Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 5, 2007 12:30:50 GMT -5
Okay this won't be too fancy as again I didn't really take any notes.
Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition with 6 players using the Distant Suns Optional Rules
Players:
Myself - the golum guys that could skip turns.
ManicallyOdd - the tech guys in purple
Lobo - can't remeber (pm or reply and I will update)
Lobo's Wife - The guys with all the bonus' to dreadnaughts, borg rip off.
Pandoragreen - the humans
Sinister - the trader lions
The board: this was an intersesting one as there wasn't a single planet around Mecatol Rex. 5 empty systems and an asteroid field. One early mistake by Sinster was to place the asteroid field directly infront of the one race that starts with a tech to get through it. The worm holes again ended up groupped which was diasapointing.
The Early game: this was very different from previous games due to the Distand Suns option. It made the early game much more interesting and dramatic and even had you on the edge of your seat during other players turns. It seemed the board was unequally split though with most of the benificial inhabited planets on one side of the galaxy and the horrible evil ones on the other. One nice supprise was a wormhole opening up right in the middle of the oposite side of the galaxy to the other worm hole groups. Most of the early game was the usual expansion with a few players loosing a majority of their ground forces to irradiated an uninhabitable planets. Then later moving new troops out to take them. There was the potential for very early conflict but it never did actually break out.
Late Early to Mid game. This saw the most use of political cards I have seen in the game. The political strategy still wasn't taken every time but it did come up more often then previous games. The votes were intersting and we even put one law into place. I even got in character a bit for one of the votes about activating an anchient technology. Would still prefer to see more politics in the game. Earlish in the game I was able to jump to Mecatol and take the system. Due to the one system buffer I was also able to build up a sizable force there claiming not only my secret objective but also a public one. This was the first time a secret ojbective had been fulfilled during one of our games. Pandora and Lobo's wife had a minor boarder dispute that went on for a few turns. With Pandora seeming to want to loose the system, though I don't think we ever figured out why.
Mid to End: all players streached their borders as far as they could until bumping into their neighbors. The border disupute between Pandora and Lobo's wife continued while a new one sparked up between myself and Manically. This again didn't go to far but did have a couple system change hand. In an odd twist the initiative card got to the last player in line (myself) and alloud two players to get the Imperial Strategy two turns in a row guaranteed. This meant that they both got 4 points with nearly no effort. These players were Manically and myself. Lobo was also sneaking up the victory points claiming one Public Objective every single turn, while still having ones he could claim next turn avaliable.
Endgame: unfortunatley Sinister had to leave. His strategy appeared to be build a massive fleet then take over at least one of his neighbors. He managed to get the fleet built, but it was running very late by this time (1AM). We decided to leave his units on the board and treat them as a hostile neutral force. In the closing turns we had 3 players in position for the win. Myself, Lobo and Manically. Unfortunately the turn before last an easy public objective came up which most players could claim putting myself at the 10 point at the end of the turn. So the last turn became can we stop Gilvan? Unfortunately for the other players, no one thought to steal the Diplomacy strategy, so I was able to remove one of two possible threats that way (Pandora). Which left Manically's invasion force to decide if the game would end or go on. Unfortunately he didn't have a very big border force to make this attempt. He managed to wipe out my fleet but his ground troops succumed to PDS fire.
Thoughts on the Game:
I loved the distant suns option. I can't see playing a game of TI ever again without using it. The rules were simple enough that we were able to teach two players who had never played this including all the regular rules without a problem. It added much more risk to the beginign of the game, which usually just boils down to "how many planets did you take this turn?".
Again a small group of players managed to take the Imperial Strategy repeatedly. We still haven't seen the 'flow' that Fantasy flight claims develops with players who know the game (where each turn a different player take initiative and a different player takes Imperial). I am definately getting tempted to toss in the Imperial II card from the expansion to see if things flow better. On another note regarding this, the Imperial strategy did end the game. I was getting rather late (we had a late start) and having the game end at about that time was good. I'm sure our game would have been a couple HOURS longer without that strategy.
Conflic occured a bit earlier then usualy but didn't keep up. There was a lul then only at the very end did fighting resume. I would still like to see a game where conflic occured earlier. By the end everyone has pretty much developed the same techs and similar fleets which makes battles fairly even and left solely up to the dice. Earlier combat should show more strategy with the superior foce having a definate advantage. The expansion is supposed to change the game into more combat oriented, so maybe I should just wait for that.
I'm also starting to see a new trend. It really matters who you sit next to. Those of us who have played this a couple times seem to favour certain strategies. There are already trends on who will be agressive and who will set up definate borders and not break them. This adds a whole new level to set up that we haven't yet taken advantage of (we always just place based on where we are sitting).
Any of the other players have anything to add?
Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition with 6 players using the Distant Suns Optional Rules
Players:
Myself - the golum guys that could skip turns.
ManicallyOdd - the tech guys in purple
Lobo - can't remeber (pm or reply and I will update)
Lobo's Wife - The guys with all the bonus' to dreadnaughts, borg rip off.
Pandoragreen - the humans
Sinister - the trader lions
The board: this was an intersesting one as there wasn't a single planet around Mecatol Rex. 5 empty systems and an asteroid field. One early mistake by Sinster was to place the asteroid field directly infront of the one race that starts with a tech to get through it. The worm holes again ended up groupped which was diasapointing.
The Early game: this was very different from previous games due to the Distand Suns option. It made the early game much more interesting and dramatic and even had you on the edge of your seat during other players turns. It seemed the board was unequally split though with most of the benificial inhabited planets on one side of the galaxy and the horrible evil ones on the other. One nice supprise was a wormhole opening up right in the middle of the oposite side of the galaxy to the other worm hole groups. Most of the early game was the usual expansion with a few players loosing a majority of their ground forces to irradiated an uninhabitable planets. Then later moving new troops out to take them. There was the potential for very early conflict but it never did actually break out.
Late Early to Mid game. This saw the most use of political cards I have seen in the game. The political strategy still wasn't taken every time but it did come up more often then previous games. The votes were intersting and we even put one law into place. I even got in character a bit for one of the votes about activating an anchient technology. Would still prefer to see more politics in the game. Earlish in the game I was able to jump to Mecatol and take the system. Due to the one system buffer I was also able to build up a sizable force there claiming not only my secret objective but also a public one. This was the first time a secret ojbective had been fulfilled during one of our games. Pandora and Lobo's wife had a minor boarder dispute that went on for a few turns. With Pandora seeming to want to loose the system, though I don't think we ever figured out why.
Mid to End: all players streached their borders as far as they could until bumping into their neighbors. The border disupute between Pandora and Lobo's wife continued while a new one sparked up between myself and Manically. This again didn't go to far but did have a couple system change hand. In an odd twist the initiative card got to the last player in line (myself) and alloud two players to get the Imperial Strategy two turns in a row guaranteed. This meant that they both got 4 points with nearly no effort. These players were Manically and myself. Lobo was also sneaking up the victory points claiming one Public Objective every single turn, while still having ones he could claim next turn avaliable.
Endgame: unfortunatley Sinister had to leave. His strategy appeared to be build a massive fleet then take over at least one of his neighbors. He managed to get the fleet built, but it was running very late by this time (1AM). We decided to leave his units on the board and treat them as a hostile neutral force. In the closing turns we had 3 players in position for the win. Myself, Lobo and Manically. Unfortunately the turn before last an easy public objective came up which most players could claim putting myself at the 10 point at the end of the turn. So the last turn became can we stop Gilvan? Unfortunately for the other players, no one thought to steal the Diplomacy strategy, so I was able to remove one of two possible threats that way (Pandora). Which left Manically's invasion force to decide if the game would end or go on. Unfortunately he didn't have a very big border force to make this attempt. He managed to wipe out my fleet but his ground troops succumed to PDS fire.
Thoughts on the Game:
I loved the distant suns option. I can't see playing a game of TI ever again without using it. The rules were simple enough that we were able to teach two players who had never played this including all the regular rules without a problem. It added much more risk to the beginign of the game, which usually just boils down to "how many planets did you take this turn?".
Again a small group of players managed to take the Imperial Strategy repeatedly. We still haven't seen the 'flow' that Fantasy flight claims develops with players who know the game (where each turn a different player take initiative and a different player takes Imperial). I am definately getting tempted to toss in the Imperial II card from the expansion to see if things flow better. On another note regarding this, the Imperial strategy did end the game. I was getting rather late (we had a late start) and having the game end at about that time was good. I'm sure our game would have been a couple HOURS longer without that strategy.
Conflic occured a bit earlier then usualy but didn't keep up. There was a lul then only at the very end did fighting resume. I would still like to see a game where conflic occured earlier. By the end everyone has pretty much developed the same techs and similar fleets which makes battles fairly even and left solely up to the dice. Earlier combat should show more strategy with the superior foce having a definate advantage. The expansion is supposed to change the game into more combat oriented, so maybe I should just wait for that.
I'm also starting to see a new trend. It really matters who you sit next to. Those of us who have played this a couple times seem to favour certain strategies. There are already trends on who will be agressive and who will set up definate borders and not break them. This adds a whole new level to set up that we haven't yet taken advantage of (we always just place based on where we are sitting).
Any of the other players have anything to add?