TI IV

What about Reins of Power? Battlemist 2nd edition? Wings of War IOS game?

Someone posted these in the FFG forum. Danged if I could find them myself.

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The Leadership strategy card allows a player to gain additional command tokens for their fleet.
The Diplomacy strategy card allows a player to prevent other factions from activating a system.
The Politics strategy card allows a player to draw additional action cards and give a player the Speaker token.
The Construction strategy card allows a player to build planetary structures, like space docks and PDS units.
The Trade strategy card allows a player to produce commodities and gain trade goods.
The Warfare strategy card allows for extended ship mobility.
The Technology strategy card allows a player to research technology in exchange for resources.
The Imperial strategy card allows a player to gain a victory point if they control Mecatol Rex, or draw an additional secret objective.

A Galaxy of Change

Twilight Imperium commands an imposing legacy unlike any other game out there. For twenty years, this venerable strategy board game that casts players as the authors of their own epic, spacefaring saga has seen three full editions and several expansions, each of which has changed the thrilling gameplay and vibrant universe of Twilight Imperium. Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition sees several changes from previous editions in order to push the game forward into the dawn of a new age. These changes include but are not limited to:

Trade - Trade contracts do not exist in Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition. Instead, commodities are traded between factions who have ships in adjacent systems. Every time the trade strategy card is used, its primary ability allows a faction to “refresh” their commodities. Then, that faction may choose to let any other factions refresh their commodities for free. Other factions may then use trade’s secondary ability to spend a token from their strategy pool to refresh their commodities. Commodities do nothing on their own, but become traditional trade goods when given to another faction.

Technology - Twilight Imperium Third Edition featured elaborate tech trees as a pathway to powerful technologies. The process of researching technology has been streamlined, as there are no longer specific technologies that are prerequisites for other advancements in Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition. Instead, certain types of technology are used as prerequisites—a new tech may require three Biotic Technologies, or two Warfare and a Cybernetic Technology, making prerequisites easy to track.

PDS Units and Space Docks - Previously, PDS units and Space Docks were constructed like any other unit, requiring a resource cost and an activation token to place on a planet. Now, PDS Units and Space Docks are created with the Construction strategy card, which allows a player to place either two PDS units on planets you control, or a PDS and a Space Dock on planets you control. The secondary ability allows a player to spend a token from their strategy pool to place a PDS or Space Dock on one of their planets.

Politics - Previously, in Third Edition, the politics phase began with the primary ability of the Politics strategy card. Now the agenda phase occurs at the end of every round after Mecatol Rex has been claimed. Players get to refresh all their planets for the agenda phase, meaning they don’t have to split their planets for use between resources and influence. Like Third Edition, agenda cards are used to pass new laws in the galaxy, flipped from the top of the deck. After one law is voted on, a second card is flipped and another round of voting occurs. Planets are refreshed again after the agenda phase ends.

Imperial Strategy Card - Previously, the Imperial strategy card’s primary ability allowed for the user to receive two victory points. Now, the card’s primary ability allows a player to receive one victory point if they control Mecatol Rex or receive an additional Secret Objective. This Imperial strategy card is more flexible but still provides a pacing element, and can be used as a powerful tool if selected at the right time.

Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition includes many components first introduced in expansions for the Third Edition of the game. Flagships, promissory notes, factions, strategy cards, special galaxy tiles, and more return in Fourth Edition.

jpat wrote: Someone posted these in the FFG forum. Danged if I could find them myself.
.......

Found it ! www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/t...rium-fourth-edition/ then click on 'Read more'.

My thought on all of that second half:

Trade - Adjacency being dependent on this might be really interesting. Anyone playing TI3 with an inkling of what they're doing isn't going to be starting a fight with their closest neighbors at the beginning of the game anyway, if at all. This might help incentify drawing everyone in. I'll need to see it in action, but the way I'm reading it is that you can use letting someone refresh their commodities to get them to let you do something you need for an objective.

Technology - LOVE THIS. Not using one of the many files online in lieu of the cards was madness. Not only should this make following the tech advancement easier, it should open up the game more. Not forcing you into specific things to get what you want could lead to some interesting exploration of the design space. One of my favorite changes in this.

PDS and Space Docks - I'll need to see this in action, but I think I like it. Freeing up some resources is nice, especially if you're having a shit game and you need to bounce back and defend yourself. I like the choice of either or on this. PDSs are a big contributor to the slog factor, so limiting them a bit could be cool.

Politics - I'm iffy on this. More politics is great for me, as that's always been one of my favorite aspects of the game. Yes, it adds a lot of game time, but it really does add to the immersion, especially if you're using political leaders. Not sure how I feel about unexhauating your planets though. That seems to remove some careful decision making.

Imperial - The allure of 1 point for controlling Mecatol Rex should make for some maneuvering towards the center. Taking it for the secret objective card could help a player with no hope of completing any of their objectives out quite a bit, especially if you carry over the fairly common "draw 2, keep 1" house rule on secrets.

I am ready to play this whenever.

While I agree that perhaps TI3 isn't as relevant as it once was, there is still plenty of reasons to keep it around, let alone update it . Sure, players tend to gravitate towards shorter stuff - but not everyone. For some groups, the epic daylong game is still in demand. Beyond that though, from a brand management standpoint, it's FFG's way of telling those players they haven't left them behind.

Take a look at GMT. They got their start in hex and counter wargames over 25 years ago. These days, those types of games make up a very small percentage of their catalog in terms of numbers of titles, and a far smaller percentage of their sales revenue. To be fair, it's as much a matter of what designers submit ( or don't submit ) to them that's a factor. A lot of their bread and butter hex designers have moved on for whatever reason.

Yet, they've reprinted A World at War and not long ago released prequel game for it. AWAW is hard core hex and counter stuff - 200 page rulebook, a full week to play the campaign game. I guarantee part of their thought process is that the hope being that the person who buys AWAW will take a look at the rest of the GMT catalog and take a flyer on some newer stuff, whether it be other hex stuff, or shorter games like card driven games, COIN, whatever.

In the case of T3 I think there is some of the same logic. Those players who bought all the coffin box games of nearly a decade ago may perhaps be a bit put off by so much of FFG's content being serialized, whether it be LCG or miniatures stuff like Armada, Imperial Assault, etc. This shows them FFG can be still relevant to them. And if by streamlining the game they get new players to buy in , so much the better. For all the FFG haterz who cynically watch them milk the expansion cow, its gotta be a surprise that they put everything in one box. Sure it's expensive, but from a value perspective its right in the ballpark. There's a ton of plastic in that box for the price, and their production values have almost always been pretty solid. Not to mention the brass at FFG probably look at people throwing wads of cash at KS from unknown companies and think "hey we want in on that action" .

Finally, it's also possibly a trial balloon to see how price sensitive the FFG brand customer is. For all the whining about when Asmodee instituted pricing policies, they still occupy a lot of space in the FLGS I go into. If this works, I could see them doing something similar by say bundling some of the LCG or minis games, offering a big price package but with value by offering a savings over buying the products individually, along with some new content .

To Barnes' comment about them holding the price of TI3 constant for so long, I suspect it was several factors. One, they probably took a bit of a shorter margin in order to keep the retail somewhat attainable for people. And two, they've long since amortized the initial costs of those molds - hell they probably sold more copies of TI3 than all the other coffin boxes put together - most of the others are OOP but TI is still going strong.

Guess I should've sold my TI3 copy a while back. I seem to enjoy missing market peak.

Michael Barnes wrote: Battlemist 2nd edition?

Runewars.

The thing that always bothered me about TI3 was the Puerto Rico style role selection thing. It just doesn't feel very 4X-y to me when I can't do the thing I want to do the way I want to do it because of role selection. Just doesn't reconcile for me; it's the kind of thing in a game that screams "this is a mechanic!" when what I really wanted was thematic. More than anything that was on the one thing I was really hoping TI4 would change. Any TI3 players that could weigh in how that role selection is a good thing in a giant sprawling space 4X game?

I like to think of the role selection in TI as single play that summarizes a whole lot of smaller activity as a strategic emphasis. It keeps play on a grander scale. I can see where it feels like a game mechanic more than an organic expression of the theme, but I find that it's a convenient way for players to express a strategy through repeated selection of certain favorite strategy cards. Without the strategy cards, you could see games where everybody is doing similar things on the same turns, often in reaction to each other, and that would leave the outcome of the game more dependent on lucky starting position and dice rolls.

No game that I've ever played has been able to accomplish the same things as TI:3... not even close really. Several promise that but if you cut the play time you lose the feel of the game. The time investment is a huge part of the games appeal and purpose. I'm happy they stuck to their guns and haven't tried to streamline it into something it was never meant to be. TI:3 needs to be a long ass game and you need to sit there for hours on end or that fourth hour betrayal means nothing... a betrayal after a one hour alliance is not nearly the same thing. Emotionally the game is entirely different. Time is a part of the design, it has to be and there is no substitute for that.

I'm actually shocked it took this long to make the 4th edition. I thought it would come sooner and I thought they would succumb to pressure and make it a 2-4 hour game. I'm happy it stayed the same in that respect at least. I have no intention to buy this new edition though. I just can't manage the money but for young college age or late teen kids looking to get into real empire building and a cool cold war game with flashes of crazy combat this is a great thing to pick up.

What this does for me however is encourage me to get the old copy off the shelf, dust it off and play a session again... assuming I can find anyone to play with. I have only used the new expansion once so there's plenty more game in there for me to enjoy and after years of playing it we finally have a system we like to use and have narrowed down our strategy cards to our favourite selection. It took us years to get to this point and the notion of starting again is too daunting at this age where I know it won't hit the table that often.. if at all.

I haven't played it enough times to be a TI3 expert, but of the times I've played it I've liked 4 or 5 players better than 6+. I also liked the original Imperial, rather than Imperial II, which was always what the hard-core TI3 players wanted. 5 hours+ is just too long.

I might try to list my copy of 3+expansions, although everyone's doing that now (and I'd probably do better calving off the expansions, but I don't particularly want just the base sitting around). I'm not sure whether 4 will be all that much different, or so different in ways that couldn't be houseruled into 4, but if the game and rules take a more integrative approach rather than the inevitable sprawl of options that 3+expansions became (witness the endless number of "first-time playing, what should I use?" threads, one of which I started--almost as plentiful as "when will FFG release 4e?"), the game might get played more--by which I mean not "a lot" but "more than roughly every 18 months and with a different group of people each time."

The Learn to Play guide and Rules Reference are now available:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/...the-age-of-twilight/

I've managed to play TI3 quite a bit as of late with 6 or more players and find it a lot of fun. Yes it has some issues and needs more combat but I like it just fine. I am a little surprised that they chose not to reimplement Forbidden Stars/Starcraft because there is a good game in there that needs more fighting. I guess they couldn't realistically slap the old Terrinoth Space Quest theme on any other game but TI. I'll play someone elses copy and finally be able to get a copy of the expansions cheap now I suppose.

Pat II wrote: I'll play someone elses copy and finally be able to get a copy of the expansions cheap now I suppose.

jpat wrote: I might try to list my copy of 3+expansions, although everyone's doing that now (and I'd probably do better calving off the expansions,