TwilightImperium

Thoughts on the game

Make sure that you play with the variant making the role that gives 2VP only give 1VP.  Otherwise that's way too strong. --Angoel

(a bit of background for other people) There is a card called ISC that gives 2VP to whoever has it each turn. Given that you only need 10VPs to win, and the the 'secret missions' you get at the beginning of the game are only worth 2VP many people seem to think it is over powered and ruins the game. Although there are others who disagree. The TI3 wiki has a [page where someone summarises the problems] as they see them. I think if we're going to change the game mechanics on the first game we need general concensus from whoever is going to play ;-) --RobHu

Speaking from my experience of the game, it thoroughly distorts the gameplay.  If you have first choice of actions, you take ISC, if you have second choice of actions, you take the action that gives you the first choice next turn.  This stops a lot of the interest in which action to take, etc.  It also distorts the victory - I won the first game I played by being first player and so being first to get the imperial card twice - which, when combined with an action card which allowed me to take it for the third time gave me the win.  The position on the board was largely irrelivant.  --Angoel

StuartFraser just did basically the above to win his first game too, with the Imperial card set to 1 VP. My board position was almost entirely useless.

AC's thoughts before playing:

• I very much like the look of this game, and would be very much up for giving it a game or two.
  
• The sample game listed, with 3 players, looks to me like it shouldn't have taken more than about 3 hours. I can believe games with more players would get a lot more complex and longer.
  
• I really like the way that when building the map, the players get dealt 1/3 of the hexes each, and then take turns placing a hex subject to the board-creation constraints; but that you get to see your race, and your Secret Objective, before doing that building. In the sample map above, the player whose objective was to control all the wormholes seemed to make a major play error when building the map, in failing to place one of the wormholes near her home system.
  
• I like that all the races have different minor bonuses, and start with different technologies and units.
  
• I like that the main game has lots of strategic moving around, production, etc, with the only randomness coming from cards drawn from decks (and the unpredictability of other players' actions).
  
• I rather dislike the way that, for the space combats, they gave in and introduced randomness in the form of die rolls. Why couldn't they have kept things deterministic like the rest of the game? However, there seem to be several mitigations that mean this may not spoil the entire game for me:
  
  • Significantly, it's apparently possible to win the game without ever participating in (or winning) a space combat.
    
  • The required rolls vary a lot, from a 20% hit chance with a little fighter up to an 80% hit chance with the huge War Sun ships.
    
  • Technological advances, race abilities, and action cards can modify the required rolls or affect the combat's outcome.
    

  In reality, naval combat is in no way deterministic.  --SF
  

  Sigh... I did predict this response, and decided not to include my reply. The point is, I'm not doing a war simulation, I'm playing a game. I'm not after strict accuracy in all aspects, I'm after consistently fun gameplay that offers strategic and tactical depth. I don't utterly abhor randomness - it has its good sides - but I prefer things without it, all else being equal, and don't like having to introduce die-rolling in particular to a game where they managed to keep the randomness down to decks of cards for the rest of it. --AC
  

  Hmm.  'Keep randomness down to decks of cards'.  Have you seen some of the cards - the dice are the very least of the randomness... --Angoel
  

  It was me. From my perspective, deterministic combat feels wrong; knowing before your turn your exact loss ratios is a) silly and b) going to produce AnalysisParalysis. In addition, I like rolling lots of d10s, if I didn't I wouldn't play Exalted. The AxisAndAllies? system works very well for effectively weighting combats without making them utterly deterministic. --SF
  

  I would like to say that while AlexChurchill seems to be drawing a distinction between playing a war simulation and playing a game, for me they are very similar. This thread seems quite silly to me, as it appears to be about taste - what you /like/ in a game. As such I suggest we stop discussing it ;-) --RobHu
  

  Stop discussing it? Why would we want to do that?: ;) Continue the discussion on page Randomness, perhaps. --AC
  

• The political aspects of the game (using the "Influence" of certain planets, proposing and voting on new laws, etc) remind me of the BabylonFive/CCG, in a good way.
  
• I don't have particularly strong feelings on the "Imperial"/"ISC" card referred to above that grants 2VP to its owner per turn. In the tutorial, this just implies that the first two roles chosen each turn are the "Imperial" and then "Initiative" (which grants rights to choose first role next time round). It's like a gradual automatic progression of VPs, with the option to give up your place in the progression if you really really think a different role would be more helpful instead. I'm generally in favour of DouglasReay's "play your first game with the original rules, before using house rules" approach, but I don't particularly mind either way.
  

AC's report after playing one game:

I more or less agree with everything you've said (except for the dice mechanic bit). I think when/if we play again we ought to start earlier in the day. I think it would be faster next time (with the same players), although not massively. --RobHu

Report after a second game

Report from the January 2008 game

With respect, I didnt have advanced fighters, my fighters were just +1 Race bonus and a+1 (cyberntics?)tech advance. I was increasingly frustrated that though I had achieved 4 of the pre-requisites to Adv Fighters I was still far from achieving this tech I was aiming for. AC effortlessly getting said Tech with an action card was indeed broken but We handed Stuart the game constantly attacking each other.

In fact I attacked Alex first and then couldnt see a way to gracefully retreat while the other two players began advancing on my borders, this lost me the tentaive lead I then had. A few poor decisions over action cards and an impossible Secret mission (take all planets in another players home system) crippled me, and continued fighting with Alex/stuart wherein I lost my own home system. ..but it was Great FUN to play. --LD?

1. AC proposes replacing the Imperial (ISC) card with his Imperial8a as mentioned above. This will add more interest to people's Secret Objectives.
   
2. AC also is rather strongly inclined to play with the official [Age of Empires] variant. In this, all the Public Objectives which will apply for the whole game are revealed from the start of the game, so you know what capabilities are going to be desireable.
   
3. DR proposes using the following nerf for fighters (advanced or otherwise).  "Any fighters in a location beyond 6 per carrier or space dock take up fleets slots at a rate of 3 fighters per slot."
   

Well, non-Advanced fighters can't exist beyond 6 per Carrier / Space Dock / War Sun. So it'd only apply for Advanced Fighters. But yes, that seems sane. --AC

The expansion brings an erratad version of Advanced Fighters which basically does this, but more so. --AC

1. DR also proposes using the Distant Suns options where the initial expansion out onto surrounding planets is slower, as it allows better tech advance before civilisations collide. CANCELLED
   

My initial impressions of Distant Suns are that it introduces a large extra amount of randomness into the game for no clear benefit. When one person can get 4 Trade Goods for taking a 3/1 planet, and another person loses their 4 invading Ground Forces and has to wait 2 turns before they get the benefit of the 3/1, that just seems arbitrarily unfair to me. If you really wanted to slow down planet conquests, I'd rather have each neutral planet start with one hostile ground force; but I think it's better to move on to the more interesting parts of the game more quickly - I really don't think slowing things down is what I'd be inclined to do. --AC

Yes, I can see having 1 initial native ground troop per planet would have the same effect but be less random.  I'm not actually convinced that the battle part is significantly more interesting than the logistics and manoeuvre.  However, if that is for you, can you suggest another way to allow more than one tech advance per turn perhaps?  Such as allowing you to get more than one tech (at 8 per tech) in the secondary effect?  In 6 hours we got through 3 or was it 4 turns?  That barely scratches the tech tree. --DR

We'd just finished round 5. We were speeding up. This was a much slower game than the past two, though, for some reason. The first game I played was nearly over at 4 hours, and finished at 6. The second took precisely 6 hours as well.

And I agree that logistics and maneouvre are the interesting part, but I think they're fundamental to the battle between players. Recall there are actually very few actual combats - we saw about 4 in 5 rounds? Choosing your battles is key (and a skill I'm not that good at yet). But I'd rather have the struggle between players be more relevant than die-rolls against neutral parties. --AC

Ok, I'll cancel that proposal and substitute:

1. DR proposes that the wording of the secondary power of Technology be altered to allow multiple repetitions of the buying-a-technology-for-a-price
   

The expansion brings an optional alternate Technology card which lets the player choosing it get 2 techs a turn. --AC

1. DR wonders whether the limit of getting 1 victory condition per turn is a good thing as it would make it harder for a player who had fallen behind to catch up.
   

Interesting point. It does have that effect, to a certain extent, although players were reaching the limit of the easily-scored objectives, which aren't enough on their own to get you to the winning score. I was in the lead for a while, but Stuart scoring his Secret Objective catapulted him to the lead by the end of the game. I do see your point, but I'm a bit hesitant to meddle with that part of the scoring system. It doesn't seem broken to me. --AC

Other thoughts

Yes, yes they are. --SF after playing.

Group conventions

• [Imperial8.6] looks reasonable, but far more like a "normal" strategy card. Revealing of a new Public Objective is moved to the Status Phase. You get your choice of: (a) Draw a Political Card and choose whether it goes to a vote or just gets discarded, then make a Trade Agreement and peek at the next two Public Objectives; (b) If you control Mecatol Rex, get +1 to all rolls all round and put 4 Ground Forces there; (c) If you've accomplished your Secret Objective, draw another one.
  
  • Pro: The variety of minorly useful things in option (a) seem most consistent with the effects of the other strategy cards. The most "normal" of the options. We played with it in the game on 26th August 2007, and it worked.
    
  • Con: No Secret Objectives got accomplished until the final round of our first game, so option (c) might be fairly irrelevant.
    
• [Imperial8.7] only gives you the VP if you control Mecatol Rex; otherwise, you get a chance to swap your Secret Objective for a new one if you haven't accomplished it.
  
  • Pro: Adds more significance to controlling Mecatol Rex; lets players work towards getting a useable Secret Objective. If one player controls MR, the others have a chance to take Imperial to stop that player getting the VP.
    
  • Con: Adds more significance to controlling Mecatol Rex; doesn't give you anything if you've already achieved your Secret Objective.
    
• [Imperial8.9], which is just strange (everyone except the player using Imperial has the opportunity to take a VP, but the player using Imperial gains benefits for each player who does).
  
  • Pro: It'd shake things up a bit.
    
  • Con: Why would anyone ever choose this? The glorious gifts don't look like they're going to be anywhere near as valuable as giving your opponents the chance to get a VP. Unless it's meant to come with a house rule that you're allowed to take the Secondary as well?
    
• Get rid of Imperial entirely, and just reveal a new Public Objective in the Status Phase.
  
  • Pro: Simple, straightforward.
    
  • Con: Miss out on the other interesting options described above.
    
• AlexChurchill proposes a version combining the best bits of Imperial8.6 and Imperial8.7 above. It's basically like Imperial8.6, except that you can use it to swap an undesired Secret Objective as well as to draw a new one if you have scored yours.
  

Imperial8a

Its Secondary is the same as always.

Its Primary offers the choice between the following options:

• Corrupt the Senate (as per 8.6): Draw 1 Political card and either discard it or put it up for a vote; make one Trade Agreement; and peek at the next two Public Objectives.
  
• Secret Plans (a combination of bits of 8.6 and 8.7): Draw 1 Secret Objective card. If you now have two (that haven't been accomplished), discard one of them.
  
• Optionally a benefit for controlling Mecatol Rex - I don't much mind.
  

What do people think?


I like this. In the most recent game I never had much of a chance to achieve my secret objective, and a chance to change it would have been good as it would have given me something to do - after about round three, I was more or less fortifying my position and going through the motions, as I couldn't conceive of a strategy that was more likely to cause me to win than to cause me to be eliminated. This is partially a problem with having too many players in the game, I think, but this would go some way to alleviating it. --SF


• Or we could use some of the [strategy cards] from the official expansion (which also comes with [race-specific technologies] and 4 new races, including [one with mobile Space Docks] and [one who start with a War Sun], [one strange one] and [one boring one]). AC now owns this expansion!
  

Arranging to play