Galactic Council

Agenda and Political Cards
Each player starts the game with 2 Political Cards in their hand, and receives 1 more each Status Phase.

Political Cards are also gained from the Assembly Strategy's Primary and the Bureaucracy Strategy's Secondary abilities, and the choice of cards may be improved with Xeno-Psychology.

Each player has a maximum hand size of 10 Political Cards. If a player at 10 cards is about to draw additional cards, he should draw and discard one Political Card at a time. At any time a player may discard 2 Political Cards in order to draw a new one.

At the start of the Strategy Phase, each player must simultaneously reveal a Political Card and place it in the common play area with their Control Marker. This is the agenda. If a player already has one of his Political Cards revealed (left over from a previous Strategy Phase), he may at this point change it. The agendas may not be changed at any other time during the game round. Each player only has one Political Card revealed in the common play area at any one time.

There are two types of agenda votes:


 * 1) “ELECT” VOTES When a political agenda asks the Galactic Council to elect something or someone, each player may choose who or what to nominate (i.e., elect) when casting his vote. That player's entire vote is now attributed towards that subject. The subject with the highest number (not necessarily the majority)of the total votes is considered elected. After this, follow the instructions on the Political Card.
 * 2) “FOR OR AGAINST” VOTES Most agendas will ask the Galactic Council to vote for or against a certain agenda. In this type of vote, players indicate either “for” or “against” when casting their vote. The majority of all votes cast will decide the outcome.

It is important to note which agendas are revealed each round. This may have an effect on which Strategy Cards players choose!

Assembly
When the player who controls the Assembly Strategy Card executes his Strategic Action, the Galactic Council convenes to debate and vote upon their agendas.

After the active player has drawn 2 Action Cards and 1 Political Card, he must decide whether to claim the Speaker Token.

• If he claims the Speaker Token he must select exactly THREE of the revealed agendas up for vote (but he may not select his own agenda), and determines the order in which they are resolved, in case that is significant. (If playing with 4 players, only TWO agendas are chosen, and with 3 players only ONE.)

• If the active player gives the Speaker Token to (or leaves it with) another player, he has much more choice in how to deal with the agendas. First, he chooses one agenda up for the vote. Then he selects one to three agendas, each of which he may either discard or add to the voting. Discarded agendas are simply put in the Political Card discard pile.

Voice of the Council
During Assembly, before voting begins, any player may spend 1 Command Counter from their Strategy Allocation area in order to include the Voice of the Council Special Objective in the voting. It is added in the “docket” like the other chosen revealed agendas. The person selecting the agendas decides in which order the agendas are resolved, including Voice of the Council.

Voting
Voting in the Galactic Council is simultaneous for all agendas. However, the resolution of agendas might in some cases be of significance. Therefore it is important to note the order before votes are cast.

Regardless of who chooses the agendas, at least one agenda will be voted on. The maximum number of agendas up for vote at the same time is 5, including Voice of the Council.

After the agendas have been selected, the Galactic Council must resolve the voting in the following way:

1) All players take a piece of paper and a pen. They then write the names of the agendas on the paper. These “voting slips” are used in step 4).

2) Each player now calculates their total votes. A player has as many votes as the total combined influence value of all his unexhausted planets. The Technology Advance Xeno-Psychology adds 3 votes, and the Voice of the Council card adds 5 votes.  Each race always has a minimum of 1 vote, regardless.

3) Players first debate, threaten, lure, or convince each other to vote in their favour. Trade Good Counters may be used as "bribes" but no promises or agreements in TI are binding (even after receiving a bribe or payoff).

4) Players then vote upon the agendas. They write next to each agenda their choice (e.g. FOR or AGAINST) and number of votes. Votes must be split between the agendas. A vote may be zero – this is called “abstaining”.  Votes from the same source (a specific planet, the Voice of the Council etc. must be voted as a bloc on the same agenda.

5) Lastly, the active player collects the voting slips from all players and tallies the votes.

Voting does not cause your Planet Cards to exhaust. Trade Good counters cannot be spent to gain additional votes. Trade Goods may, however, be used to bribe other players to vote in your favour!

Abstentions and Tied Votes
If there is a tied vote, the player holding the Speaker Token breaks the tie.

Exception: if all players abstain from an agenda (i.e. it receives zero votes), the agenda is discarded without effect.