Post by Gilvan Blight on Sept 15, 2008 10:35:23 GMT -5
Quickly: Twilight Imperium Light
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]The Galactic Emperor is dead, long live .... You? This is a 2-6 player game of Galactic conquest. Each player controls 1 home plant on a hex based grid. In the center is the sun. Players expand their realms by exploring space between the worlds and/or taking worlds from other players. Taking worlds can be done through force or influence. Victory points are awarded for each planet owned each turn and for winning battles, with a couple of bonuses at the end of the game. When all the victory points are used up the player with the most at that time Wins.
Actual gameplay is similar to Twilight Imperium or Puerto Rico where players, in turn, select a role to play each round. Each role gives all players something to do while giving the player that selected it a bonus. The roles vary in what the allow players to do. The Merchant allows planets with food resources to produce those resources and allows players to buy and sell goods with the bank. The Scientist allows players to buy technology with Energy Resources. The Warlord allows players to move their fleets and attack. The Regent allows players to buy influence and then use it to try to take over planets diplomatically (or defend their own planets diplomatically), it's also this phase that players score victory points. The Steward allows players to generate resources from plants supplied with food (there are only two, Energy and Metals). The Builder allows players to build ships to increase their fleets. The Explorer allows players to play new hexes onto the map adding more worlds and or blank areas. There are always more jobs then players to not every action gets done each turn.
Player's fleets consist of two types of planetary defenses (The Empire and the Star-base) and three types of ships: Fighters, Cruisers and Dreadnoughts. Combat is done by rolling a set number of 6 sided dice and beating a target number, with each beat number dealing one damage. Interestingly ships attack in three distinct phases, with Dreadnoughts firing first, then Cruisers and defenses, and last Fighters with casualties removed each phase. This gives the better ships a huge advantage over the others as often the smaller ships won't last long enough to fight back.
Time progression is representing interestingly in this game. The planets laid out in the Explorer phase are separated into two distinct piles with a Black Hole tile in between. When the black hole is placed, the Scientist is removed from the game, and no players will be able to develop any new technologies. After this the tiles that remain are really good systems with multiple plants or blank tiles, really the most strategically important tiles in the game. So this means that half way through the game, your tech gets locked and you start fighting over much more important areas of space.
This is definitely Twilight Imperium Light. So much so that it really feels like a group of gamers played TI third edition, found a bunch of stuff they didn't like, stripped it out and then re-released the game under a new name.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow]This is a much easier game to learn then TI, and plays much faster. This meant that last Saturday night in a 4 hour gaming session we were able to get in two full games, that was with 2 players having never played before. A lot more combat. I've played many games of TI where there are only a smattering of battles. In both games of Galactic Emperor there were players fleets in battle by turn 3. This makes the game feel much more like a galactic battle game then a civ like exploration game (Much more Galactic Empire then Master's of Orion). The components for this were nice, especially the coloured ships. They were very sturdy and well made. Everything else was on nice thick card. The board was a nice size, not needing the 4x4 table that TI needs.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Being TI light means that there feels like there is a lot missing in this, having played TI so many times. There are no races, everyone is equal. The technologies come from a shared pile. There are no 'events' other then the built in black hole. There are only 3 types of ships, vs 5 or 6 in TI. I also found that in both games 3 of 5 players did well and were very close in score at the end while the other 2 were near useless. I don't know if it was just the group dynamic of who I was playing with or an actual flaw in the game logic, but the games not much fun for those 2 players, especially the one in last. It seems that once you get backed into a corner, there isn't really a way out.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Less replay value. Due to not having races, events, extra space tiles, individual techs for players and a lot of the other things from Twilight Imperium, this game plays the same pretty much every time. This means it feels more like a Eurogame like Catan then a Fantasy Flight game. Now I know some people prefer games that are the same every time where player skill means a lot more then random chance, but personally, after Playing two games in a row of this, I was ready for some variety.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]Really not a bad game. I personally prefer Twilight Imperium, but a game of that takes a minimum of 4 hours, and can go much longer. Do to that I find that this is a great Alternative for when you don't have the time for a long game. It's a lot quicker to learn, and due to the reduced complexity the game is a lot faster. This one will also appeal to people that find there isn't enough ship to ship combat in TI, as it's very common and necessary in Galactic Emperor. I played this at a friends, and at this point I don't think I will pick up a copy for myself, but I would probably show up if invited back over to that friends place to play.
[glow=blue,2,300]Summary:[/glow]The Galactic Emperor is dead, long live .... You? This is a 2-6 player game of Galactic conquest. Each player controls 1 home plant on a hex based grid. In the center is the sun. Players expand their realms by exploring space between the worlds and/or taking worlds from other players. Taking worlds can be done through force or influence. Victory points are awarded for each planet owned each turn and for winning battles, with a couple of bonuses at the end of the game. When all the victory points are used up the player with the most at that time Wins.
Actual gameplay is similar to Twilight Imperium or Puerto Rico where players, in turn, select a role to play each round. Each role gives all players something to do while giving the player that selected it a bonus. The roles vary in what the allow players to do. The Merchant allows planets with food resources to produce those resources and allows players to buy and sell goods with the bank. The Scientist allows players to buy technology with Energy Resources. The Warlord allows players to move their fleets and attack. The Regent allows players to buy influence and then use it to try to take over planets diplomatically (or defend their own planets diplomatically), it's also this phase that players score victory points. The Steward allows players to generate resources from plants supplied with food (there are only two, Energy and Metals). The Builder allows players to build ships to increase their fleets. The Explorer allows players to play new hexes onto the map adding more worlds and or blank areas. There are always more jobs then players to not every action gets done each turn.
Player's fleets consist of two types of planetary defenses (The Empire and the Star-base) and three types of ships: Fighters, Cruisers and Dreadnoughts. Combat is done by rolling a set number of 6 sided dice and beating a target number, with each beat number dealing one damage. Interestingly ships attack in three distinct phases, with Dreadnoughts firing first, then Cruisers and defenses, and last Fighters with casualties removed each phase. This gives the better ships a huge advantage over the others as often the smaller ships won't last long enough to fight back.
Time progression is representing interestingly in this game. The planets laid out in the Explorer phase are separated into two distinct piles with a Black Hole tile in between. When the black hole is placed, the Scientist is removed from the game, and no players will be able to develop any new technologies. After this the tiles that remain are really good systems with multiple plants or blank tiles, really the most strategically important tiles in the game. So this means that half way through the game, your tech gets locked and you start fighting over much more important areas of space.
This is definitely Twilight Imperium Light. So much so that it really feels like a group of gamers played TI third edition, found a bunch of stuff they didn't like, stripped it out and then re-released the game under a new name.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow]This is a much easier game to learn then TI, and plays much faster. This meant that last Saturday night in a 4 hour gaming session we were able to get in two full games, that was with 2 players having never played before. A lot more combat. I've played many games of TI where there are only a smattering of battles. In both games of Galactic Emperor there were players fleets in battle by turn 3. This makes the game feel much more like a galactic battle game then a civ like exploration game (Much more Galactic Empire then Master's of Orion). The components for this were nice, especially the coloured ships. They were very sturdy and well made. Everything else was on nice thick card. The board was a nice size, not needing the 4x4 table that TI needs.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Being TI light means that there feels like there is a lot missing in this, having played TI so many times. There are no races, everyone is equal. The technologies come from a shared pile. There are no 'events' other then the built in black hole. There are only 3 types of ships, vs 5 or 6 in TI. I also found that in both games 3 of 5 players did well and were very close in score at the end while the other 2 were near useless. I don't know if it was just the group dynamic of who I was playing with or an actual flaw in the game logic, but the games not much fun for those 2 players, especially the one in last. It seems that once you get backed into a corner, there isn't really a way out.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Less replay value. Due to not having races, events, extra space tiles, individual techs for players and a lot of the other things from Twilight Imperium, this game plays the same pretty much every time. This means it feels more like a Eurogame like Catan then a Fantasy Flight game. Now I know some people prefer games that are the same every time where player skill means a lot more then random chance, but personally, after Playing two games in a row of this, I was ready for some variety.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]Really not a bad game. I personally prefer Twilight Imperium, but a game of that takes a minimum of 4 hours, and can go much longer. Do to that I find that this is a great Alternative for when you don't have the time for a long game. It's a lot quicker to learn, and due to the reduced complexity the game is a lot faster. This one will also appeal to people that find there isn't enough ship to ship combat in TI, as it's very common and necessary in Galactic Emperor. I played this at a friends, and at this point I don't think I will pick up a copy for myself, but I would probably show up if invited back over to that friends place to play.