Twilight Imprium 3rd edition board game: opinions?

[Geoff Watson]

It's a good game, but you definately need to house-rule the "Imperial" Strategy card.

Geoff.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Where to start? For everything this game conceivably does well it does numerous other things wrong. First, it liberally borrows ideas from a bunch of recent German games, but the attempt always feels askew. Consider the absolutely broken role selection system that reeks of the developer playing Puerto Rico, deciding it was a great game and that he liked picking roles and then adding it to the game. Not necessarily a bad thing until you realize that one of the roles gives you 2 victory points, providing a large and easy source of points in the game and devolving the role selection because it is so strong. It doesn't make any sense to play 6 hours only for most of your points to come from simply selecting a card.

Speaking of the time, this really doesn't warrant 6 hours. Twilight Imperium doesn't seriously tackle any of the problems with the genre; things such as a tendency for players to turtle, rich-get-richer problems, unbalanced starting positions, etc. The designer, in his rush to pilfer from German games, forgot to research the far more relevant precursors to TI3, such as Civilization, to obviate many of these problems. 6 hours is too much of my time when I could just go play MOO2 and get a much better experience.

I could go on, but I suggest you take a look at www.boardgamegeek.com for more information on why people like or dislike the game.

QFT

I gotta say though, the components and artwork are absolutely stunning.

 

[DragonLancer]

It's a good game, but you definately need to house-rule the "Imperial" Strategy card.

Very much so. We houseruled it that you couldn't take it two turns in a row. That seemed to work ok.

 

[MerricB]

Very much so. We houseruled it that you couldn't take it two turns in a row. That seemed to work ok.

This should *never* happen anyway. The problem with the Imperial card is that it's a no-brainer to take it. As a result, the role selection goes like this:

Player 1: Takes "Imperial"
Player 2: Takes "Initiative", and thus will go first next turn.
Players 3+: take remaining role cards.

The next turn,
Player 2: Takes "Imperial"
Player 3: Takes "Initiative"
Players 4+, and 1: take remaining role cards.

Not following this is asking for trouble. It gets worse when Action cards cause someone to miss their choice of the Imperial or Initiative cards...

Thankfully, the Shattered Suns expansion manages to fix this. Apart from giving an entirely new set of 8 strategy cards, it also gives replacements for some of the existing cards, including the Imperial II card. If you don't want to get the expansion for just one card, you can find its text on the 'net.

I rather like TI3 from the couple of games I've managed to have of it so far, even with the problematic Imperial card. Our games of it have been over in about 3 hours.

Cheers!

 

[Steel_Wind]

Great Game. There are a few problems with it though as mentioned above.

1 - the Imperial Card: It makes strategy too predictiable - and still favors the player who goes first in the game too strongly.

2 - Long game: While games can be finished in 4 hours - your first one won't be and 6-8 hours for a first game is not that far off.

I would buy the expansion and beging to use it before playing the basic game - at least insofar as its relates to strategy cards and the "Imperial fix".

Game is highly recommended - which is good - seeing as you bought it!

Grab the expansion. You will not be sorry.

Last note: A Game of Thrones, mentioned above, is also a great game and well worth picking up.

 

[DragonLancer]

This should *never* happen anyway. The problem with the Imperial card is that it's a no-brainer to take it.

You say that it should never happen, but it did. Players were more interested in the benefits of other cards over the Imperial one. *shrugs*

 

[kiznit]

You say that it should never happen, but it did. Players were more interested in the benefits of other cards over the Imperial one. *shrugs*

In the games I've played, it's been that way as well.

Guess it depends on the players as much as the game.

 

[Steel_Wind]

In the games I've played, it's been that way as well.

Guess it depends on the players as much as the game.

Those players who are familiar with "heavy Euros" such as Peurto Rico and Power Grid are all about making the "optimal move", and bring that analytical play style to the other games they play.

Given the victory point structure of TI3, there is no question that the optimal move is to ALWAYS take the Imperial card if it is avalable.

If the people you are playing don't much care about "optimal moves" than the Imperial card may be passed on; but Merric is right.

Rational players should take the Imperial card whenever it is available to take.