Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 26, 2007 13:35:31 GMT -5
Players: Ghostwes, Pandoragreen, Gilvan Blight, Talon
Rules: Used the Distant Suns Option and the Leader Option.
Setup - a ring of nothingness around Mecatol rex seems to be becoming a standard. Players are getting a bit nastier with the Asteroid fields and blank tiles as well. Wes ended up in pretty bad shape with one Asteroid field touching his home system and another 1 system away.
Early Game - early game was fairly typical with players moving out and exploring nearby systems. Again no one took advantage of using Fighters to check the Distant Suns tokens before planetary invasion. This ended up with most players loosing a large portion of their initial ground forces to rebels and radiation. The rebels played a huge part in the game, as there was a system that even by the end had 3 rebels still on it. Wes got pretty messed up due to bad luck with planetary landings though he did end up with some good political clout by finding the Ancients. Playing 4 players is interesting as every strategy is picked every time. I ended up using a racial special ability to change the political card quite often at the beginning and our first vote was to decide whether or not to play with an Artifact on Mecatol, which we did. There was a 50% chance it would blow up, and a 50% chance we would get technology. As there was no one in Mecatol, we went for it and were rewarded with Tech.
Mid Game - Still expansionism as the Distant Suns were evil and we lost a lot of forces early. Wes and myself had a small border dispute which we attempted to resolve amicably, Wes was to withdraw his troops and I would take the planet, but he would maintain a fleet in space. I wasn't sure exactly why, but I only wanted to the planet so I agreed to it. What I didn't know is that Wes had a special victory condition to have a ship in each wormhole sector. Near the end of the mid game Wes made a run for Mecatol using pretty much all of his remaining fleet, leaving very little to protect the rest of his systems. At this point Talon and Wes teamed up to prevent Pandoragreen or Me from getting any further in the game (Talon's reasoning: we always win and he wanted to see someone new take the crown, that someone new being Wes).
End Game - unfortunately cut short due to time. This ended up bing a king of the Hill for Mecatol. By the second to last turn it was obvious Wes was in a very good position to win in Two turns, potentially less if he had a secret objective to hold Mecatol (which it ended up he didn't, but we didn't know that). Two very influential votes happened at this point. The first was passed due to Pandora and I swinging the courts through action cards (My thugs attacked Wes' diplomats removing the from the Vote, and Pandora's diplomats gave an impassioned speech giving her 10 extra votes). This invoked a Law in which only Mecatol could be invaded for the next turn. This ended up making the King of The hill, the only target. The next turn an even more influential vote was passed.
The big Bang: Right near the end of the game, when we were near certain Wes would win by the next turn (again, we thought he had a special victory for Mecatol), Pandora played a card that let her pull a political card out of the discard pile and we vote on it. She used this to pull that Artifact card, the one we voted on the first turn of the game. This was done at a time when the WesTalon alliance had most of their planets tapped, and thus unable to provide influence. This let the PandoraGilvan alliance win the vote and we played with fire and activated the ancient artifact again. This time it blew up! And destroyed Wes' entire fleet and ground force on Mecatol.
Now Wes wasn't too happy about it, but I personally thought it was one of the best plays I had seen in TI. Also something I'm sure I will be talking about for as long as I play TI.
The Finally - we ended, as mentioned early. At that time Wes was in first with 7 VP. Pandora and I were in second with 6, Talon was close behind with 5. The next two turns would have decided it. I had initiative and would have taken Imperial giving me a minimum of 8, and if I could complete my secret, I could have won, though it would have been near impossible (take over another players last space dock). Pandora had the game in Two Turns through secret and public objectives. Wes had it even earlier in Two turns if he took Initiative and then Imperial as his main strategies. This may have been stopped by an invasion of his home system. Even Talon may have been hiding something, as Wes's empire was devastated by the explosion, and Talon could have easily moved in and taken over the entire thing in a turn or two. Wes had it at the point we stopped, but who would have won if we went to 10 VPs is still up for debate.
Rules: Used the Distant Suns Option and the Leader Option.
Setup - a ring of nothingness around Mecatol rex seems to be becoming a standard. Players are getting a bit nastier with the Asteroid fields and blank tiles as well. Wes ended up in pretty bad shape with one Asteroid field touching his home system and another 1 system away.
Early Game - early game was fairly typical with players moving out and exploring nearby systems. Again no one took advantage of using Fighters to check the Distant Suns tokens before planetary invasion. This ended up with most players loosing a large portion of their initial ground forces to rebels and radiation. The rebels played a huge part in the game, as there was a system that even by the end had 3 rebels still on it. Wes got pretty messed up due to bad luck with planetary landings though he did end up with some good political clout by finding the Ancients. Playing 4 players is interesting as every strategy is picked every time. I ended up using a racial special ability to change the political card quite often at the beginning and our first vote was to decide whether or not to play with an Artifact on Mecatol, which we did. There was a 50% chance it would blow up, and a 50% chance we would get technology. As there was no one in Mecatol, we went for it and were rewarded with Tech.
Mid Game - Still expansionism as the Distant Suns were evil and we lost a lot of forces early. Wes and myself had a small border dispute which we attempted to resolve amicably, Wes was to withdraw his troops and I would take the planet, but he would maintain a fleet in space. I wasn't sure exactly why, but I only wanted to the planet so I agreed to it. What I didn't know is that Wes had a special victory condition to have a ship in each wormhole sector. Near the end of the mid game Wes made a run for Mecatol using pretty much all of his remaining fleet, leaving very little to protect the rest of his systems. At this point Talon and Wes teamed up to prevent Pandoragreen or Me from getting any further in the game (Talon's reasoning: we always win and he wanted to see someone new take the crown, that someone new being Wes).
End Game - unfortunately cut short due to time. This ended up bing a king of the Hill for Mecatol. By the second to last turn it was obvious Wes was in a very good position to win in Two turns, potentially less if he had a secret objective to hold Mecatol (which it ended up he didn't, but we didn't know that). Two very influential votes happened at this point. The first was passed due to Pandora and I swinging the courts through action cards (My thugs attacked Wes' diplomats removing the from the Vote, and Pandora's diplomats gave an impassioned speech giving her 10 extra votes). This invoked a Law in which only Mecatol could be invaded for the next turn. This ended up making the King of The hill, the only target. The next turn an even more influential vote was passed.
The big Bang: Right near the end of the game, when we were near certain Wes would win by the next turn (again, we thought he had a special victory for Mecatol), Pandora played a card that let her pull a political card out of the discard pile and we vote on it. She used this to pull that Artifact card, the one we voted on the first turn of the game. This was done at a time when the WesTalon alliance had most of their planets tapped, and thus unable to provide influence. This let the PandoraGilvan alliance win the vote and we played with fire and activated the ancient artifact again. This time it blew up! And destroyed Wes' entire fleet and ground force on Mecatol.
Now Wes wasn't too happy about it, but I personally thought it was one of the best plays I had seen in TI. Also something I'm sure I will be talking about for as long as I play TI.
The Finally - we ended, as mentioned early. At that time Wes was in first with 7 VP. Pandora and I were in second with 6, Talon was close behind with 5. The next two turns would have decided it. I had initiative and would have taken Imperial giving me a minimum of 8, and if I could complete my secret, I could have won, though it would have been near impossible (take over another players last space dock). Pandora had the game in Two Turns through secret and public objectives. Wes had it even earlier in Two turns if he took Initiative and then Imperial as his main strategies. This may have been stopped by an invasion of his home system. Even Talon may have been hiding something, as Wes's empire was devastated by the explosion, and Talon could have easily moved in and taken over the entire thing in a turn or two. Wes had it at the point we stopped, but who would have won if we went to 10 VPs is still up for debate.