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bobvonunheil posted:Out of interest, can you use Diplomacy II's secondary to take control of an enemy's planet with no ground forces, and does this constitute an act of war (breaking trade agreements)? It does not, afaik. Trade agreements are broken by combat only. I could be wrong though. I do know for a fact that PDS fire does not break trade agreements, hilariously.
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Jan 4, 2015 19:06
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bobvonunheil posted:I swear, trying to crib all the rules together for this game after not playing it for 2 years was a trial. Reading through 3 separate rulebooks, trying to work out which combination of setup rules to use, cross-referencing stuff between each manual and remembering an obscure reference from some other part, working out what extra stuff needs to be handed out... This game is really asking for a new edition. It shouldn't break trade agreements, since no Space Battle or Invasion Combat took place, and those are the specific events that break it.
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Jan 4, 2015 21:01
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I've been in the process of converting an extra room in my apartment that has basically spent two years as a garbage dump into a game room. Today I picked up a table off craiglist for it, with Twilight Imperium specifically in mind (but also for board gaming in general). I think it's going to be perfect! It has a 54" circumference and is perfectly round. Comfortably seats six with enough room for all the bits and pieces, especially if I put up a little side table for all the counters and strategy cards and such. Our next match is this Sunday and there will be no more overcrowded and awkward table spaces for us!
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Jan 6, 2015 06:02
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Did they ever get around to officially patching Threatening?
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Jan 6, 2015 08:50
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Got a technical question I want to resolve in regards to invasion combat before an upcoming game this weekend, and I'm crossing my fingers we've been doing this right so far. Races/numbers are unimportant but I'll use examples for ease of reading. Here is the scenario... A Sol fleet has just won an offensive space battle against the Hacan in the Rigel system (consisting of Rigel I, Rigel II, and Rigel III). Hacan has troops stationed on all three planets and a single PDS located on Rigel III. The Sol player assigns landing forces to all three planets and has a single dreadnaught present in the system for bombardment purposes. I already know that the Sol ground forces have to be separately assigned to each planet and are not "fluid". But what options do the Sol dreadnaught and the Hacan PDS have? The Sol Dreadnaught A) May bombard the Hacan garrison at Rigel I OR Rigel II, but not both. Bombardment occurs before Sol ground forces are assigned to planetary landings. B) May bombard the Hacan garrison at Rigel I OR Rigel II, but not both. Bombardment occurs after Sol ground forces are "locked in" to their respective landings. C) May bombard Hacan garrisons at both Rigel I AND Rigel II. Bombardment occurs before Sol ground forces are assigned to planetary landings. Would be able to fire at Rigel III as well were a PDS not present. d) May bombard Hacan garrisons at both Rigel I AND Rigel II. Bombardment occurs after Sol ground forces are "locked in" to their respective landings. Would be able to fire at Rigel III as well were a PDS not present. The Hacan PDS A) May fire once at Sol ground forces attempting to land on Rigel III only. B) May fire once at Sol ground forces attempting to land on any planet in the Rigel system. C) May fire three times, once at each group of Sol ground forces landing on Rigel I, Rigel II, and Rigel III Meme Poker Party fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 09:13
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Chomp8645 posted:Got a technical question I want to resolve in regards to invasion combat before an upcoming game this weekend, and I'm crossing my fingers we've been doing this right so far. Races/numbers are unimportant but I'll use examples for ease of reading. Here is the scenario... B and A.
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Jan 7, 2015 09:41
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hoobajoo posted:B and A. Great, we've been doing it correctly then. Thanks for confirming. We have two new players coming this time and I was rereading the rules in preparation to teach them and starting doubting our interpretation when I couldn't find that information again.
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Jan 7, 2015 17:52
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Question regarding Ghosts and galaxy creation: Ghosts are pretty unique in that their gimmick relies entirely on a map feature (wormholes). However, galaxy creation doesn't guarantee that there's even a single wormhole on the map. Games with unusually few or even no wormholes seriously gimp Ghosts, which are already not that great. Are there any good houserules for galaxy creation that make sure there are some wormholes on the map? We've considered just making sure two of the empty systems are wormholes if there's a Ghosts player. Also, regarding five man games: The OP doesn't recommend them, with good reason. The five man standard rules are kinda bad. I rather like our houserules which fix that:  Red systems don't exist, systems connected with masking tape are adjacent. This gives the 5 man game the same dynamics as six man. Everyone has a neighbor the same distance away, and shares the same number of contested systems with him.
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Jan 7, 2015 18:55
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How in the world did I miss this thread? I love this game, and usually play it two to three times a month. Excellent OP, Smock. Like most everyone, I didn't agree with racial rankings, but they are subjective and certain play styles cater better to certain races. But the short descriptions were well done. If I could make a suggestion, this beginning strategy guide is pretty handy for explaining basics of the game, without being too overwhelming, and might go well in the OP. One thing about TI, is that it is an inherently imbalanced game, and it is up to the players at the board to bring whatever balance they deem necessary. That could mean house rules, but mostly I'm referring to active negotiations amongst the players. Promissory notes are the only binding agreement in the game. Borrow, beg, or steal whatever you have to, in order to get those sweet VPs. And, never get too attached to your plastic pieces.
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Jan 7, 2015 20:02
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Geisladisk posted:Question regarding Ghosts and galaxy creation: Ghosts are pretty unique in that their gimmick relies entirely on a map feature (wormholes). However, galaxy creation doesn't guarantee that there's even a single wormhole on the map. Games with unusually few or even no wormholes seriously gimp Ghosts, which are already not that great. I think that's the best way to go about addressing the issue. Just vet the tiles ahead of time to ensure that Quann/Lodor and the A/B space tiles are involved in galaxy creation. Honestly I like to do this in every game regardless of Ghost presence just to help keep things interesting.
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Jan 7, 2015 21:42
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Nitis posted:Like most everyone, I didn't agree with racial rankings, but they are subjective and certain play styles cater better to certain races. But the short descriptions were well done. I feel certain that perception of racial balance is strongly affected by group meta unless you somehow life a magical life where you're frequently playing TI3 with many different groups of people. There are some more or less universally accepted judgements like the Yssaril being mega OP and the Yin being kinda lol, but after that opinion seems to vary a lot. My group has only played four games so far but the results fly against the ratings in the OP. For us the Sardakk Norr have won two games (the only games they were present in) with the other two victories going to the Jol Narr and the Yin Brotherhood of all people. Meanwhile every single game had at least one four star race that lost, including the Mentak (the Yssaril are perma banned at least). I'm not trying to say that the rankings in the OP are bad, I agree with them for the most part. But sample sizes and group meta mean you'll never get most people to agree on ranking outside of maybe the 2-3 best/worst races and results often won't line up. I am curious as to why the OP ranks Hacan as better in four player games that bigger games though. I'd think it would be the opposite.
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Jan 7, 2015 22:50
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It also varies wildly depending on player amount and which modules are being played with. Some factions have great ambassadors and leaders but bad capital ships and techs. Even the set of rolls can have a big affect on relative power. That all said I don't think I've sat at a table where the racial abilities made a bigger difference than the galaxy layout.
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Jan 7, 2015 22:59
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Chomp8645 posted:I feel certain that perception of racial balance is strongly affected by group meta unless you somehow life a magical life where you're frequently playing TI3 with many different groups of people. There are some more or less universally accepted judgements like the Yssaril being mega OP and the Yin being kinda lol, but after that opinion seems to vary a lot. My group has only played four games so far but the results fly against the ratings in the OP. For us the Sardakk Norr have won two games (the only games they were present in) with the other two victories going to the Jol Narr and the Yin Brotherhood of all people. Meanwhile every single game had at least one four star race that lost, including the Mentak (the Yssaril are perma banned at least). The truth is, though there are power levels between races, it's not nearly the most important factor to victory. In a 4p game, you can take 2 strategy cards, and taking Trade every round is a lot more legit when you're not giving up whatever strat is actually important for your board.
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Jan 7, 2015 23:19
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Chomp8645 posted:I feel certain that perception of racial balance is strongly affected by group meta unless you somehow life a magical life where you're frequently playing TI3 with many different groups of people. There are some more or less universally accepted judgements like the Yssaril being mega OP and the Yin being kinda lol, but after that opinion seems to vary a lot. My group has only played four games so far but the results fly against the ratings in the OP. For us the Sardakk Norr have won two games (the only games they were present in) with the other two victories going to the Jol Narr and the Yin Brotherhood of all people. Meanwhile every single game had at least one four star race that lost, including the Mentak (the Yssaril are perma banned at least). Yssaril are strong, no doubt, but mega OP hasn't been my experience. At least, no stronger than, say, Winnu. Their abilities make them strong in different aspects of the game, but can be countered. This goes back to my earlier point of the players balancing the board, either through directed confrontation, or subtle ankle biting. Yssaril can make it sting, with their action cards, but you can't be intimidated by that. Sardakk are a one trick pony, it's just a heckuva trick. The problem is they start so weak. If they get stymied in early expansion, domain counters, early combat, etc, it can really be difficult to get back into position to win. But if you let them, they can roll. The Hylar (Jol and Nar are the Hylar's home planets) are weak at the beginning, but their tech grabs make up for that mid-late game. Never count them out. Yin are a combat race, no two ways about it. They are the anti-Muaat. By pitching a cruiser/destroyer at the end of the first round of combat to inflict a hit on an enemy ship of their choosing, their smaller fleets can punch way above their weight class. Note that the Sardakk have a similar racial tech that lets them do something similar with dreadnoughts, but they destroy two enemy ships of their choosing, instead. Nasty. It's tough to find a weakness with the Mentak, they are that strong. They have the best racial techs for war and economy. They get the most bang for their buck with cruisers/destroyers, which are two of the fastest ships. Their mother ship is strong in combat, fast, cheap, with a very strong special ability (opponents cannot sustain damage). Even their councilors are strong. As hoojaboo pointed out, Hacan are strongest in games where trade always gets selected (4 and 8 player games). They are the only ones that can go toe-to-toe with Mentak in an attrition war, and win. Triple dock their home system, and you have the second largest production base in the game, after the Letnev home system, that's three free resources every production phase with Sarween Tools, too. If you're not bribing with a mountain of trade goods every turn, something went horribly wrong. They do drop from a 5 star race to a solid 3.5 star, in odd player games. tl:dr, I like this game a bunch, and like to talk about it.
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Jan 8, 2015 00:05
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hoobajoo posted:In a 4p game, you can take 2 strategy cards, and taking Trade every round is a lot more legit when you're not giving up whatever strat is actually important for your board. I figured this was the rational. While it makes sense, it seems to me that there are downsides to being in a 4p game as Hacan that outweigh the auto-trade. Namely that the fact it will be a lot harder to establish and maintain two long term trade agreements because conflict with potential partners will be much more likely (especially since at least one partner must be a direct neighbor). On top of that, with only three other players it's much less likely that you'll be able to obtain 3-resource trade agreements, and it's quite possible that Hacan will possess the only 3-resource agreements in the entire game. Obviously it's a value judgement with no "correct" answer, but if were playing Hacan I'd much rather be in a six player game that a four player game. Excepting a three player game (because who would ever do that anyway), five players would probably be the worst option all told, I suppose.
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Jan 8, 2015 00:09
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Geisladisk posted:Question regarding Ghosts and galaxy creation: Ghosts are pretty unique in that their gimmick relies entirely on a map feature (wormholes). However, galaxy creation doesn't guarantee that there's even a single wormhole on the map. Games with unusually few or even no wormholes seriously gimp Ghosts, which are already not that great. As long as you're using flagships and racial techs, the Ghosts are fine. Sure, not having wormholes on board negates most of their racial traits, but they still have the Hil Colish and Slave Wormhole Generator to achieve amazing amounts of mobility. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a board without wormholes favors the Ghosts some in this setup, as then only they get this kind of mobility. Still, I'm a little biased; I find the Ghosts incredibly fun to play as so how balanced they might end up being doesn't occur to me. One thing to note is that with their racial and Slave Wormhole Generator, even a board that got only one end of one wormhole still lets them use their tricks. Completely unrelated: I've got a game coming up this weekend with 6 players. Has anyone tried the Big McLargeHuge Galaxy setup (ie four rings) with six players and if so, how did you find it?
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Jan 8, 2015 02:25
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Nitis posted:If they get stymied in early expansion, domain counters Distant Suns is the absolute worst. I hate it with a burning passion and haven't played with it in years. I suggest you do the same. Any race, not just the Norr who you were talking about, can get seriously set back for the entire game because they got a couple of their important first-round planet grabs hosed over. TI is a game with a lot of random elements and variation, and that's okay most of the time, but Distant Suns puts the randomness in the absolute worst place. On the other hand, I quite like Final Frontiers (empty space domain counters).
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Jan 8, 2015 05:02
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Trasson posted:Completely unrelated: I've got a game coming up this weekend with 6 players. Has anyone tried the Big McLargeHuge Galaxy setup (ie four rings) with six players and if so, how did you find it? It's bad; there's so many planets, you don't end up fighting regularly and the are a lot less interesting decisions since you can pretty much do everything.
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Jan 8, 2015 05:15
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Nitis posted:As hoojaboo pointed out, Hacan are strongest in games where trade always gets selected (4 and 8 player games). They are the only ones that can go toe-to-toe with Mentak in an attrition war, and win. Triple dock their home system, and you have the second largest production base in the game, after the Letnev home system, that's three free resources every production phase with Sarween Tools, too. If you're not bribing with a mountain of trade goods every turn, something went horribly wrong. They do drop from a 5 star race to a solid 3.5 star, in odd player games. If you go Clan of Saar, get your three spacedocks together, research Sarween/Enviro, you get a massive 15 production which can be boosted to 21 with their racial tech. But you're super vulnerable to Diplomacy and Signal Jamming if you deign to move outside your home system (this happened my last game)
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Jan 8, 2015 05:37
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Solution: move into someone else's home system.
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Jan 8, 2015 10:49
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nimby posted:Solution: move into someone else's home system. Touche
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Jan 8, 2015 17:44
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DontMockMySmock posted:Distant Suns is the absolute worst. I hate it with a burning passion and haven't played with it in years. I suggest you do the same. Any race, not just the Norr who you were talking about, can get seriously set back for the entire game because they got a couple of their important first-round planet grabs hosed over. TI is a game with a lot of random elements and variation, and that's okay most of the time, but Distant Suns puts the randomness in the absolute worst place. Playing with out Distant Suns is a totally different game, no doubt. Much faster, too. We play it that way, when we're trying to get a second game in on the day, and it's legit. However, not playing with them takes some of the excitement of exploration out of the game. Not to mention that lately, my group has begun to start coveting the triple planet systems to try and scan for the Lazax survivors. But, like you mentioned, it really can bone a player right out of the game if they are unable to recover fast enough.
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Jan 8, 2015 19:01
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There is a distant suns variant where all the high risk and high reward tokens are separated and put into the middle ring of planets. I would advise to never play without that if you play distant suns. It keeps the exploration risk idea without taking someone out of the game turn 1. Other than getting hosed turn 1 distant suns are somewhat less random bullshit than dice rolls and the action cards. I really don't have a problem with them.
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Jan 10, 2015 14:19
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You can still get unlucky by running into two hostage situations on turn 1 or something, although we still play with it that way. We prefer Distant Suns because we don't have an entirely stable group to play with, so by adding a bit of extra variance it gives them a better shot.
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Jan 10, 2015 20:28
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Trying to get 5 of my friends to give up a whole Saturday to play a long version of this game is still quite hard to do, but it's all worth it when you finally get to play a game. It's almost been a year.
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Jan 21, 2015 23:17
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What exactly is it that makes Yssaril so OP? I haven’t played the game much, but when I’ve seen them they haven’t been obviously OP - strong, yes, but not must-ban like everyone here seems to think. I've never played against them and felt like they should be removed (like Imperial+Initiative) What is it about them that apparently breaks everything?
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Feb 2, 2015 23:34
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CodfishCartographer posted:What exactly is it that makes Yssaril so OP? I haven’t played the game much, but when I’ve seen them they haven’t been obviously OP - strong, yes, but not must-ban like everyone here seems to think. I've never played against them and felt like they should be removed (like Imperial+Initiative) What is it about them that apparently breaks everything? They are a double whammy of OP and just plain annoying. The OP: Three main things. #1, The ability to optionally delay their actions multiple times a round is crazy. It basically means that can make two to three moves without any possibility of response by the enemy, ever round of the game. And unlike the Naalu's "always go first" ability it is optional so it's the best of both worlds. With absolutely nothing else on their race sheet this would be a strong ability, the fact that they have more breaks them. #2 is Action card madness. An extra card per turn, no hand limit, and every round you get to see the hand of one of your opponents. Good ability all round, doesn't need much explanation. #3, they start with XRD transporters, two carriers, and five ground forces. That is insanity and puts to shame every other race's starting dispositions. They have an ability to quickly expand that far outweighs anyone else in the game. Look over the other races, you won't find anyone else that has XRD transporters and two carriers, much less 5 troops to go with them. On their own none of those three qualities are broken. But any one of them would be enough to put them on par with other races. Honestly I think that just their starting forces could justify a blank race sheet for balance purposes. But put all that stuff together and it's just insanity. The Annoying: Goes back to OP abilities but for different reasons. They are the only race that can guarantee that you cannot react to a move they make. They are also the only race that gets the privilege of looking at some of your hidden information (action cards). No other race can claim either of those things and they can do both. It's just annoying.
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Feb 2, 2015 23:45
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CodfishCartographer posted:What exactly is it that makes Yssaril so OP? I haven’t played the game much, but when I’ve seen them they haven’t been obviously OP - strong, yes, but not must-ban like everyone here seems to think. I've never played against them and felt like they should be removed (like Imperial+Initiative) What is it about them that apparently breaks everything? Their ability to voluntarily stall is the most flexible, powerful racial ability in the game for a skilled player to use, and they also have the single best starting ship/tech combo. I don't think they're ban-worthy or game breaking, but they are CLEARLY the best race. If the game was re-designed today, I firmly believe the racial stall would have been a racial tech they had to get.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:46
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Chomp8645 posted:They are a double whammy of OP and just plain annoying. One popular fan ruleset attempts to solve the whole Yssaril problem by removing one of their two initial carriers and changing their starting techs to Light/Wave Deflector (ship movement is not blocked by enemy fleets) and Maneuvering Jets (bonus on rolls against PDS fire and Space Mines, ships don't have to stop in Ion Storms), both somewhat powerful in themselves, but not useful for early expansion (unless the Yssaril happen to start right next to an Ion Storm, which is a lot less likely than starting next to an Asteroid Field). Even more importantly, they don't lead to much in the Tech Tree: No technology at all has Maneuvering Jets as a prerequisite, and Light/Wave Deflector only leads to Transit Diodes (moving GF between your own planets, at a CC cost) and X-89 Bacterial Weapon, the latter being completely useless to the Yssaril since using it requires discarding all Action Cards. Also, it gives the Yssaril one rather substantial disadvantage: Since they start without any low-level prerequisite techs, it will take them a bit longer than other races to acquire the technologies they probably really want (Type IV Drive, Cybernetics etc.). I've never tried this in practice, but it sounds like it could make the Yssaril somewhat less overpowered without requiring many rule changes. Well, maybe one: The same ruleset also changes their Flagship's ability from "May move through systems containing enemy ships" to "Ship and accompanying fleet may traverse Space Mines without triggering them, and may not be targeted by PDS fire", since Light/Wave Deflector obviously turns the original ability obsolete (in fact, I would consider the vanilla version of the Flagship rather useless, anyway, since the Yssaril's normal starting techs already provide them with all prerequisites for Light/Wave Deflector). Considering that they still have their other abilities, it probably doesn't make them any less annoying, though.
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Feb 7, 2015 19:24
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Carpator Diei posted:One popular fan ruleset attempts to solve the whole Yssaril problem... This sounds like a decent idea on the whole, but really I prefer to just leave a balance issue off the table instead of house ruling it when possible. Like, if TI3 only had as many races as players and the Yssaril would be playing no matter what then yeah I would say let's get those house rules out. But since the game has so many races already there really isn't any need to even let a broken race hit the table or fiddle with custom balancing. I think it's just a cleaner solution to exclude them from play than try to manually correct their balancing. To each his own though.
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Feb 7, 2015 19:37
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I played a 4 player game yesterday. It was a weird game, I was next to the Clan of Saar and managed to expand behind them and take something like 2/5s of the galaxy for free. Despite lots of misplays(which I like to blame on lack of sleep), I managed to win because I was in a good position and also because in an early critical battle, my one carrier managed to take down 2 fighters with cybernetics and a carrier.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:55
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I last played TI3 just shy of ten years ago, and yesterday I finally had the opportunity to crack it out again. We screwed up a few minor rule bits and pieces, and it was only 3 players, but it's still excellent. Now I'm ogling the expansions (they didn't exist when I lost my regular group for this), and deluding myself that this is the beginning and getting to place this more than once a decade.
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Mar 1, 2015 16:13
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Finally got the chance to play this, and holy poo poo. I'm normally more for shorter, more compact games. But this one just hits all the right buttons with my inner nerd. So much drat fun. The last round was incredibly tense, with everyone up pacing around the table trying to pull off Hail Marys for the "I win the game" objective or just trying to play king maker.
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Mar 8, 2015 16:50
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Citizen Z posted:Finally got the chance to play this, and holy poo poo. I'm normally more for shorter, more compact games. But this one just hits all the right buttons with my inner nerd. So much drat fun. The last round was incredibly tense, with everyone up pacing around the table trying to pull off Hail Marys for the "I win the game" objective or just trying to play king maker. I think the secret to TI3's greatness is that even though it takes forever to play, it's still fast paced and very interactive. Turns move around the table quickly, since each individual move is mechanically simple, and the way the strategy card works means at any time everyone could get a little mini-turn. Plus you generally care about what everyone else is doing, and you can negotiate and talk between turns, so there's constant activity. That's what makes it feel so massive and rich, that even though you spent 7 hours playing it, you actually needed that whole time.
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Mar 8, 2015 20:09
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As a new player with a group of other new players, am I ok to use TI3 by itself? Or do I need the expansion(s)?
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Mar 9, 2015 00:34
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It's strongly recommended to at least proxy the Imperial 2 card.
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Mar 9, 2015 00:38
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If you can afford to do so I would recommend go with the Shattered Empire expansion out the gate. My group did so for our first game and I think we're all really glad we did. Not mandatory I guess but I would do it if you can. If you don't then yeah at least use the official proxy for the Imperial card because the one included is loving stupid. Also don't worry about the Shards of the Throne expansion at all right now.
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Mar 9, 2015 00:52
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It's no problem for me to get the Shattered Empire expansion so I guess that's the way I'll go. Many thanks!
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Mar 9, 2015 01:25
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And take out the Yssaril Tribes.
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Mar 9, 2015 08:55
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DJ Dizzy posted:And take out the Yssaril Tribes. Yes, this. Don't worry about any other home rules or balancing or modifying this or that. Just remove the Yssaril Tribes from the race selection process without comment. Everyone else can stay.
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Mar 9, 2015 08:58
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