle members, compared to only a single Regent.
So, there are 85 Camarilla vampires who possess 2 or more votes, but only 52 Sabbat vampires that independantly control 2 or more votes. There really is more opportunity to have Camarilla titles in play, even attached to a non-voting deck.
Just as impactful as the gross count of titles vampires is that the difference between the sects are all Inner Circle members with 4 attached votes. Wow.
The ways numbers of Princes scale in parallel, the Prisci don't scale and the ICs dramatically outnumber the Regents simply indicates that you're likely to see much more voting power present on the Camarilla side.
If you've heard of contrararian investing, you'll see where I'm going now. The idea is to do what other people aren't doing, creating value for yourself. Buy when most people are divesting, sell when they are buying.
In this case, the voters seem to sit in the Camarilla. So we might want to play the contrarian here and vote from the Sabbat side with Private Audience. If we exclude everyone else, we should be able to pass our referendum with less vote push, because there are fewer titles to fight against.
The result should be Sabbat voting powerhouses without requiring Presence. Include the availability of Orlando Oriundus and Bruce de Guy and you have some interesting options. All because of Private Audience.
Go forth and build your decks.