I recently had quite a bad experience with the game where I was almost trapped in a No Cooldown Zone with a lot of Heat. It was of course my fault for not reading the course, and making some bad decisions, but this isn't the principle thing I want to talk about. In trying to escape the situation, I tried to force a Cluttered Hand, but this appeared to be impossible in the circumstances...at least as far as I could tell. This is because the way you select your gear is by clicking on available cards. Obviously Heat Cards are not normally available to play, so they are unclickable on. So if you want to deliberately click on a higher gear to get a Cluttered Hand when you are in a No Cool Down Zone, (since that's the only way to get rid of Heat until you're out of the zone*), you can't do it if there's too much Heat.
Now of course its only likely that you are going to want to do this in a No Cooldown Zone, and there might even be better ways of dealing with the situation, depending on circumstances. Still you could theoretically get yourself stuck, and I was fortunate in that I had a Suspension Card, which kept my hand from clogging entirely, even though there was eventually 5 Heat in it. But theoretically it could have been worse, even though this situation is probably quite rare. So its probably worth considering how BGA differs from the original rules and the implications. Here's what it says in the rulebook:
In rare circumstances, you can get stuck with so many Heat cards in your hand that you don't have enough playable cards for the gear you're in. If this happens, use as many playable cards as possible, and cover the difference with Heat cards. In this case your car does not move this turn. Instead when you reveal your played cards, immediately move your gear pawn to 1st gear, place the cards that are in your Play Area in your Discard pile and skip straight to step 9 (Replenish Hand).
The point about this original rule is it envisages a situation where you are using Heat cards as 'fillers' to replace the cards you don't have to play in your current gear. So what you would physically do is play as many cards as you can legally for the gear you set up front, then add extra Heat cards from your hand to make up the difference. When it was your turn, you would reveal that your playable cards included extra Heat ones, and would declare a Cluttered Hand.
This makes it quite clear that BGA deals with Cluttered Hands differently, at least when they are in a No Cooldown Zone. Because you should be able to set your gear higher, and therefore in the circumstances click on Heat cards to select them. I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen (correct me if I'm wrong) and there certainly isn't any kind of prompt to indicate it is possible.
I don't know if there is a reason for this, maybe with how the interface sequence works or something. Still I would be interested in an explanation, and also wonder if there's any possibility of altering how things work ... at least in a No Cooldown situation. Being able to force a Cluttered Hand might be a useful option if you really get yourself in a terrible situation.
You might want to check out a discussion of the situation on Boardgamegeek https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/348655 ... ed-hand-to. It includes my own contribution, and a description of the game where the issue occurred. Incidentally the game was: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... 83912980;#, starting around Move 165.
Note*: the only way bar Supercool, of course.
Now of course its only likely that you are going to want to do this in a No Cooldown Zone, and there might even be better ways of dealing with the situation, depending on circumstances. Still you could theoretically get yourself stuck, and I was fortunate in that I had a Suspension Card, which kept my hand from clogging entirely, even though there was eventually 5 Heat in it. But theoretically it could have been worse, even though this situation is probably quite rare. So its probably worth considering how BGA differs from the original rules and the implications. Here's what it says in the rulebook:
In rare circumstances, you can get stuck with so many Heat cards in your hand that you don't have enough playable cards for the gear you're in. If this happens, use as many playable cards as possible, and cover the difference with Heat cards. In this case your car does not move this turn. Instead when you reveal your played cards, immediately move your gear pawn to 1st gear, place the cards that are in your Play Area in your Discard pile and skip straight to step 9 (Replenish Hand).
The point about this original rule is it envisages a situation where you are using Heat cards as 'fillers' to replace the cards you don't have to play in your current gear. So what you would physically do is play as many cards as you can legally for the gear you set up front, then add extra Heat cards from your hand to make up the difference. When it was your turn, you would reveal that your playable cards included extra Heat ones, and would declare a Cluttered Hand.
This makes it quite clear that BGA deals with Cluttered Hands differently, at least when they are in a No Cooldown Zone. Because you should be able to set your gear higher, and therefore in the circumstances click on Heat cards to select them. I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen (correct me if I'm wrong) and there certainly isn't any kind of prompt to indicate it is possible.
I don't know if there is a reason for this, maybe with how the interface sequence works or something. Still I would be interested in an explanation, and also wonder if there's any possibility of altering how things work ... at least in a No Cooldown situation. Being able to force a Cluttered Hand might be a useful option if you really get yourself in a terrible situation.
You might want to check out a discussion of the situation on Boardgamegeek https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/348655 ... ed-hand-to. It includes my own contribution, and a description of the game where the issue occurred. Incidentally the game was: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... 83912980;#, starting around Move 165.
Note*: the only way bar Supercool, of course.
