Trashdome - Twilight Imperium 3rd VS Runewars

WELCOME TO TRASHDOME!

This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting on it. End your first post in this thread with the title of the game you're placing a bet on (i.e. voting for) so its clear to me when reading it later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. Counting expansions or not is entirely up to you just as playing with them or not is. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.

Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;

Two games enter! One game leaves!

No contest. TI:3 all the way. Runewars doesn't even get a punch in before it suffers a knockout.

Vote: TI:3

Jeff

I think that TI3 could benifit immensely from the ressource dials in RUNEWARS. Building stuff is a MAJOR hassle in TI3, and something like the dials could really speed things up.

But even without the expansion, there's just no competition. TI3 just sits its big, fat ass on top of RUNEWARS and chokes it to death. Slowly. Very slowly.

My vote (if in doubt): TI3

Runewars should have supported six players out of the box. It's the reason why it's way down on my wishlist and may not even get bought at all.

And dice.

Vote: Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

Runewars is a good game. It is in very much the same spot ti3 was in when it came out. Innovative in a lot of way and about 90% of the way there. With both game I think the biggest problem is the artificial time shortening mechanics included. For RW this is simply the face that the game can ecd to early, 6 Dragon Runes is too few when you start with 2. For TI3 this was the original ISC that got you 20% of the win for taking it.

Even Still TI3 is IMHO the best 4x game on the market today and certainly one of the best ever. RW could be mad into a very good game but even with a fix in an expansion RW would be hard pressed to top TI3

Vote:Twilight Imperium

-M

I'd like to try both of them, but if given the option to play one of them with an optimum number of players, I'd choose TI3 (after all it's Science Fiction)

But realistically speaking, as there are rarely more than 2 of us, I don't think I'll be getting it any time soon... Runewars, as it works with 2 and it's a quicker game has much more chance at being bought/played by us (unless there's a good 2 player variant for TI3??).

But still...

Vote: TI3

I loved TI2, but The senseless and unthematic incorporation of Euro mechanics into TI3 killed the game for me. I sadly have zero interest in playing TI in any form for the foreseeable future, and that's saying something since 4X is probably my favorite genre of game.

On the other hand, with several plays under my belt, I still eagerly look forward to the next time I get to play Runewars.

Vote: Runewars.

Kookoobah compares Runewars to TI3

VOTE: RUNEWARS

THEME - Runewars
Fantasy! YEY!

UNITS - Runewars
It has more than twice the variety in units, though I sometimes feel that the units in TI3 are actually more varied

COMBAT - Runewars
Combat plays faster (one round only), is more nuanced as there is actual decision making in the resolution and not merely choosing how to tank the damage, and there aren't a ton of modifiers to your "roll". No dice though.

POLITICS - TIED
The system in Runewars (lifted from Warrior Knights, I believe) works a lot better in terms of bluffing your opponent. We will probably incorporate it in our future TI3 games. Hate the fact that there are sooooo few influence bid kinds. I mean after playing the game thrice you've seen it all and it pretty much loses all flavor.

ALLIANCES - TI3
There pretty much isn't any room for alliances in Runewars. The game is pretty fast, even in epic, and the map usually forces players into their own little wars. TI3 allows for better alliances, at least in our experience.

ORDER vs STRATEGY CARDS - Runewars
Why can't you do Warfare just because some other race on the other side of the galaxy decides to do so also? I find the Supremacy Bonus equally unthematic, but not as bad as the Strategy Phase.

MOVEMENT - Runewars
Runewars makes it a lot simpler to move your units around. Strategize is wonderful, whereas the Tactical Action thing in TI3 is just meh. The fact that there are less modifiers in how units move (Fighters, XRD transporters, admirals on dreadnoughts, blah blah blah)helps keep the game tight.

RESOURCES - Runewars
Dials > fiddly planets

RECRUITING vs BUILDING - TI3
I actually like being able to choose what I should build. Recruiting based on dials railroads the decision too much. Saves on downtime though.

UPKEEP/CLEANUP PHASE vs SEASONS - Runewars
Tying the upkeep effects to the seasons allows them to break it down over several turns, and it helps keep the busywork down. Too few season cards though, after a few games, you know everything that can happen. No more suprises.

TACTIC CARDS vs ACTION CARDS - Runewars
This is one of the cases wherein less is more. Each tactic card in Runewars is potentially game changing, whereas the Action cards are pretty much a dime a dozen. Excellent work making the cards tighter.

SPACE DOCKS vs STRONGHOLDS - Runewars
Fiddly fiddly fiddly. The way to make Space Docks is fiddly, the Space Dock is fiddly (production capacity is based on planet resource level, fighter capacity, grah) Strongholds defend and make you strong!

PDS vs DEFENSIVE DEVELOPMENT - TI3
The defensive developments feel like the theme was tacked on. Corey probably selected some sort of defensive effect for each race that was synergestic with its units and just came up with names for them after. On the other hand, you have a mobile base that fires inter-system cannons.

EXPLORATION/DISTANT SUNS - Runewars
The DS tokens punish you too much. The exploration tokens add more theme and use for the heroes while not overly messing around with the overall game.


This is getting really long. I wonder if anybody is reading all of this shit.


RED/BLUE BORDERS vs RED SYSTEMS - Runewars
Once again, the red systems that have so many modifiers/rules to them are trumped by the simple red/blue borders of Runewars. There really doesn't have to be 47 different kinds of areas that affect movement. Each one doing something only slightly different from the next. I swear to god, we've played TI3 so much and this still doesn't stick.

VPs versus DRAGON RUNES - Runewars
The fact that you need to defend the Dragon Runes and control territory to put them in on paper seems to promote combat. Thing is, TI3 already forces you to spread out across the map to do anything. Still, VPs are so unthematic it's painful.

HEROES vs LEADERS - TI3
The Leaders were cardboard tokens that provided fiddly bonuses, but at least they actually did something! Even though they were a hassle to play with, they joined in battles and actually affected your armies.

TITLE CARD vs ELECT PLAYER - Runewars
The Title cards are a major part of winning in Runewars. You could plan your entire game around a Title card. Again, the limited number of Titles compared to Elect Player as ______ probably makes them more balanced and matter more, at the cost of variety.




Sometimes fiddly is good, sometimes simple is good. In this case, Runewars is closer to my personal taste. As we play more and more, I come to realize that it's not going to replace TI3, but it's pretty damn good.

Nice comparison Kookoobah. And yeah, I read all that shit. Good on ya.

That's a really strong case for Runewars.

Mechanically Runewars is the game TI3 should have been. Aside from theme, people who would still prefer TI3 are living in nostalgic darkness.

Runewars here as well.

I hate the role selection in TI:3 with the single role cards shared with the table. Runewars fixes that with decks for everybody so you don't feel as gamed by someone selecting warfare when you need it or whatever, which for me is total euro, taking options out of your hands for no reason. Combat is also a breeze. I would agree with Malloc that it is still only 90% there, but I would argue that 90% is still more what I want than TI:3.

Runewars

Only played TI3, so it gets my vote.

I'm still bored of the rings, so I prefer Twilight Imperium for theme.

Vote: Twilight Imperium.