The Twilight Imperium Eventuality Proposition

6-player Twilight Imperium. This is, for me, the epitome of boardgaming.

When I started my long walk down the Ameritrash road, I knew that this was going to be the most hardcore game I could ever realistically hope to conceive of playing.

Road to Legend is too long and requires too much of a commitment (and supposedly unbalanced). I've heard rumors of a 12-hour long scenario in Tide of Iron, but that requires 2 sets (I think) and can be played with 2 players. So it's easy.

This however, takes the cake. Coordinating 6 people to meet in one place for 6-8 hours of epic boardgaming. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

I've played two games of Twilight Imperium now. Both of them pathetic excuses for the real thing, two 2-player variant games. Horrid. It leaves an aftertaste in my mouth.

I don't think I will be able to successfully coordinate 6 people to play this game, the mere mention of the optimistic 6 hour play time scares the living Jesus out of most of them. Hence I must declare a new mandate.

The Twilight Imperium Eventuality Proposition:

The moment 6 geeks are in my house, all other gaming will stop, and a 6-player game of Twilight Imperium will begin.

I'm so excited.

Play it online:

www.ti3wiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I thought this thread was going to be about the "last hour" problem that TI3 has. The "last hour" being that everyone is forced to play for one more hour past the point when everyone knows who is going to win. Watching that player very slowly cross the finish line in all his or her foregone conclusion-ey goodness. I've only played one game of TI3 where this was not the case.

joebelanger wrote:

I thought this thread was going to be about the "last hour" problem that TI3 has. The "last hour" being that everyone is forced to play for one more hour past the point when everyone knows who is going to win. Watching that player very slowly cross the finish line in all his or her foregone conclusion-ey goodness. I've only played one game of TI3 where this was not the case.

That happened in our game and it went for 9hrs, a tad draining in that last hour when any adrenalin from fighting for the chance of a win that could keep you awake/alert just aint there.

joebelanger wrote:

I thought this thread was going to be about the "last hour" problem that TI3 has. The "last hour" being that everyone is forced to play for one more hour past the point when everyone knows who is going to win. Watching that player very slowly cross the finish line in all his or her foregone conclusion-ey goodness. I've only played one game of TI3 where this was not the case.

Why didn't you concede to him if no one else had a shot?

hancock.tom wrote:

joebelanger wrote:

I thought this thread was going to be about the "last hour" problem that TI3 has. The "last hour" being that everyone is forced to play for one more hour past the point when everyone knows who is going to win. Watching that player very slowly cross the finish line in all his or her foregone conclusion-ey goodness. I've only played one game of TI3 where this was not the case.

Why didn't you concede to him if no one else had a shot?

I try, I try. Every time. If I hear, "Let's just see how this plays out." one more time right before the last round of a game of TI3, I'm going to shove a dreadnought backwards up the dissenter's ass.

joebelanger wrote:

I try, I try. Every time. If I hear, "Let's just see how this plays out." one more time right before the last round of a game of TI3, I'm going to shove a dreadnought backwards up the dissenter's ass.

You know what other game has a last hour problem? Risk.

You know what the proper response to "Let's just see how this plays out" is when you're playing Risk? Flip the board.

Of course, Twilight Imperium has tons of components, and doesn't have a single board. So flip the table. Next time you try to concede, I guarantee that everybody will accept.

I gave up trying to get anyone to play TI3 before I started. The last time I got 5 people to show up for a game of TI2 my roommate brought out this newer game called Puerto Rico and talked enough others into trying it that we didn't play TI2 that day. The trauma from this is probably why I despise Euro's and my ex-roommate so much.

Thing is I could probably get into someone else's game of TI3, but it would be total strangers and I'm not willing to risk 6-8 hours of random gamers who could end up being a collection of the worst FLGS regulars to ever stink up a room. Plus its just more fun playing shit like this with good friends.

I just played a 3-player game of this last weekend. One guy showed up hungover so I decided to dump in the variant rules for shock troops, leaders, and space mines for extra brain-addling effect.

I took over the other guy's home system to get my secret objective and had to talk him out of going home. He stayed but spent the rest of the game stalling hangover guy's empire with diplomacy and action cards.

Everyone went home well pissed off. So all in all it was a great success.

Shellhead wrote:

joebelanger wrote:

I try, I try. Every time. If I hear, "Let's just see how this plays out." one more time right before the last round of a game of TI3, I'm going to shove a dreadnought backwards up the dissenter's ass.

You what other game has a last hour problem? Risk.

You know what the proper response to "Let's just see how this plays out" is when you're playing Risk? Flip the board.

Of course, Twilight Imperium has tons of components, and doesn't have a single board. So flip the table. Next time you try to concede, I guarantee that everybody will accept.

I see the wisdom in your suggestion. It's definitely worth a try.

joebelanger wrote:

I see the wisdom in your suggestion. It's definitely worth a try.

A sneaky alternative is to "accidentally" bump the table hard while getting up to go to the bathroom. Just hard enough to send lots of pieces sliding across the table. That should do it.

Finally got to play Ti3, with 5 people though. It was truly intense. I mean the game lasted 5 hours, which included a one hour explanation of the game, and we only played to 5 points!

Obviously the strategy would be different if we were playing for the whole 10 points, but it was enough. The Muaat player won, for the obvious reason of it being a short (hah! a short game of Ti3) and fast game and he won the turn before the Federation of Sol swooped in to claim Mecatol Rex with his 16 fighters, 2 carriers and 2 dreadnoughts of doom. 2 War Suns cannot hold a candle to 16 fighters hitting 7 10's. Hahahaha.

I was creamed. I was Jol-Nar and had the unfortunate luck of sitting right beside the Muaat player. I had the audacity to inform him that in the storyline, the reason Muaat starts with a War Sun is because they were used as slaves by the Jol Nar for a good amount of time, and they left behind the plans for the War Sun when they left. He proceeded to roll over my entire fleet before heading to Mecatol Rex.

The entire game revolved around begging Muaat to leave us alone. I was his bitch after he attacked me, but I used our "alliance" to sic him on people threatening me.

Mad Dog wrote:

Thing is I could probably get into someone else's game of TI3, but it would be total strangers and I'm not willing to risk 6-8 hours of random gamers who could end up being a collection of the worst FLGS regulars to ever stink up a room.

Could be worth a shot though. If everyone in the group has played TI2 before, and were still willing to play it again, they can't be all that bad.

Shellhead wrote:

You know what the proper response to "Let's just see how this plays out" is when you're playing Risk? Flip the board.

There's actually an essay about that:

"It Was I Who Flipped Over The Risk Board Last Night"

I am so jealous of this:

www.boardgamegeek.com/image/434343

Biggest TI3 game - 4 base sets/3 expansion sets.

wow.