Ian Fleming

Ability
Your best library and theater each produce extra culture equal to their levels.

At the beginning of your Politics Phase, you may look at one player's military cards. You cannot choose the same player on two consecutive turns.

Ian Fleming in History
Bond, James Bond. Charming, charismatic and adventurous, and a fascinating reflection of his creator - writer Ian Fleming. Fleming started as a simple journalist in the Reuters news agency. After finishing his internship, he was sent on an assignment to Russia, where he covered a trial of British engineers being accused of espionage. When he returned to England, he was asked by the Foreign Office to report on the situation in Russia. This seemingly insignificant assignment secured him a reputation with the Foreign Office and right before the start of the Second World War, he was recruited to be a member of the British Naval Intelligence.

When the war ended, he decided to move to Jamaica, and he started writing his novels. His first book, Casino Royale, came out in 1953 and after that, he spent the first two months of every year writing. Together he published 14 James Bond novels, inspired by his travels, missions, and life as a spy, that sold over 60 million copies worldwide. Later his books were turned into films that started the longest-running movie franchise in history.

Designer's Note
I always felt some modern era writer should be in the game, so adding one to the expansion was one of the first decisions. Many writers were considered and some even tested for this spot. Should we include some of the iconic and most regarded ones? Ernst Hemingway? Franz Kafka? John Steinbeck? George Orwell? J. R. R. Tolkien? Or some of the famous female writers? Virginia Woolf? Agatha Christie? J. K. Rowling? It was just matter of whom we pick, as the effect was similar – boost to libraries.

But well, it was not that easy. Advanced libraries are strong enough even without a significant boost, so we needed rather a leader that has also another effect. Probably something combined with military, as there was no purely military leader in age III. When looking for such person, I also went for some rather unknown names. For some time, this spot was taken by Marguerite Higgins, a war correspondent and the first female to win Pulitzer Prize for Foreign Correspondence. It was an interesting concept, as she produced culture for wars, regardless of who declared them.

Anyway, I think Ian Fleming was a great solution to this dilemma. While his name may be not the most known, his work is recognized by several generations, the combination of a spy and a writer made for interesting effects, and the fact he affected significantly also the movie industry allowed us to include also theatres to his effect.

The spy effect adds interesting information to the game. You may scout if a weaker player has defense cards, but also, you may peek if the strongest player has any wars to declare. And last but not least, information about Age III cards in players hand may be very useful, too. We just had to limit its use on the same player, mostly because of two player game – espionage should never provide perfect information.