Twilight Imperium

[Lord_Icewind]

In case you've haven't played this great board game, it's about time you do

Links for everyone!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12493 (Board Game Geek Article)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/22821 (The expansion, Shattered Empire)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Imperium (Wikipedia article)

http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php (Here you can get a program to play it, alongside lots of other board games, via IP or PBEM!)

I could start talking about this game for pages, but better writers have done lots of reviews all over the net, so check it out ^^

My fav race, BTW, is the Xxcha Kingdom

That's it.

[Main_Brain]

I played TI2:HopeS End in my Time.
Mostly it ended in a build up of Ships followed by a huge Decision Battle :/


Barony of Levt (?) was my Favourite

[Kassiopeia]

I've been playing TI 3rd ed with my gamer group a lot as of late and we really love it. One of us was a bit more familiar with it and kept beating us pretty handily the first few sessions, but we played three whole games with four guys today and I won two of them, and even the last one was really really close.

We were tied in VP but he had managed five public objectives so far, I only four. We even had the same amount of planets, and I would have won him by 14-13 if we'd gone to command counters.

There's a lot of strategy and preplanning ahead, but also a lot of having to adapt to different situations as they arise. One point I should bring up with especially new players is making sure you're using your actions cards to the best of your ability.

I learned that well when I played as the Yssaril, who are definitely one of my favourites to play. You have an action card at hand for just about any scenario where you need an edge, and you can really ruin someone's plan with the proper timing and some luck of the draw. It means you're involved in everyone's stuff all the time, you can even extort people into paying you off so you won't unleash your cards on them... for the time being.

The Naalu Collective with the +1 fighters and the ability to always begin the round can also be pretty dangerous, if you can get Cybernetics too. You're essentially fielding fleets of Cruisers that are 1/4 the price. With them I managed to intimidate really big cap ship fleets into staying out of Mecatol Rex while I reaped my secret objective from there in one game.

I wonder if it's the game or the style, but our group hasn't really had big battles that often, unless over Mecatol Rex. One game I did have to fight for my life to stay around, since everyone else teamed up on me as I was going to win that round if I wasn't eliminated. The Shattered Empire expansion might be 'good' in that regard, but I kind of prefer the vanilla 3rd ed where the fleets are more a device of intimidation and blocking and subtle suppression, rather than sledgehammers to just smash things into pieces with.

Edit: Oh, and we've found the 2 VP from the Imperial Strategy Card to be just way too much, unless we use the 14 VP variant. We've had quite enjoyable games with the standard 10 VP type and having the ISC give you only 1 VP.

[Lord_Icewind]

Actually, if you look at Shattered Empire closely, you can see that there are two "8" strategy variants: "Imperial II" and "Bureocracy".

I am thankful for this kind of thing; the Imperial I card was meant to be a kind of game clock for newbie games, but for more advanced players it's just not right.

Ah, and this game is definetly -against- BIG battles. Problem is, if you lose 'em you're as good as dead. Seen it many times, now my gaming group avoids 'em.

The Jol Nar are just too much with Shattered Empire's Technology Strategy II. It lets them get 3 (!!!) techs for 14 resources, and thats before taking discounts in account.
And I've always thought the L1z1x waaay too overpowered. I call them the borg :P

That's it.

[Kassiopeia]

Heh, yeah, I read the SE rules through last night and the Jol-Nar thing with Tech II just seems way too overpowered. I really like the idea of the Bureaucracy card, I wonder if we should just fashion one ourselves or get the expansion.

[Jon Shafer]

This game was fun until the "event" came up which made me lose 25 Dreadnaughts. Then it wasn't.

[Kassiopeia]

WTF, how can you lose 25 Dreadnaughts when you can only have five at a time?

[Jon Shafer]

Where did that rule come from?

[Kassiopeia]

Oh, it's some earlier edition or something I guess, they didn't have unit limits in them?

[Lord_Icewind]

In the 3rd and latest edition, you can only have 5 Dreadnoughts. And 2 War Suns. The only unlimited type of units are Ground Troops and Fighters :P

This tuesday we're playing a 8-player game, using all optional rules I'm really looking forward to it ^^

That's it.