Chapter 8: Resources, Production and Influence

Recap of the Tactical Action:

- Activate a system (by taking a command token from your tactic pool and placing it on the map)
- Move ships into it
- Space Combat
- Invade Planets

The final step is Production.

If the system you have activated contains one of your Space Docks, you use this final step of the Tactical Action to produce units.

To be clear, you're not usually going to be engaging in combat AND producing units during the same tactical action.  To produce units, you perform a tactical action to activate a system that contains a space dock that you own.  You already own the system, thus you skip the combat portions of the tactical action (though you may still move units into the newly activated system, if you wish to).

PRODUCTION

For this example, let's say that the Sardakk N'orr have activated their home system, which contains a space dock on the planet of Quinarra.

Note the two numerical values on Quinarra.  The yellow 3 is Quinarra's RESOURCE value (often referred to simply as it's "production").  The blue 1 is its INFLUENCE value.  

For every planet that you control, you have its corresponding planet card face up in front of you:

Now let's take a look at the Space Dock unit:

So, Quinarra has a resource value of 3, and this space dock has a production value of 5 (two plus the planet's resource value).  This means that this space dock can produce up to 5 units in a turn.

To produce units, you spend resources by exhausting (turning over) planet cards.  So, for example, Quinarra generates 3 resources, but I can combine it with other planets by exhausting those as well. (Don't worry, they'll turn back over and become ready again during the Status phase).

For this example, let's say I have 8 available resources among my ready planets (i.e. my planets which have not been exhausted yet this turn).

I have 8 resources to spend, and I can produce up to 5 total units from this space dock.

Next, I check the COST of the units I wish to produce (which are illustrated on your race sheet.

For readability's sake, I'm not posting the whole race sheet here, just a small section:

I can choose to produce any combination of units, so long as I have production value and available resources.

Example:  For 8 resources, I could produce 2 Exotriremes (this is the Sardakk N'Orr version of the Dreadnought).  Or, I could produce 4 Destroyers and a Carrier.

Note that for Fighters and Infantry, you get 2 units per 1 resource.

Additionally:  Remember your Fleet pool on your command sheet.  If the number of ships in your system exceeds the number of tokens in your Fleet pool, you will need to sacrifice ships to satisfy this limitation (note:  Fighters do not count towards your limit).

Finally, because there weren't enough things to remember, don't forget to consider your CAPACITY.  You cannot have more fighters in a system than you have capacity for.  Certain ships (such as the Carrier) generate capacity.  

Your space dock also allows for up to 3 fighters without counting against capacity.

BLOCKADE

You cannot produce ships in a system that contains enemy ships, though you can still produce infantry.

TIP: MOVEMENT

To produce units, you have to activate a system containing a space dock.  This means that you've just placed a command token into that system.

Remember that you cannot move units out of a system that contains one of your command tokens.

This generally means that you cannot move units the turn that you produce them.  Keep that in mind.

INFLUENCE

In addition to resources, planets have an influence value.

Influence is primarily used for casting votes during the Agenda Phase.  We'll discuss the agenda phase in more detail in future posts, but you should be aware that producing units is a trade off with your ability to cast votes.  Similar to exhausting planets for their resources, so too do you exhaust them to use their influence to cast votes on agendas.  Each spent Influence point counts as 1 vote towards and outcome of an agenda.

TRADE GOODS

Talking about Resources and Influence is a good time to mention Trade Goods.  Trade goods are currency that players can spend or trade.  You can spend trade goods as either influence or resources.  For example, rather than spending 3 resources to produce a carrier unit, you could spend 1 resource and 2 trade goods.

COMMODITIES

Fourth Edition also introduces Commodities.  A commodity functions exactly like a trade good... except that YOU can't use them.  Once you trade a commodity to another player, it becomes a trade good.

You primarily acquire trade goods and commodities via the Trade strategy card.

Chapter 7: COMBAT

Today we'll discuss combat.  This post is timely, as it will serve to defend you well against the incursion of reindeer-laden aerial assaults invading so many chimneys this evening.

This post is going to get a bit meaty, but in truth these steps are rather simple.  Don't panic, it looks harder than it is.  The steps are also outlined on your race sheet for easy reference, and we will of course go over everything at game-time when needed.  Easy peezy.

OVERVIEW

- If two players have ships in a system, they repeat combat rounds until either one player wipes out the other player, or a player retreats.

- Combat is decided by rolling 10-sided dice, and comparing your results to the COMBAT value of your attacking ships.

- Once space combat is over, the winning player may then land ground infantry on planets in an effort to take control of them.  If there are enemy troops on those planets, ground combat ensues.

Tip:  For reference, I suggest checking out a high rez race sheet I'd emailed you earlier, as it will show the units' combat attributes.

COMBAT

Continuing on from last week's progression through the steps of the Tactical Action, we have thus activated a system and moved units into it.

If another player's ships are in the system, you must now fight them for control of the system.  In Twilight Imperium, two players cannot peacefully occupy the same system - you must fight!

Players resolve space combat by performing the following steps in order:

1). ANTI-FIGHTER BARRAGE: Each player’s units can use their “Anti-Fighter Barrage” abilities, if their units have it (it's a special ability of some ships).

2). ANNOUNCE RETREAT: Either player may choose to announce a retreat. A retreat will not happen immediately; the units will retreat at the end of the combat round.

If a player wishes to retreat with any of his ground forces that are on planets in the active system, he must move them from planets to the space area during this step.

3). MAKE COMBAT ROLLS: Each player rolls one die (10-sided) for each ship he has in the active system. If the result of a unit’s die roll is equal to or greater than that unit’s combat value shown on its faction sheet, that roll produces a hit.

The total number of hits a player produces will be used in the next step.



If a unit’s combat value contains two or more burst icons, the player rolls this number of dice instead, potentially producing one hit with each die rolled.

In the example shown here, this ship gets to roll two dice, and either die hits on a 5 or higher.

4). ASSIGN HITS: Each player must choose and destroy one of his ships for each hit his opponent produced. A player removes destroyed ships from the game board and places them in his reinforcements.

Since players assign hits to their own units, it is a good strategy to assign hits to units that are cheaper to replace.

Because of this, fighters are often used as fodder to protect the rest of a player’s ships.

SUSTAIN DAMAGE

Some units have an ability called "Sustain Damage".  This basically means that it takes two hits to destroy it.  For the first assigned hit, you turn the unit on its side to indicate that it's been hit once.

5). RETREAT: If a player announced a retreat during the first step of the combat round, he retreats. To retreat, the player takes all of his ships from the combat and places them in an adjacent system.

The chosen system cannot contain ships that belong to another player and must contain either
a planet he controls or at least one of his units; otherwise, the player cannot retreat.

If the chosen system does not contain one of that player’s command tokens, the player must place one token from his reinforcements in that system when he retreats.

End of Space Combat

If both players have units remaining in the system at the end of the “Retreat” step, they resolve another round of combat starting with the “Announce Retreat” step. After all units on one or both
sides of the combat have been destroyed or have retreated, play proceeds to the INVASION step.

INVASION

OK, you've just wiped out your enemy's ships.  Time to take over the planets in the system.

Players resolve an invasion by performing the following steps in order:

1). BOMBARDMENT: If any planets in the active system contain another player’s ground forces, the active player may use the “Bombardment” abilities of any of his units in that system (it's a special ability of some units). This may allow the active player to destroy some of the defender’s units before landing ground forces.

2). COMMIT GROUND FORCES: The active player decides which ground forces he wishes to land on planets. To do so, he takes any of his ground forces that are with his ships in the space area of the active system and places each one on the planet he wishes to invade.

3). SPACE CANNON DEFENSE: If another player has a PDS on any of the planets the active player has committed ground forces to, he may be able to destroy some of those ground forces before they land.

4). GROUND COMBAT: If multiple players have ground forces on the same planet, those players resolve a ground combat. Ground combats on multiple planets are resolved in the order of the active player’s choice.

Players resolve ground combat over a number of rounds that each consist of two steps, following the same rules as the space combat steps of the same name:

1. Make Combat Rolls
2. Assign Hits

After assigning hits, if multiple players have units remaining on the planet, they resolve another round of ground combat starting with the “Make Combat Rolls” step. After all units on one or both sides of the combat have been destroyed, proceed to the next step.

5). ESTABLISH CONTROL: The active player gains control of each invaded planet that still contains at least one of his ground forces. When a player gains control of a planet, he gains its corresponding planet card and places it in his play area exhausted. Then, if the planet contains
structures that belong to another player, those structures are destroyed.

OK, that's enough to digest for today.  We're almost done with the Tactical Action.  Join us next week when we tackle the final step:  PRODUCTION.

Until then!

Chapter 6 - Movement

Last week we talked about the Tactical Action.

The first two parts of a Tactical Action are to activate a system, and then move ships into that system.

Recap:

1. ACTIVATION: The active player must activate a system by

taking a command token from his tactic pool and placing it in

that system.

2. MOVEMENT: The active player may move ships into that

system from any number of other systems. Ships can also

transport ground forces from one system to another.

Today we will focus on these two steps.

1)  ACTIVATE A SYSTEM

Remember the Command Token pools?  The first step in activating a system is to take a command token for your Tactic pool and place it on a system of the map.

Key point:

- You cannot activate a system that already contains one of your command tokens (other players' tokens do not matter).

2)  MOVEMENT

Once you've activated a system, you can then move your units into that system.

- Your units must end movement in the system you activated.

- You can move ships from any number of systems, provided that they have the movement range to travel that distance.  

Example:  The Destroyer I below can move up to 2 spaces:

- Your units cannot pass through systems containing enemy ships (there are corner-case exceptions to this, but this is the general rule)

- Your ships cannot begin movement from a system that contains one of your command tokens

In short:  You cannot activate a system that has one of your command tokens already in it, and you cannot move ships FROM a system that has your command token in it.  This is the most basic tenant of unit movement, but it takes getting used to.

Note:  At the end of each turn (during the Status Phase), all command tokens are removed from the board.

Remember:  Don't exceed your FLEET size limitation.  If you end up with more ships in a system than you have command tokens in your fleet pool, you will have to sacrifice ships to satisfy this limitation.

OK, so you've activated a system, and moved your units there.  Klingons off the starboard bow!  

SPACE CANNON OFFENSE

Technically, this is part of the Movement step, so I'm discussing it here.  One of the units in the game is the "PDS" (Planetary Defense System).  As the final step of movement, any PDS within range of enemy ships gets to fire at them.  We'll get more into this when we discuss combat, next week.

CAPACITY

One final note.  Some ships have capacity.  

This is the ability for this ship to carry other units.  Specifically:

- Infantry (ground units that capture and defend planets)

- Fighters (the small, cannon-fodder units of the game)

We'll discuss capacity in more detail in coming posts, but for now be aware that your ships can transport ground forces and small fighters with their Capacity.

Next week, we'll start to delve into combat!

Chapter 5 - The Action Phase

Recap:

The game cycles through the 4 phases of each turn.  By the end of the turn, if no one has won, a new turn begins.

The phases:

- Strategy Phase

- Action Phase

- Status Phase

- Agenda Phase (once unlocked)

Last week we delved into the Strategy Phase, and what the 8 strategy cards do.

However, most of this game takes place in the Action Phase, so buckle up!

Turn Order

The turn order for the Action Phase is dictated by the number value on your chosen strategy card.

During the Action Phase, you can perform one of the following actions:

- Strategic Action

- Component Action

- Tactical Action

- Pass

Players take turns in order performing one action at a time.  Once all players take one action, the cycle repeats until all players have passed.

The Tactical Action is by far the most involved, so I'm going to tackle that last.

Strategic Action

As described in the prior blog posting, to play a Strategic Action:

- Execute the primary ability of your chosen strategy card.

- Then, clockwise from you, players take turns deciding whether to activate the secondary ability of your played strategy card.  This typically involves spending a command token from your strategy pool of your command sheet, so you want to be judicious when budgeting for which activations you will participate in.

Example:

On Yoshi's turn, he performs a strategic action, and plays the Technology strategy card that he chose during the strategy phase.

First, he executes the primary ability:  Research 1 technology.  BAM!  He simply picks up any 1 tech that he has the pre-req for (more detail on this later).

Then, he can spend 6 resources to research a second technology.

Secondary ability:

Alex is sitting clockwise from Yoshi.  He can then decide to spend 1 token from his strategy pool along with four resources to research a technology.  The choice then passes onward around the table until all players have made their choice.

Once concluded, you turn over your strategy card to signify that it has been spent, and then the action phase progresses to the next player in numerical order (in this case, player "8" value of the strategy card (Imperial), assuming anyone has chosen it).

Component Action

Certain components of the game contain abilities that can be activated as a Component Action of the action phase.  These are primarily:

- Special abilities from your race sheet

- Special abilities from your technologies

- Special abilities from your units

- Action Cards

Action Cards are simply cards that each player gets over the course of the game that allow them to perform special one-time effects.  The card will explain when it can be used, and if the card contains the word "Action:" on it, you use it during a Component Action of the action phase.

Pass

Once you pass, you're done with the action phase until all other players have passed.

Note:  

- You can still execute secondary abilities of other players' strategic actions.

- You cannot pass until you've performed your strategic action for the turn (you have to use the card you chose).

Tactical Action

Tactical Actions are the meat and potatoes of Twilight Imperium.

The tactical action is all about activating systems, moving ships around, space and ground combat, and producing units.

The steps are so key to the game that I'm going to actually break them down over the course of the next several blog postings.  So for now, I'll end things with a brief overview of the steps of the Tactical Action, and then we'll go over things in greater detail later.

Overview of the Tactical Action

1. ACTIVATION: The active player must activate a system by

taking a command token from his tactic pool and placing it in

that system.

2. MOVEMENT: The active player may move ships into a

system from any number of other systems. Ships can also

transport ground forces from one system to another.

3. SPACE COMBAT: If multiple players have ships in the active

system, they resolve a space combat.

4. INVASION: The active player may commit ground forces

to land on planets in the active system. If another player

has units on those planets, the players resolve a ground

combat.

5. PRODUCTION: If the active player has a space dock in the

active system, he can produce units by spending resources.

Chapter 4 - Strategy Cards

Recap:

- The first phase of each turn is the Strategy Phase.

During this phase, each player selects 1 card from the available 8 strategy cards.

That choice starts with the Speaker, and then rotates clockwise.

- During the Action Phase, one of your available actions is the "Strategic Action".

To play a Strategic Action:

- Execute the Primary Ability of your strategy card.

- Then, in clockwise order from you, each player may choose to execute the Secondary Ability of the strategy card that you have played.

This activation of the secondary ability usually involves that player spending a command token from the strategy pool of their command sheet.

Once used, the card is flipped over to indicate that it has been used up for that turn.

The mechanics of picking and playing the cards are as simple as that, but knowing what the cards do and when to use them is the challenge.

I have posted the cards below.  It would benefit you to familiarize yourself with them!

Key points:

- There are 8 cards, meaning that not all cards will be picked each turn.  Each turn that a card isn't picked, a Trade Good token is placed upon it.  A player who picks a strategy card receives all tokens that are on it.

- The number at the top of the strategy card determines the turn order for the action phase (starting with 1).

- At the end of each turn, the cards are returned to the pool.  Cards are chosen again during the next strategy phase.  First pick goes to the Speaker, and then clockwise.  The Politics strategy card can change who the Speaker is.

Chapter 3 - Command Tokens and Race Sheet

Today we're going to talk about the alien races, and how they interact with the board.

There are 17 races in this game!

Each race has a Race Sheet.  This is the front of the Sardakk N'orr's sheet:

The game recommends that for our first game, we start with these six races:

- Sardakk N'orr
- The Xxcha Kingdom
- The Universities of Jol-Nar
- The Federation of Sol
- The Emirates of Hacan
- The Barony of Letnev

So, that's what we'll do.

I've emailed everyone in the group high-rez scans of these 6 races.

The front of the sheet illustrates each race's special abilities, commodities, and unit attributes.

The back of the sheet provides some back story on your race, as well as what technologies and units they start the game with.

In the interest of keeping things simple, I'm going to randomly assign one of these races to each player.  I'll notify the group on the outcome a couple weeks before game day.

Race Sheet: Unit Attributes

You'll notice that each unit on your race sheet has a few pieces of information:

- Cost: The amount of Production it costs to build this unit

- Combat: In battle, you roll a d10.  When the Destroyer attacks, a roll of 9 or higher hits.

Note the + symbol below the Combat icon.  this denotes the Sardak Norr's special racial abilty, "+1 to all combat rolls". 

- Move:  How many hexes it can move in a turn.

- Anti-Fighter Barrage.  Many units have special abilities.  We'll go over them in more depth later.  Note that special abilities are not considered "combat rolls", thus are unaffected by the Sardak Norr's bonus.

- Upgrade:  By using the Technology strategy card, you can spend 2 red technology to upgrade your Destroyer I into Destroyer II units (more details later).

Also note the little triangle next to the 9 in Combat.  This marker indicates that this stat improves when the unit is upgraded.

We'll discuss units in greater detail later, but since they take up so much real estate on the race sheet, I wanted to give a cursory overview.

Command Tokens

Command Tokens (formerly "Command Counters" in third edition) are the primary resource your race uses to interface with the board.

They are two-sided:  The top shows your race's logo, the bottom shows a silhouette of a ship.

Command Tokens are stored on your race's Command Sheet among one of three pools:

- Tactic

- Fleet

- Strategy

You begin the game with 3 tokens in your Tactic and Fleet pool, and 2 in your Strategy pool.

You will spend these tokens throughout the game to perform various actions.  You recover 2 tokens per turn, and there's a point during the game in which you're allowed to shift your tokens between the three pools.

What they do:

- Tactic:  You spend a token from your Tactic Pool to place it on a hex on the game board to perform a Tactical Action on that space (more detail on this action later).

- Fleet:  You cannot have more ships in any one system (hex) than you have tokens in your fleet pool.  If you exceed this limit, you must sacrifice ships in your system until you satisfy this limitation.  The tokens in this pool are kept "silhouette" side up.

Note:  Fighters (the small cannon-fodder ship of the game) are excepted from this limit.

- Strategy:  You spend tokens from this pool to activate the secondary ability on most strategy cards (again, more detail on this later).

For now, I'd say feel free to look over the scans I sent you at your leisure.  Questions are, as always, welcome.  More details over the coming weeks!

Chapter 2 - The Galaxy

The map of the galaxy consists of a series of hexagonal systems surrounding Mecatol Rex.

The shape of the map will be altered by the number of players (three through six).

Example of a 6-player map:

The green systems will be players' home systems, which would be specific to their race.

Systems generally contain some combination of the following:

- One or two planets

- Empty space

- Anomalies 

- Wormholes

Planets

Planets are the primary feature of a system.  You want to control as many as possible.

Planets have key attributes:

- Resources (the ability to produce units)

- Influence (the more planetary influence you control, the more votes you get when setting agendas)

- Tech Specialty (you get a bonus when researching a matching field of technology)

- Traits (Cultural, Industrial or Hazardous.  These don't mean anything on their own, but certain effects in the game will affect planets of certain traits).

Lazar has a Resource value of 1, an Influence value of zero, a Cybernetic tech specialty (yellow icon in the top left), and has the Industrial trait (green icon in the bottom right).

Empty Space

...

Anomalies

Asteroid Fields, Super Novas, Gravity Rifts, Nebulae.  Special Systems have a red border, and general affect how you can move through them.

Worm Holes

Systems with matching Worm Hole icons are considered to be adjacent, even when they're physically not.

Building the Galaxy

There is a process by which the galaxy is constructed.  Each player is randomly dealt a number of hex tiles, and take turns placing them onto the map.

However:  There is a recommended "default" map that is advised to be used on your first game.  For this game, we will be using this default map.

We will randomize the location of each player's starting system (randomly assigned to one of the green systems on the map).

Future posts will discuss how units move on the map.

And now, for a huge high rez version of the default map.  Assuming we do end up with all 6 players, this will be the map we use on Jan 19.

Chapter 1 - Getting Up To Speed

As we head towards our game day on Jan 19, I'm going to be periodically posting here with tidbits to help get everyone up to speed.

As I've stated before, I don't expect everyone to memorize every aspect of the rules, but that a little prep beforehand will go a long way.

I'll first reiterate the following video, as I frankly think it's one of the best learning tools for a complex board game that I've seen.  I really like Shea Parker's work on these (he does other games as well - I even help fund him through Patreon).

It's long, but I think it's about as concise an explanation as is possible.

That being said, this and future blog posts will be about very bite sized topics as we make our way towards Jan 19.

Today's topic:

The Phases

Despite being a complex game, the core of Twilight Imperium is very simple.

Each turn consists of a series of 3 or 4 phases (the 4th phase comes later in the game).

The game repeatedly cycles through the phases until a player scores 10 Victory Points to win.

- Strategy Phase

- Action Phase

- Status Phase

- Agenda Phase (once unlocked)

Strategy Phase

There is a pool of 8 "Strategy Cards"  Each card is different:

(PDS stands for "Planetary Defense System" - a type of unit).

Later posts will get into what they do, but for now it's enough to know that the Strategy Phase simply consists of each player (starting with the "Speaker" and moving clockwise) picking a Strategy Card.  That's it - everyone picks 1 card.  Phase: Over!

Action Phase

Shockingly, this is where the action happens.  90% of the game takes place in this phase.  

The Action Phase is where players move ships, play their cards, fight, trade, etc.  

There are a few different type of actions:

- Strategic Action (a player plays his/her Strategy Card).

- Tactical Action (move ships, battle, land on planets, build stuff)

- Component Action (use an action on a card or token that you own)

- Pass.

Players take turns performing 1 action each until all players pass.  Turn order is defined by the number on your chosen Strategy Card.

Once all players pass, this phase ends.  You cannot pass until you've performed your Strategic Action for the turn.

Status Phase

- Reset a bunch of stuff

- Score points

- See if anyone wins

Agenda Phase (once unlocked)

Once a player successfully lands on Mecatol Rex (the giant planet in the center of the galaxy), this unlocks the Agenda Phase.

Two "Agendas" will be introduced, which will alter the rules of the game.  Players will vote on the agendas, using whatever means they feel necessary to garner support from other players.

Afterwards, if no one has won the game, then the game resets to the Strategy Phase.  Simple.

The goal of these blog posts is to be short and sweet, so that's it for today!  Really looking forward to Jan 19!

Twilight Imperium - 4th Edition

I’m looking to get a group of semi-casual players together to play Twilight Imperium 4^th Edition.

What:

Twilight Imperium is a giant Space Opera of a board game.  Imagine playing every aspect of Star Trek, from readying the photon torpedoes, to negotiating tenuous peace treaties with an amassing army on your interstellar borders, to voting to outlaw galactic research of xenobiology.

Fantasy Flight, the publisher, recently released this new edition of their flagship game.  I just picked it up, and am itching to take it out for a spin.

Who:

A group of 4-6 “semi-casual” players.

Casual in that we’re all here to have a good time.  In fact, some of the players may never have played Twilight Imperium before; and that’s great.  Fun and camaraderie are the primary objectives.

“Semi” in that while we’re all here to have fun, TI is a big game, and we like to play by the rules (or, as close to them as we can manage). 

When:

Saturday, January 19 - 10AM.

Again, this is a huge game (but don’t let that intimidate you, it’s super fun).  I’ve played 3^rd Edition half a dozen times before, and while 4^th Edition is very similar, there are some new wrinkles.  We’ll all likely be learning along together.  I expect the game to take approximately 8 hours – so you should realize that going in! (hence the early start-time).

Once we get one under our belt – I’ll probably try to schedule a rematch some 3-4 months later J

Where:

Probably at my house, in Tacoma.  I have a large table that can hold this beast.

Wait, what?:

If a big nerdy ridiculous space opera among some pretty cool friends sounds like your bag, by all means let me know. 

If this sounds interesting to you, here are some additional fun thing to check out below.  Don't feel obligated to learn the rules - we'll go over all of it come game time.  But, these are entertaining and will give you a good idea as to what you're getting into.

Shut Up and Sit Down Review:

How to Play (an entertaining introduction to the rules)