Twilight Imperium (#2): Muaat's Revenge

We get together for another game, just one week after the previous one!

We give everyone 3 random races to pick from. I get Federation of Sol (Blue), Remi takes the Naalu Collective (Green), Dag-Erling goes for the Nekro Virus (Red), and Leif can not resist the temptation of starting with War Suns and takes Embers of Muaat (Yellow).

The galaxy is split with mostly hazards and empty space dividing it into one area with Sol and Naalu, and one with Nekro and Muaat.

Round 1

I get a pretty perfect start. My Strategy Cards were Leadership and Politics. After grabbing the nearest system, Warfare secondary allows me to build another cruiser at home. Diplomacy gives me two untaps. I tech to Gravity Drive, and then I am able to leapfrog next to Mecatol, and also grab a green tech planet. Six planets after the first turn! Four of them are Hazards so I score Corner the Market, too.

My secret objective is the one to finish off a fleet with a PDS, a really rubbish objective, I have no plans to go PDS route.

Sol: 1, Rest: 0

Round 2

I take Imperial and Trade. I start off by grabbing Mecatol on my first move. This is when it gets pretty weird. Nekro offers an alliance and agrees to divide up the planets with Muaat, even giving a Ceasefire. Instead of moving on Mecatol, as agreed, Muaat breaks the truce and blows up Nekro's fleet with his War Sun. Evidently Leif still remembered being stabbed in the face by Dag-Erling in the previous game, and he is out for blood!

I am quite happy, I was ready to abandon Mecatol after playing Imperial. Now I got to build a PDS there instead... perhaps it will hold...

Due to a misplay Muaat only brings one infantry to land on the Nekro homeworld... which was shot down by the PDS. Nekro survives... barely...

Round 3

We had a fairly uneventful round on my part, but Muaat and Nekro kept fighting.

I am pretty happy with how it's going. I skip a green tech so now I get 4 command tokens per turn. I score Intimidate Council.

Sol: 4, Muaat: 1, Naalu: 1, Nekro: 0

Round 4

I take Imperial again. I score, but get get evicted by Naalu's - he already has the super fighters. Glad to see at least one of my opponents is being responsible, or this will be a short game. I build a lot of fleet and grab some other planets from Naalu, just to keep him busy. Nekro manages to kill the War Sun in a last ditch effort, allowing them to rebuild at home. Muaat builds another War Sun.

Sol: 5, Muaat: 1, Naalu: 1, Nekro: 0

We grab pizza and Dag-Erling's excellent home made pale ale.

Round 5

Naalu moves out of Mecatol. I am not sure why. I move in. I score Develop Weaponry (2 unit techs) and my secret objective Learn Secrets of the Cosmos (fleet near 3 anomalies).

I am at 7 points, and when Manipulate Galactic Law is flipped I am pretty sure I cannot be stopped.

Round 6

I take Imperial to force Naalu to immediately go for Mecatol. The 8 infantry I end up with are not enough to keep away Naalu's flagship and fighter swarm. I get kicked out again.

I then play Imperial to score Manipulate Galactic Law before I can lose too many planets.

My 21 infantry at Sol get hit by the plague. Net result? I lose 2 troops after rolling 5+ on 7 of 9 kills.

In the status phase I score Lead from the Front, for 10 points!

Final Standings

Sol 10
Naalu 5
Muaat 3
Nekro 2

Another sweet victory, helped by the never-ending revenge of Muaat! Naalu did what he could, but my lead was too much.

This game is just too much fun!

Edit: One round was missing in there, I think it's correct now.

Twilight Imperium!

My first ever game of Twilight Imperium! I got a demo of this game on Arcon this year. My son thought it looked awesome, and I was pretty impressed too... so when a used copy appeared in the Cardboard Cræck group I snapped it up - after some bidding, even, which seemed appropriate.

We took the 6 suggested starting races and default galaxy, and everyone got dealt a random race. Going around the table, I got Empirates of Hacan, Leif got the Sardakk N'orr, Dag-Erling got the Universities of Jol-Nar, and Lars got Barony of Letnev.

The game started with me sprinting for Mecatol Rex and getting there first, also playing an Imperial. Looking nice! Everyone got worried. I did throw up a PDS at Mecatol, and a fairly big fleet.

There was a lot of fun with the agendas. My ambassador even got shot at an inopportune moment! Nothing really gummed up my plans, though.

It took some time before I got evicted by the Sardakk N'orr, who got duly stabbed in the face by Jol-Nar. Never trust a fish!

I had 7 points at that time. I turtled up as well as I could and scored the last 3 points right after. Jol-Nar thought they would win on the next turn... but there was no next turn!

The final score

Hacan 10
Jol-Nar 7
Letnev 4
Sardakk N'orr 3

We did a couple of rule mistakes (everyone was new to 4th edition). Everyone got 1 command instead of 2 each turn (yeah, that misprinted tech card tricked us). Also, we started with commodities. I discovered only after the game that you don't get them at the beginning.

This game is great fun! Epic, the rules are good, and the game flows well. Randomized objectives are great in games like this, continually forcing people to do stuff they rather maybe not do.

I especially like the excellent rules for trade and diplomacy. The trade good system forces players to interact all the time to get their extra resources, and all that silly crap and backstabbing going on at the Galactic Council is just hilarious.