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Pre-PAX Thursday all day - a game of Twilight Imperium
Kaneski
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ahoyhoy.
So, a couple of friends and I have been talking about PAX, because... you know... 45 days to go. And somewhere between the rolls of dice in Mechwarrior and beer, a consensus developed. What we would all really like on the day before PAX is the kind of headache that can only come from plotting the downfall of 5-7 other people. And there is no substitute for Twilight Imperium to get that headache. Also, to make enemies before PAX.
The game was mentioned a few times, by a few posters here; all in the context of something to do on the day before PAX. Hopefully, that impetus is not gone.
So, Thursday 18th July, from around midday. Location - somewhere in Southbank. My temporary accommodation is still being decided, and I'm more than happy to volunteer it for this glorious purpose.
If you're keen and have the time - please PM me and we'll go somewhere more private...
So, a couple of friends and I have been talking about PAX, because... you know... 45 days to go. And somewhere between the rolls of dice in Mechwarrior and beer, a consensus developed. What we would all really like on the day before PAX is the kind of headache that can only come from plotting the downfall of 5-7 other people. And there is no substitute for Twilight Imperium to get that headache. Also, to make enemies before PAX.
The game was mentioned a few times, by a few posters here; all in the context of something to do on the day before PAX. Hopefully, that impetus is not gone.
So, Thursday 18th July, from around midday. Location - somewhere in Southbank. My temporary accommodation is still being decided, and I'm more than happy to volunteer it for this glorious purpose.
If you're keen and have the time - please PM me and we'll go somewhere more private...
Kaneski on
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Is it just the threeee of us? (we can make it if we try)
Given its supposedly similar, I'll be bringing Eclipse to PAX on one day, so let me know if any of this crew wants to play it at some point.
No house rules that can be in place to rectify this? I've played a bunch of games and haven't found any issues this big. The races aren't balanced and plasma missiles are a little OP, but nothing too bad.
Also, have you played with the expansion?
Say you're trying to eliminate a player, you need ships. Influence action to remove and replace discs. This strips the population and lets you recolonise the planets. So you can take the cubes from gray planets and place them on research. When you recolonise, you place cubes from production. Rinse, repeat - within 1 round, you have no research income and all that went to production. It's not expensive and doesn't compromise you in any way, especially since you can just re-specialise on the next round anyway.
This means all other planet traits are irrelevant - all you need is a certain number of cubes on the board (of any type), and 2 gray planets (why 2? influence action lets your refresh 2 colony ships). What's more, any player that does have 2 gray planets (by luck of random exploration), will be able to do this, and will be in a better position than a player with more, but specific planets.
Now, that can just become "part of the game", but then the intended population system is a nuisance to get around, rather than a core, functional element of the game.
The influence option requires a turn, every turn is expensive unless you're mid to late game, so it's not exactly cheap, it also only allows you to re-spec your colonist focus at the cost of another track, up to the number of cubes you have out on the board and at the cost of two per turn. Anyone who puts all their eggs in one basket in this game puts themselves at risk, the risk is compounded the more players there are on the board. If you're wasting turns moving colonies around just to min max a certain resource, you're going to get beat down by the rest of the board. As your massive windfall of one specific resource won't be accessible until next turn and will use turns to even be utilised.
We may just disagree on the definition of what a broken game is and whether Eclipse is worthwhile.
I think it's very worthwhile and not broken.
And none of this relates to TI, so apologies if this debate isn't welcome.
There are other deeper problems, which require walls of text to object to. Most of them, like the pop thing, are a case of 'this defeats most other elements, so playing any way but this is detrimental to your own chances'.
As a closing comment: The 'the others will gang up on you' is not a balancing or functional element, since ganging up can solve any problem at any time, ever (with very few games excepted); and if a game element requires the 'others must band together' red button to solve, it's an indication that the component isn't functioning.
Eg: If a race is unbalanced, 'the others will gang up on you' will solve the problem in the game, but not in terms of balance.