THRONEWORLD and TIME AGENT (TimJim Games)

I like both of these games very much and was wondering whether anybody else played them and wants to provide commentary.

Both games are set in the same universe.

THRONEWORLD is a space conquest game very similar to, but older than TWILIGHT IMPERIUM. In my opinion it's actually better because it is a more focused and tactical design. It has very direct player interaction, because the central galactic system is actually required to win and players can also choose the neat sabotage action, which simply damages a players system, fleet or army without any requirements. You also handle far bigger fleets than in TI and combat is more sophisticated, e.g. there are 5 different ground units. Developing technologies is very abstracted, but still important and decisive.

TIME AGENT is probably the only game about altering the past by time travel. The technology was recently discovered and now several races are trying to alter the past to their favor. You can send agents and killer squads back through time. They are all different depending on race and each one of them requires a different strategy to win, e.g. the current masters of the universe are fighting a losing battle and are trying to both stop time travel and other races at the same time as soon as possible. Incidentally their squads are the most deadly. Altering an event to your favor hurts at least one other player, so the game usually goes back and forth a little before one player is able to stop time travel and alter events to their favor at the same time. The only downside is that the game requires a lot of computing (not in the euro sense though) since the events get altered a lot, which leads to ever changing resource and victory point levels. However you can download a flash program from TOS which will do all the calculations for you.

The games are out of print, but shouldn't be expensive. I bought both games in shrink, THRONEWORLD for €35 and TIME AGENT for €25.

Time Agent sounds pretty cool. I have to admit I am a time travel sucker. I recently went on a Time Master RPG kick and bought all of the modules/books on a whim. I will definitely check it out.

Some of those old TimJim games were pretty cool. TIME AGENT is probably the best time travel game and THRONEWORLD is suprisingly good...it's hard to not compare it to TI3, but it does have differentiators. You can get most of their games on the cheap here in the US since people don't seem to like them so much.

The one I really want to play but haven't is FAST FOOD FRANCHISE...Branham swears by it.

Schweig! wrote:
"TIME AGENT is probably the only game about altering the past by time travel.
Time War and Time Control are two that I can think of offhand. I like Time War but Time Control has a very poor reputation (ha, 2.05 on the T.O.S.ser ratingometer).

"The games are out of print, but shouldn't be expensive. I bought both games in shrink, THRONEWORLD for €35 and TIME AGENT for €25."
I'll sell copies for slightly higher than that if anyone's interested (and if I can find them)!

I haven't heard of Throneworld but it sounds interesting. A buddy of mine loves Time Agent but I haven't had a chance to play it yet.

Michael Barnes wrote:

The one I really want to play but haven't is FAST FOOD FRANCHISE...Branham swears by it.

I love FFF....It the way Monopoly should be played.mmmm.mmmm.mmm...Chicken Surprise!

I played FFF and it was the only other time I managed to get a rise out of Dan B. I screwed him over on the board and he ended up having to pay me a bunch of money.

He counted it out and threw it down on the table exclaiming "Choke on it!"
Fun game. Even more fun when your freinds are pulling their hair out.

Speaking of Dan B. He bought a case of Time Traveller and Throneworld and has a bunch of copies if anyone is looking for them.

Steve"StoneColdBastard"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

I played FFF and it was the only other time I managed to get a rise out of Dan B. I screwed him over on the board and he ended up having to pay me a bunch of money.

He counted it out and threw it down on the table exclaiming "Choke on it!"
Fun game. Even more fun when your freinds are pulling their hair out.

Speaking of Dan B. He bought a case of Time Traveller and Throneworld and has a bunch of copies if anyone is looking for them.

Steve"StoneColdBastard"Avery

Hey Steve: I do want a copy of Time Agent [assuming that's the game you're talking about]. Let me know how to proceed for getting one [and, hell, I'm in no hurry, so I could pick it up from you at Trashfest if you don't mind carrying it--I'm not too cheap to pay for postage if it's too much a pain in the ass for you though ]

And, out of curiosity, was he selling them for cheap on ebay for a while? There's a seller in GA that has had tons of TimJim games for sale for cheap as hell ($10 or so) for a while. I picked up Age of Exploration (sucker for sologames), 2038, Mystic War [meh, this was overpriced at $10], and Throneworld for around $42 combined. [And, for those interested, the seller is buckanup

(Looks like the price came down even further for Age of Exploration; I'm tempted to buy another one at that price just for the parts...]

I think Dan bought them from the guy who was selling them cheap. I'll ask him how much he wants for his copy and be glad to bring it to Trashfest.. Personally I like Mystic War. The hidden victory conditions and fluctuating resources make it interesting to play.

Steve"Mystic Warrior"Avery

I just bought Throneworld off Ebay for $10. The guy has another copy on there if anyone was looking for one.

I too would be interested in Time Agent if it wouldn't be too much trouble to find out the cost and the shipping.