[Board Game] Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed
Posted: 2006-07-09 06:40pm
I've been drooling over this game for months now, and finally, I broke down and bought it from a local gaming shop. What game, you ask? Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed.
Anyone who even remotely likes STGODs or 4X games should check it out. They even have the rules available online for people to download and see if they like them before buying the game.
The game is hard to learn. There is no two ways to go about this. There's a lot to do, so there's a lot to figure out. This isn't Monopoly people, it's more like Dune and Risk with starships.
There are ten races, of which the players pick 3-6 at random. You build the map randomly (we've found that having players be unaware of where they will be sitting makes for more reasonable map deployment, otherwise there tends to be a glut of good planets by one or two players). The map can be set up differently every time, since it is made up of large (3") cardboard hexes.
Each race has a special ability. They're not all useful for combat, but they are all useful. Each race also has specialized starting technologies and starting fleets, which means that each race has a different optimal strategy for the first few turns of the game.
By and large, the first 2-3 turns are usually establishing your empire, making alliances, grabbing planets, and building up war fleets. By around turn 5-6 or so on a full game, wars can get started in full force. For beginning players who are learning all the rules for the first time, turns can take roughly an hour or so, but once you get practiced, the time required drops to about thirty minutes. Games usually last between 6-10 turns unless special rules are used by the group.
The point of the game is to amass 10 victory points, not just to annihilate everyone else on the board. There are public objectives, which are generally easy, like spend 6 trade goods in a round, private objectives, which are much harder (capture the last planet of your neighbor with a space dock, control Mecatol Rex, have 6 ground forces, and a space dock on the planet). Then, there is the Imperial Strategy card, which gives whoever takes it 2 victory points right away. Now, of course, people are going to fight over this card, but the problem is, all of the strategy cards are awesome (some stay good throughout, some are lifesavers later in the game).
Combat works like this: Every ship has a combat number, you need to beat this number on a D10 to inflict damage on the enemy fleet (representing how powerful each ship is). Fighters and Destroyers need a 9+, Cruisers need a 7+, Dreadnaughts need a 5+, Planetary Defense Systems need a 6+, and War Suns need a 3+ (and get three attacks). War Suns, however, are a very late-game technology. When you inflict a hit, the player you attacked gets to choose his casualties, so very quickly fighters become important to take hits for the rest of the fleet (also, a few races can quickly make Fighters as powerful as a standard cruiser). Every shp except for a Dreadnought and a War Sun can only take one hit, whereas the two aforementioned units can take two before being destroyed. Combat ends either when someone runs away or one side is annihilated (you keep doing more combat rounds until one or the other occurs). If you want to run, you have to declare it at the beginning of the combat round before dice are rolled, and then have to stick it through to the end of the round, so that combat always is at least one round of shooting (with some exceptions based on special cards or abilities).
Almost every round, a vote will come up for the galactic council (the players). Every planet has an influence value which is used to increase the number of votes you get. These votes can range from making certain technologies easier to buy to making it harder for someone to use the Imperial Strategy to win the game.
In all, the game is pretty fun, and very playable with even just 3 people (though, like most games, it really picks up with 5 or 6). There's a lot of meat in this game, and not a whole lot of fat, but it's a lot to swallow in one go.
And of course, one of the best things is that people can be total bastards in this game and not feel so bad about it (rather like munchkin). There are a lot of ways to backstab people, and ways to turn the tide just when it looked like you were done for (there's a strategy card that keeps a player from attacking you for a turn so you can get reinforcements in to place, for example).
Now, the pictures from the first big game
Marcao is getting just a little too in to the game. Does he write all of his STGOD posts like this?
"You see my friend, what you do not realise is that by giving yourself all the good planets, you are simply inviting the bangbus into home for tea. This is simply not wise."
The board set up a few turns in.
My side, I'm the green bastard.
Innocent and Knighthawk's side, Innocent is red.
Did I mention he was red? And he got most of the good planets? Marcao, by the by, is that yellow bastard.
Anyone who even remotely likes STGODs or 4X games should check it out. They even have the rules available online for people to download and see if they like them before buying the game.
The game is hard to learn. There is no two ways to go about this. There's a lot to do, so there's a lot to figure out. This isn't Monopoly people, it's more like Dune and Risk with starships.
There are ten races, of which the players pick 3-6 at random. You build the map randomly (we've found that having players be unaware of where they will be sitting makes for more reasonable map deployment, otherwise there tends to be a glut of good planets by one or two players). The map can be set up differently every time, since it is made up of large (3") cardboard hexes.
Each race has a special ability. They're not all useful for combat, but they are all useful. Each race also has specialized starting technologies and starting fleets, which means that each race has a different optimal strategy for the first few turns of the game.
By and large, the first 2-3 turns are usually establishing your empire, making alliances, grabbing planets, and building up war fleets. By around turn 5-6 or so on a full game, wars can get started in full force. For beginning players who are learning all the rules for the first time, turns can take roughly an hour or so, but once you get practiced, the time required drops to about thirty minutes. Games usually last between 6-10 turns unless special rules are used by the group.
The point of the game is to amass 10 victory points, not just to annihilate everyone else on the board. There are public objectives, which are generally easy, like spend 6 trade goods in a round, private objectives, which are much harder (capture the last planet of your neighbor with a space dock, control Mecatol Rex, have 6 ground forces, and a space dock on the planet). Then, there is the Imperial Strategy card, which gives whoever takes it 2 victory points right away. Now, of course, people are going to fight over this card, but the problem is, all of the strategy cards are awesome (some stay good throughout, some are lifesavers later in the game).
Combat works like this: Every ship has a combat number, you need to beat this number on a D10 to inflict damage on the enemy fleet (representing how powerful each ship is). Fighters and Destroyers need a 9+, Cruisers need a 7+, Dreadnaughts need a 5+, Planetary Defense Systems need a 6+, and War Suns need a 3+ (and get three attacks). War Suns, however, are a very late-game technology. When you inflict a hit, the player you attacked gets to choose his casualties, so very quickly fighters become important to take hits for the rest of the fleet (also, a few races can quickly make Fighters as powerful as a standard cruiser). Every shp except for a Dreadnought and a War Sun can only take one hit, whereas the two aforementioned units can take two before being destroyed. Combat ends either when someone runs away or one side is annihilated (you keep doing more combat rounds until one or the other occurs). If you want to run, you have to declare it at the beginning of the combat round before dice are rolled, and then have to stick it through to the end of the round, so that combat always is at least one round of shooting (with some exceptions based on special cards or abilities).
Almost every round, a vote will come up for the galactic council (the players). Every planet has an influence value which is used to increase the number of votes you get. These votes can range from making certain technologies easier to buy to making it harder for someone to use the Imperial Strategy to win the game.
In all, the game is pretty fun, and very playable with even just 3 people (though, like most games, it really picks up with 5 or 6). There's a lot of meat in this game, and not a whole lot of fat, but it's a lot to swallow in one go.
And of course, one of the best things is that people can be total bastards in this game and not feel so bad about it (rather like munchkin). There are a lot of ways to backstab people, and ways to turn the tide just when it looked like you were done for (there's a strategy card that keeps a player from attacking you for a turn so you can get reinforcements in to place, for example).
Now, the pictures from the first big game
Marcao is getting just a little too in to the game. Does he write all of his STGOD posts like this?
"You see my friend, what you do not realise is that by giving yourself all the good planets, you are simply inviting the bangbus into home for tea. This is simply not wise."
The board set up a few turns in.
My side, I'm the green bastard.
Innocent and Knighthawk's side, Innocent is red.
Did I mention he was red? And he got most of the good planets? Marcao, by the by, is that yellow bastard.
