Is this game worth it?
Is this game worth it?
Andrew Harris
Hunter Wright
Haven't tried forth edition but if you accually get to play it it's very fun.
Parker Hughes
Yes absolutely. If you're able to get enough people willing to commit a day to playing a single board game, you will have an absolute blast.
Adrian Howard
It’s deserving regarded as one of the best, but it’s only going to be “worth” it if you can find a group to play. Whereas a lot of other boards have only the “once you get past the theme/appearance it’s fun” obstacle, TI’s major hindrance is the play time. The more new people you have at the time, the time it’ll take to get through it increases by a significant amount. If you can find people willing to invest a whole afternoon to a single board game, jump on it.
Isaac Jenkins
Fuck no, don't waste dozens of hours of your life on that piece of shit.
Isaiah Gutierrez
As a game, if you can get a group to play it, it's absolutely amazing, and it also has a place as a piece of boardgaming history. I'm glad I picked up my copy.
Ryder Bennett
TI4 is an almost across the board improvement over TI3. The only thing I don't care for is the Political Phase. In TI3 you had to balance the need for voting power vs using influence for other purposes, most prominently for extra command tokens. In TI4 you get a full planetary refresh between the main strategy phase and political phase and a full refresh between the political phase and the beginning of the next round. The only thing that keeps it from being a total shitshow is that two Agendas that resolve per Political Phase making going all in on the first Agenda somewhat risky.
Jason Clark
Depends on your group. For me, and I realise this is selfish, I can't stand losing for eight straight hours. I don't mind a three hour grinder of a Battlestar Galactica game, but taking an early bath in TI and having to play out the rest of the day is excruciating and there's no 'resign' mechanic to make things worse.
If your group is happy to truly commit that length of time (even when your actions become irrelevant even to kingmaking) and can get past the density of the game (not a problem for us, but it's newb-unfriendly) you can have real fun.
Ethan Sullivan
>I can't stand losing for eight straight hours. I don't mind a three hour grinder of a Battlestar Galactica game, but taking an early bath in TI and having to play out the rest of the day is excruciating and there's no 'resign' mechanic to make things worse.
Maybe the game could adopt some aspects from the other TI board game, Rex. You can have shared victories or maybe personal victories for predicting who is going to be the top player. If you're losing early into a game of TI, maybe one of the other players can hold you to an alliance and then the two of you can turn the tables. I feel like the game already kind of encourages that sort of thing even though the rules might not outright reflect it.
Dominic Wilson
It might be a gaming philosophy thing. TI isn't one of those games where I play for the sake of winning, I play to just see what happens. I'll try to win and have a strategy and play my best, but a catastrophic failure is really fun to watch happen, and even if you end up less powerful there are always things you can do to just mess with people.
Matthew Mitchell
Being the Kingmaker can be as much fun as winning. I've seen several games where a "last place" kingmaker decides who wins and it is fucking hilarious. It is especially funny when the leader gets ultra salty over the kingmaker when the leader was the one who shat all over the kingmaker in the early game.
William Long
Played once. With those friends that make bad monetary decisions and are always poor. They set it up in only about an hour. Then we played about ... 20 turns over 6 hours? I just spammed the "gimme a victory point" action and... won. Otherwise I don't think I attacked anyone or did any particularly aggressive.
I would say "no". If you like this sort of game, it's MUCH more conducive to play it on a computer. It doesn't fit the board-game medium well. Go play Civ or Space Empires.
Owen Walker
>If you're losing early into a game of TI, maybe one of the other players can hold you to an alliance and then the two of you can turn the tables. I feel like the game already kind of encourages that sort of thing even though the rules might not outright reflect it.
Never works with my group, sadly. My other players never offer alliance, and never feel the need to actually be held to any agreement. Everyone's a play-to-win type but seem to have a higher tolerance for loss than me.
>a catastrophic failure is really fun to watch happen
Last game I played, I drew L1z1x and the law nerfing dreadnoughts was passed before I got my first action. By the time I was actually acting, the Nekro next to my home system smashed my back doors in, and the player on the other side was in a much better defensive position than me.
By three turns in, I was pinned in my home hex and functionally irrelevant. the only reason the Nekro declined to wipe me out was so that he could nick techs off me, and nobody wanted to come over and fight him to rescue me - what would be the point for them?
Worst of all, my ride home was in it to win (finished first or second in the end) so I was stuck watching for the whole game.
I drank an awful lot of soda and ran my phone battery flat.
Landon Murphy
It honestly depends on your friend group and the time you've got. If you can semi-regularly get together with a friendly-but-competitive group of friends who can actually match each other for 6-8 hours then TI is probably the best game in the fucking world.
If you can't, it's going to sit on your shelf.
Evan James
>Playing with the Imperial I Strategy Card
>Ever
Yeah, that was your group's fault for choosing the least fun set of Strategy Cards to play with.
Logan Ross
It's also something they fixed in TI4
Parker Allen
How so?
Ayden Green
Imperial, IIRC, lets you score an extra objective card, rather than just automatically gain a VP, so you still need to be doing other things to make it work.
Brandon Parker
You can also get a point with TI4's Imperial if you use the Primary and are holding Mecatol Rex. So again it isn't "free" points, it is points you have to work for.
Caleb Gomez
It takes a long time to play.
You'll need to dedicate a whole day to it if most of the group is playing for the first time.
You'll need to play a couple of practice rounds if you want to have any idea of what you're doing in your first game.
And it's once of the best gaming experiences you can have. The strategy and management of a Euro, the drama and excitement of a Ameritrash wargaming, slathered in a rich creamy sauce of negotiations, politics and roleplaying.
If there is a better feeling in the world than slyly bringing half the table into conflict against the leading player, suddenly making a dash for victory while everyone's distracted, fighting a bloody war on three fronts and scraping a victory by the skin of your teeth with only your homeworld remaining, then I don't know it.
Brandon Carter
That's a smart move.
Joshua Reed
It depends on what you are searching for.
Basically it's not complex strategy focused on warfare. If you are looking for something wider eg. 5 ways to win the game check out Sid meiers civilization (Yep, i mean the boardgame)...
Jace Jones
About how much time would having a group of four learn TI with some practice rounds one day save on playing a full game a few days later? Thinking if it would make the time issue more manageable for the group.
Nathaniel Fisher
It's not so much about saving time, although that's significant, as it is about mastering the basics so that they can get into the meat of the game properly. If players are struggling to remember how they get technology, how production works or how to move ships around the board they simply won't be able to focus on negotiations and scoring objectives.
In vidya terms, it's like teaching players new to RTSs how to select units, construct buildings and gather resources in a practice match so that they can focus on build orders and broader strategy in a real match.
Here are some steps from a guy whose first game involved teaching 5 other new players:
1. Get the other players interested. They really need to dig the concept enough to want to sacrifice a whole day to it, if someone comes begrudgingly or doesn't put in the effort it can bring the group down
2. Everyone should either read the Learn to Play document:
(images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com
OR watch this excellent tutorial:
youtu.be
3. You, as the teacher, need to read both the Learn to Play document several times and the Rules Reference at least once, you don't have to know all the rules but you need to know where to find them. I'd also recommend playing a first round just by yourself to get a feel for the basics. This is time consuming, but this is how you don't get stuck for 20 minutes in the real game. It's worth it.
4. Get everyone together for an evening in the fortnight leading up to the game, then play one or two rounds.
5. Let everyone pick factions. Unless a player is extremely bright, discourage them from choosing Arborec, Winnu, Embers of Muatt, Nekrovirus or Clan of Saar for their first game since these races mess with the basic rules. Also, playing Sardak N'orr is hardmode since they don't start with any technology.
6. Set aside 12 hours to be safe, and play.
Colton Watson
I will also recommend as excellent resources are the forums for TI4 on boardgamegeek, and the podcast SpaceCatsPeaceTurtles which is dedicated to the game. Of particular use is the learn to play/learn to teach episode from November.
Justin Evans
These are good and also consider the following table rules my group has.
1. Split duties. Assign a player to manage the card decks, another to keep score, and so on.
2. Keep negotiations at the table. Nothing drags out the game like two little wannabe Napoleons who have to go have a little powwow in private before either takes a turn.
3. And for reason that are lost to the mists of time, whoever holds the Speaker Button must be referred to as "Madame Speaker" regardless of their actual gender
Jayden Lewis
Its fucking awful. It takes 12 hours, takes up a whole room, there's no DM, and its just about pushing fucking plastic around.
Play a real game, not fucking Space Monopoly.
Jonathan Hall
>it also has a place as a piece of boardgaming history
It does?
Colton Rodriguez
It's the game that saved Fantasy Flight as a company and started them out as a board game publisher.
Originally they were a distributor of European comic books in the US, which was a shrinking market, and the guy behind it decided to throw all his money into a last ditch effort, making a board game of unprecedented scope and scale. He not only designed it himself, he did almost all parts of the process including assembling the components into boxes, to the point he got pneumonia from infected cardboard dust.
It was an insane risk to take, putting his financial future on the line for a game of a sort nobody had ever thought to make, but when it finally hit the convention circuit it sold out incredibly fast. Without Twilight Imperium, Fantasy Flight Games as we know it today wouldn't exist, and the industry as a whole would look very different.
Thomas Edwards
-2/10
Austin Evans
Huh. Didn't know that. I have a bit more appreciation for this game now.
Parker Miller
Nope, refresh doesn't come after the agenda phase, only before.
Just consider that the Agenda phase is at the "beginning of the turn".
Colton Ramirez
I've played a couple games. Both were fun, but I don't think either justified the amount of play time they took up. Half way through I always found myself thinking that we could have gotten through a couple other games in the amount of time we'd already spent, and wishing someone would just win already so we could move on to something else. We played on Tabletop Simulator, so I can't comment on the quality of the physical experience or whether it's worth the money.
I'd love to hear some recommendations for games which provide a similar experience, but in a more bite sized package. For instance I've heard nothing but good things about the Dune board game, and there are plenty of TTS boards for that.
Henry Adams
Wrong. See Step 3 of the Agenda Phase. You also ready all cards (including planets and strategies) during Step 6 of the Status Phase which occurs before the Agenda Phase.