Recently saw a game called Twilight Imperium 3rd edition in my local game store...

>Do not use distance suns till you have some games under your belt. Since it changes how you play.

Nah, just don't use Distant Suns period. Nothing says fun like being locked out of a multi-hour game because all the shitty chits ended up around your home system. I've seen it happen multiple times. They just need to stay in the box forever with the exception of using the extra wormhole chits when using certain pre-set maps.

Bit too "american" style. I prefer eclipse

That only happen with inexperience players. Years playing I only recall one turbo fuck up start due to distance suns.

But usually it only happens when fucks send everything they have to a single system. Specially knowing when there is a chance to lose everything rather easily.

Even then. The Huge colosal fuck up happens 2 round in. Usually by that point you can just restart if someone is butt hurt mad.

Distant suns are bad and way to random, but saying it should never be play. Mostly because you suck at the game and make basic newbie mistakes is another thing.

Basically don't be a retard and send everything to a single system during the first two rounds of the game while
Playing with distant suns.

>Not have retards as players?
Well i'm shit out of luck then

How are Humans? good? shit? middle of the road?

What are the must have things / you need to do moves/tech/units etc

Federation of Sol.
With no expansion? Just go for advance fighters

With expansions go for green tech that gives you better Ground Forces and blue tech for speed.

Your racia ability to spawn ground forces is a great way to delay your turn. Unless you face the frogs (the race that allows you to pass the turn without ending) with humans you react more than act. Avoid wars. I once saw a human win without rolling a single dice in combat. You can get a lot of GF making human worlds a bitch to conquer unless you have the right technology or action cards

Beside the L1Z1X, Nekro Virus, Coalition (space Australia the guys that have pre fight shots with cruiser) no one really benefits from active war.
The sardak'nor the space British Empire bugs have +1 in every combat rol. That might make you think they are warlike. In reality they are defensive. They Cruisers hit like Dreadnoughts, their Destroyer like cruisers and their fighters like destroyer/cruiser depending of the tech. You can outlast the grinding war with the bugs simply because your shit is better. With flagships you can have auto hits with the bugs.

The barony without expansion is just advance fighter spam. With expansion they are basically Flying bunkers their dreadnoght simply won't die unless you throw a lot of shit against them.

The main problem with the basic game is that once you figure out how to get to advance fighter fast GG. Since there is no easy way to kill that many fighter without the anti fighter tech.
So unless the players agree to no spam the shit out of it. The game will turn into who can get advance fighter faster before someone wins.

Sol is a middle tier faction.

The must-have techs really depend on your faction. Keep in mind you will likely only have the resources to buy 3-5 techs over the course of the game.

For units Destroyers provide the most bang for the buck if you are using the Shattered Empire expansion (which you should as it makes the game a hundred times better). If not Fighter Swarms are king. War Suns are a boondoggle, they are too expensive to field as they require an escort to be effective. A War Sun fleet will cost upwards of 15 resources as a War Sun needs a fighter escort. For that price I could fully load 2 Carriers and have a couple Destroyers escorting them.

As far as moves, focus on the public objectives and if you are using the Original Strategy cards, take Imperial every chance you get.

Have a tech depth chart.

While I'm sure user was mostly exaggerating, not everyone wants to spend 9 hours playing a game no stop.

To those I would like to ask why, then, they're playing this kind of games. But well, To each their own.

> lso for slow with math people just give them some poker chips to count their resources. Money is not secret so it would not hurt.
If people cannot manage their resources using planet cards, I would consider them mentally disabled

When it is summer you can have your barbecue, swimming pool and board games.

Race Tiers

God Tier
Yssaril

Great Tier
Jol-Nar
Hacan

Good Tier
L1Z1X
Letnev
Mentak
Winnu

Middle Tier
Sol
Yin
Naalu

Bad Tier
N'orr
Saar

Shit tier
Xxcha

Haven't Played in Enough Games With Them Tier
NercoVirus
Arborec
Cruess

Scenario Tier
Lazax

It is more a case of easier to count than anything. Just add chips to your pile of money when conquering a world and move along.

Some simply put the stuff they buy on top of the planet card. It is just another method for counting.

Can you explain why they are tiered like that? What do they do to earn their place?

To fair the tier of races depends on the expansion use, the number of players and rules used.

The diplomatic turtles are shit in every combination.

Neko Terrorist Virus depend what the other races are.
Ghost are rather bad if no wormholes are present they are shit, just above the turtles.

Tree people need a longer game in this already long game. If they some how manage to stabish production planets they will out produce anyone anywhere but that is a big if. Even the turtles have the upper hand agains the tree for the first 4 rounds. Then the turtles are back to shit

> yssaril
Damn gollums can skip turns like there is no tomorrow, so they can a) maximize their strategic cards value b) make actions unopposed without being countered c) are forewarned of action card capabilities

The skill to delay turns is really useful in this game. To the point of broke with the yssirl tribes.

Beside good and god tier the rest depends on the expansions, numbers of players and rules used. The turtles are always bad there is no saving them.

Haccan with 4 players can shit so much money they can out produce everyone else.

Yol-nar with 4 or 6 players roll on tech, but if a Nekro Virus players is next to them. They auto lose since the Nekro can just snipe some ships and get what ever tech the Space nerds are getting.

Beside the turtles that are always bad the rest of the races depend on a lot of factores to tell if they suck or not.

This game is a beast. It is huge and it can really confuse you if you do not have patience to learn the rules, learn the races' strengths and weaknesses and action cards, but it is a very rewarding experience if you can tame it.

As far as races go, me and my friends all agree that there is a huge imbalance between them, interms of starting power - as each starts with specific load outs of units - and their abilities - some are really strong others barely matter. However, the Yssaril Tribes is really strong, if not the strongest race in the game, so much so that we always ban it. However, other races such as Federation of suck (Sol) is really not that good because ground combat is meaningless all through the game.

Playing this game requires that you are able to make a plan and find a strategy that leaves you with enough resources to claim 1 objective per game round, while still leaving you ahead of the arms race of the early to midgame rounds. Because if you fall behind for just one turn, then your odds of winning drops by a huge margin. It really is hard as a new player to keep the focus on gaining points, when there is all this other cool stuff you can spend your effort on.

Also laws in this game has so much potential to be really cool, but the mechanic suffers from several things. First there are too many that aren't good and your ability gain them too limited, so you are really lucky if you get a law that you could potentially get some use out of. Secoundly when voting on laws, all players generally become, as in other aspects of the game, realists - anything that a player gains is always a loss for the others, wether it actually matters at all. So everybody will usually oppose any law that you want passed, and since you need planets to buy ships, you can't hoard your influence for the votes otherwise you'll lose the arms race. This leads me and friends to view laws as a nice little minigame that you could care about, MAYBE, if you play Xxcha.

It is a combination of things. The gaps between the tiers is widest from Great to Good. The top three races are so much better than everyone else it can feel unfair. I think the game is at its best with the Good and Middle tier races.

Here is the short version of why the top three are so good.

Yssaril are so over the top as they have a solid Home System, amazing starting techs (XRDs allow for fast expansion into prime real estate), a two carrier starting fleet (again early game expansion), and multiple godly racial abilities (their ability to pass without ending their turn is strong enough by itself, but Action Card shenanigans on top of that are amazing).

Hacan can be so flush with resources they simply buy their way to victory. They can effectively buy allies with their juicy 3 Trade Good contracts. Their home system is a three planet system which when triple docked allows for insane fleet production

Jol-Nar more than make up for their -1 to combat rolls with their easy techs. Also their ability to re-roll for a Strat counter can easily turn the tide of battles.

> hacan
Can easily find their initial expansion, good production capabilities, can into diplomacy and alliances

I feel that the Naalu are at least a good tier, because of the reliability of always acting first and if the game goes on for a long time, then their fighter swarms will be very deadly.

>I think the cost reduction to techs Jol-Nar get doesn't make up for the -1 to hit penalty
You're supposed to buy a few boosting techs that would otherwise have too much opportunity cost for other races, making up for the penalty. Jol-Nar pretty much never fall behind, because almost no other race can afford technology enough to keep up. I don't think I ever finished a game with all the techs I wanted, but I came close as these guys, so there also is no late-game disadvantage.

I played a 13hr game of TI once.

I've found always going first is a two edged sword. There are many times I want to wait for my opponent to act. In our games I've only seen them win twice, but they were always in the hunt. They certainly are on the top of the Middle tier.

Shit I forgot Muaat, they should be Middle Tier as well.

>Sol
>Bad

Nah again the with the mid to good tier races it depends a lot what races are playing, number of players, expansions, rules, map layout.

Also Ground combat is crucial to even complet some objectives. In the basic game sure. It is basically rush to card 8 and advance fighter. In any other combination the ground game is something you can't neglect or pretend it does not matter.

I get that, which makes the nerf they got for researching combat techs in 2nd Ed all the more boneheaded.
They just don't dominate the Science game the same way they do in 3rd ed though, which almost universally makes everyone pretty good.

>Yssaril
Strong until you use up your action cards, then you get wiped off the map in one round.
>Jol-Nar
-1 in combat. Scary if left to build up, weak under pressure. Might as well pack up and go home if you sit next to Necro Virus or Xxcha.
>Hacan
Rely on bargaining and trade, so their relative power depends on how diplomatic your games are. First war sun can come out on turn 3.
>L1Z1X
Nightmare of the galaxy. Should never be allowed to take the research strategy card.
>Letnev
Mighty glacier. Immense production in their home system.
>Mentak
Skirmish race, autowin if allowed to take Mirror Computing.
>Winnu
Weak start, solid endgame. Can take Mecatol Rex with racial tech.
>Sol
Great warrior race, can spawn ground troops for counters. Racial tech that lets their carriers tank hits.
>Yin
Allah Akbar race with lots of dirty tricks for skirmishing, can flip influence/production numbers for planets.
>Naalu
Fighters hit as well as other people's cruisers. Always playing first is less of an advantage than it might seem.
>N'orr
Everything gets +1, which is useless when you're not rolling dice. Ban exotrireme.
>Saar
Get money whenever landing on a neutral planet. Mobile space docks. Can stop in asteroid fields. Worst flagship in the game.
>Xxcha
Diplomacy and turtling (real subtle) race. Inflict -1 to rolls in the first round of combat, so Jol Nar generally just loses to them.
>NecroVirus
Obtain tech by killing units of players who have that tech. Leak precum when sitting next to Muat, Mentak, Haccan or Jol Nar. Ban fagship.
>Arborec
Odd production gimmick makes them slow to build up, but once they decide to take hold of a planet only Mr. Clean can scour them off. Mr. Clean is a high tier green tech.
>Cruess
Unmatched mobility. Nothing to do with it other than bar others from entering wormholes.
>Muat
Stay in your fucking home until you have a pile of escorts. No one will miss the opportunity to pinch your lonely tit early on and you're dead if they succeed.

Ban necro flagship?
It sounds like you, sir, hate fun

whats so good about the flagship? what makes it special?

You can send it alone into a systems with a bunch of enemy ships. Hoping to die. The thing is that when the Flagship of the Nekro dies it destroys everything in the system

Basically the Nekro have flying nuke.

Same here.
Mostly because this huge power struggle was going on between someone who'd been playing the game for a while and a new player, while the rest of us got outpaced into irrelevancy.

I was probably a decade ago, so I don't remember everything that happened, but I do remember that, thanks to some power grabs and some favors called in, my section of the board was rendered insignificant and I couldn't advance my race any further.

Hey OP, I own TI3 and both expansions.

Objectively speaking, if you look at each part of the game, you will always find another boardgame that does it better. Economy is very simple, politics are very straightforward, combat relies on few variables.

BUT!! I have never played another boardgame that combines all of what TI does in a single, epic sitting. A lot of people have compared it to Eclipse, which boasts both a more refined economy system as well as a more accessible runtime. Those are all valid points for the great 4x game that is Eclipse... but compared to Eclipse, I can remember most of the TI games I've played because of its scale.

Shut up and Sit Down adequately compared this game an enormous toybox - you have so many custom rules you can add to make your grand space opera even more engrossing.

It's unapologetically vast and is a lot of fun if you and your friends make use of its many gameplay nuances.

TI is the Civilization games of 4x, it does everything but excels at nothing but create memorable stories.

>He thinks action cards are what make the Yssaril strong.

Care to share some of those stories?

The quickest game I ever had took 2 hours with 4 players.

I basically tricked my opponent to let me build a factory.

I then got lucky and pulled some dreadnoughts and bonus shit out of some action cards.

Outlawed one of his battle cruisers and then swarmed his homeworld with fighters and ground forces.

All in all a good game.

Not him but the Double Dubs compels me.

>Be playing Mentak
>Muaat player gets pissed when I steal a trade good from him.
>He sends his War Sun, 4 Fighters, and 2 Ground Forces through a Wormhole to my backyard.
>I laugh at his aggression and attack before the round is over
>I send 3 Destroyers and a Cruiser at his fleet
>After Pre-Combat shots (Anti-Fighter Barrage and Mentak shots) all fighters are dead and his War Sun is wounded
>First round of combat has me sink the War Sun and his return fire just gets two Destroyers.
>My 5 resource fleet just sank 15 resources worth of ships at a cost of only 2 Destroyers
>mfw I then proceed through the wormhole and plunder his territory

All that because I stole one measly trade good.

The Great Sardak N'orr Betrayal
Thanks to map (Distant Suns and Empty void thingy result in wormholes connected to everyone, the N'orr secure control of the shock points), action cards and clever positioning
The N'orr manage to effectively eliminate 2 players from a 6 player game in a single round.

>L1Z1X got the best 4 systems right next to him.
>The Arborec just sit there defending its borders.
>Mentak Coalition is in open war with Letnev
>Sol and N'orr make a non aggression pact
>Mentak joins the pact in order to face the L1Z1X
>N'orr made some dumb moves preventing from reinforcements to arrive on time.
>Sol, Mentak forces are basically dead, Letnev is moving to secure some territories. Arboc is still there doing nothing.
>Sol and Mentak gather some troops. N'orr fucks up again, Arboc actually fights and crash Letnev with some lucky rolls.
>L1Z1X sees blood and goes to secure Letnev, Sol and Mentak that are basically killing each other.
>N'orr turn, with action cards for extra speed (Cruisers and Destroyer move two tiles, with upgrades Carriers can move two more, with more upgrades Cruiser can move 3. With actions cards everyone can move 1+)
>N'orr goes for Sol and Mentak home systems.
>Mentak and Sol are effectively out of the game.
>Next move N'orr nukes Arborec production system, no more Ground forces for the trees.
>Letnev begs for mercy
>L1Z1X attacks N'orr. Classic blunder attacking N'orr is a death sentence unless you can make sure can out shoot them.
>L1Z1X fleet is destroyed
>N'orr betray the pact, show no mercy to the tree or the space vampire.
>L1Z1X can't build fast enough.

The N'orr player basically made bad move on purpose, he plan the betrayal for 4 rounds. Force everyone into a free for all. Secure resources and actions cards for that single round of dicking over two players.

>Be N'orr
>Fortify my position.
>Expand with little war and diplomacy.
>Lucky objectives.
>Secure my borders.
>Get might fleet and army
>No one dares to attack me.
>Leave me alone since I do not attack anyone.
>By the time they notice I'm about to win my fleet and GF are so strong they can't touch me.
>Won the game by rolling only 4 dice.

>Be N'orr
>Again
>Lose because everyone is afraid of you
>Other players focus on you the entire game.
>Arborac player wins since everyone was trying to kill me

N'orr are a poker race, you make your cheap cruiser and destroyer fleet, point at your +1 in combat. People either over send shit to try and destroy you or never touch you.

In other words you don't attack with the british space bugs, you wait defend and let the other was resources trying to attack you.

Have an updated tech tree pdf.

>1st Ed
>Quick Game win conditions
>Using Special Characters and 2hp Carriers and Battleships
>One guy not even trying as Jolnar
>I'm L1Z1X
>One guy, my arch-fucking nemesis at this game has the Naalu
>Another Guy who I don't remember at all
>Coming to the crunch
>Been playing for 3 hours
>I just need one more turn to get enough income, techs and influence to win
>Naalu has a massive fleet, but they're all the way behind an asteroid field.
>I punch out one of Player 3's (I *think* he was Mentak, but I might be combining games here) fleets in a desperate attempt to maintain my planets.
>I have forgetten what literally the first engineering tech in the game does.
>Naalu's speed 4 dreadnaught fleet has not
>He swoops in, defeats my fleet and takes mecatol rex
>It's late, I concede.
>IT KEEPS HAPPENING

Well, what do they have?

Our definitions of fun differ wildly.

Their ability to pass is by far their strongest ability. The Action Card stuff is just icing on the cake. They also have a very good early game fleet with two XRD Carriers so they can get to the choicest bits of real estate quickly.

That tech is so situational I've not seen it used in three years of monthly games, and getting one or two valuable systems a turn early is the equivalent of negotiating good trades or buying Sarween Tools, or having a good system closer to you. Ysarril don't have any special ways to exploit those fast carriers, and the advantage is soon lost because XRD is so insanely good that everyone will be taking it. Then you have to scramble to protect those early gains from enemies you don't have any real edge over. Then you start stealing action cards and move to the top of everyone's shit list because everyone knows you could be hoarding game changers.

They can sorta be scary if you play premade maps, but with a random galaxy, no, I don't think so. Nothing they have compensates for the aggro they generate.

Tech? It's their racial ability.

Never mind that, I mixed their flagship's ability with Light/Wave Deflector for some reason.

Yes, they can skip turns. Yes, it's useful. But guess what, humans can also skip by spending counters to spawn troops, Muat can also skip by spending counters to build fighters or destroyers at his warsun, and anyone can delay their big move by playing inane action cards or activating empty systems. Situations where it is important to outstall absolutely everyone will happen once per game at best, and you have to be in a position to do something with it when it happens. And you're unlikely to get there when your whole racial shtick is about painting a giant target on your back. I really don't know how you play the game if Ysarril is a big boogeyman.

You play political, like you make the situation.

TI is one of the few games that you need to be honest mechanic wise, but lies and dickish moves are part of the gameplay.

Also space goluhms can delay without spending triangles. That my friend is what makes the space native Americans powerful while others need to spend cards, and strategy tokens to delay, the frogs can do that and keep their counters for later use.

If you go full aggro well your fault for being aggressive with a race that everyone wants dead.

Space turtles are bad always

It's really good. But it's also a game that you likely need to dedicate an entire weekend to play, assuming you don't want to spend an entire Saturday playing it for 8-10 hours straight.

This, in my experience at least, makes it a game that you almost never get to play but is always awesome the few times that you do. And its definetly a game that will give the group stories to tell for years to come.

Do you think we can expect a reprint in the next couple of years?

I'm very interested in TI3 but have heard there's a significant number or errata and fixes as well as some balancing problems that the community took care of.
Then there's also that Shattered Ascension thing that sounds like a vast improvement according to some comments I read online.

Buy it or wait for reprint? Or go for the fanmade Shattered Ascension?

Hacan can afford to be dicks because they have great trade agreements, can spare the money for bribes, actually have a racial tech that requires them to bribe other players, can trade action cards around, and have the economy for building a strong fleet. Ysarril are dicks but have nothing to dissuade enemies they make. And stalling won't save you because everyone will hit you preemptively if you become a threat. Or at least should.
is an example of everyone at the table being too busy playing Risk to pay attention to what is actually going on. It's not really an argument in favor of anything other than the Sardak player being clever.

As far as I know there won't be reprints, because TI4 is in the works.

You got a source on TI4 being in the works?

When I got TI3 almost a decade ago. The rumour of a TI4 just around the corner was a thing.

To be honest unless the company itself says something those rumours mean shit.