Twilight Imperium: Prophecy of Kings Expansion Announced

I haven't played online. I'm kind of scared to. Partially due to never having played the TTS module and it seems like there's some scripting I don't understand, and I would most likely be playing with people who play online all the time and wouldn't have time for a TI4 module noob like me.

Those are just excuses though. The Root Discord was super welcoming to a newcomer, I'm sure the TI4 Discord is similar.

I'd be willing to play with you---I've never played before so I'd have to learn the rules. We would need probably 2 more, obviously.

It'd probably have to be multiple sessions?

Yeah, I'd be down for that. I'll see about messing around with the module to get a feel for it. I could even do some short tutorial sessions for people if they want a rundown before getting into a real game. For anyone interested in learning the game, if you don't feel like trying to read the whole rulebook, I'd recommend, at the very least, reading the rules for the Tactical Action (page 13 of the Learn to Play book), which is 75% of what you do in the game.

I just listened to the Space Cats Peace Turtles podcast with Dane (lead designer) that talked about the expansion and revealed one of the new races for the first time. He said there's a bunch of Agenda cards (the politics cards) that you just straight up remove from the deck with the new expansion because they were badly implemented in the first place. Specifically the Elect Planet cards, which always were kind of throw away Agendas. A lot of their effects have been repurposed for the exploration cards. You don't usually see stuff just removed because it didn't work. I like it.

As an addendum answer to Sag's question, there is an Action card in the base game called Confusing Legal Text that is frequently played wrong by newer players because the wording is confusing (not deliberately), and it has been a running joke on the podcast. They revealed a new Action card called Confounding Legal Text with basically does the opposite of the original card. One of the hosts said he felt like this was a troll aimed specifically at them, and Dane said, "You'd be 80% to 99% correct in that assumption." This episode was recorded weeks ago, so the hosts have been privy to the expansion info for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some input (playtest or otherwise) in the development.

That Agenda thing is crazy. The political system has never worked well, but was improved with the 2nd expansion for TI3 that at least added the representatives. But no one really liked the Elect Planet/Leader/Messiah stuff in TI3, to say nothing of TI4. One of the more positive things I heard about the new edition was that the political segment was actually pertinent to the game, rather than just an add-on. This sounds like they didn't change much at all.

The main change was in TI3 the Political phase only happened when someone selected the Politics Strategy card, which wasn't often. In TI4, the Political phase (renamed Agenda Phase) now happens at the end of every round after someone takes Mecatol for the first time. In addition to Veto Actions cards, they added Riders, where in lieu of voting, you predict the outcome, and if you are correct, you get some benefit. This actually can have a big impact on how people vote if they don't want you getting the bonus.
The main problem is still the actual stuff you are voting on. A lot of agendas are forgettable and people just don't care about the outcome. Maybe you can't have every single vote be a huge, game changing issue? Must be hard to balance between boring and too swingy.

I can plow through just about any rulebook if I know I'm likely to play. I've watched enough that I have a reasonable sense of the flow of play.

The codex seems to have some big changes---sort of a brave move to admit there are problems in the game and here are some hotfixes if you want them.

The two previously released omega techs will definitely be permanent replacements for me. I haven't really looked closely at the stuff in the codex yet.

I'll futz around with it too, I'll read the rulebook if I have some time.

I watched a tutorial video and I think I have a handle on most of the scripting stuff, so we should be good to go for the most part.

Ok. I'll read the rules so I'm at least familiar this week (I think they're online), you'll probably need to be patient with me thought.

I listened to the SCPT podcast you mentioned. It was a fun interview. One of the things that really jumped out to me was a connect to another game I've been wanting to play for awhile. So they're talking to the designer and he basically says that he wanted to give people more things to trade and negotiate over with the expansion---powers, relics, etc other stuff that you can sell, buy, and trade in deals.

It super triggered my memory of the interview with the guy who designed Sidereal Confluence. Sidereal Confluence as originally constituted was a full bodied space 4x like TI:4, with war, a map, units, etc. But the designer kept distilling and distilling the game down to get it shorter and more playable and at one point decided that the most interesting part of the whole thing was the trades, sales and deals in the game so he got rid of the map and armed conflict entirely! Looking at high level TI:4 play, you can totally see this. The most consequential thing is the metadealing, since most people understand the strengths and weaknesses of the factions, what they can do, what the most efficient responses to everything are. This totally connected those two games in a way that I hadn't before, because I found the Sidereal designer's road to that game kind of idiosyncratic until I learned more about TI:4.

Gary Sax wrote: I'll read the rules so I'm at least familiar this week (I think they're online)

Learn To Play
Rules Reference

Since they have them scripted in the module, I figured we'd use the pre-made learn to play maps. I set up a save file for 3 players, but if we are lucky enough to get 4, it's easy enough to do on the fly.

Another SCPT podcast with Dane dropped. This time talking about the Twilight Codex. I really like the idea of the Omega cards. Especially since the community has had enough time with the game that the problem cards have been sussed out and their near-universal non-use makes a strong case that there is something wrong with them. I’ll definitely be incorporating all of them. Especially the five new faction Promissory Notes. Dane called the promissory notes his favorite mechanic that he implemented the worst. I 100% agree with their assessment of the issues with the ones that got reworked. It’ll be exciting to see more Promissory Note trading action. The 20 new Action Cards also seem really fun. I’ll definitely be having this whole set printed out at one of the online card printers, especially since some people have already done the formatting work. With the release of these high res card images, someone is also working on making versions of cards with previously errata’ed and updated wording, so it’ll be easy to get everything updated in a single deck.

Oh, that's great, glad they can be printed out on some proper stock.

Got my copy of the expansion all integrated and managed to fit it all in the base game box. My professionally printed deck of the cards from the two codices will be arriving shortly as well. I got everything organized with plastic card holders for colors and factions, and printed some deck holders as well. Obviously all the plastic cases add some weight but this box now weighs 18 pounds. I'm genuinely concerned about the bottom falling out.



It also got me back into listening to SCPT about the new stuff, since it is a good way to get an overview of all the new stuff in one place.

A friend expressed some interest so I set up a IRL learning game with 3 or 4 of us in a couple of weeks. I'm super excited to play again, as well as try out the expansion stuff. In the interest of simplicity, I wont be using any of the new factions, but we'll use leaders and mechs and exploration. Hopefully they'll get into it so I can have my own group for it.

Jealous!

Yeah, I've been watching prelims slowly in SCPT's tourney. What a different game this is now.