Twilight Imperium

Game Background

The game's premise is a large-scale space opera. It is set in the unstable power vacuum left after the centuries-long decline and collapse of the previously dominant Lazax race. The old galactic central capital, Mecatol Rex, located in center of the map is maintained by custodians who maintain the imperial libraries and oversee the meetings of the galactic council. Players assume the roles of rising empires on the fringes of the galaxy, vying for military and political control, until one finally becomes sufficiently dominant to take over as a new galactic emperor.

Components

The game consists of cardboard map tiles, cards, plastic units, cardboard counters, and player sheets. The map is built from hexagonal tiles, each showing up to three planets, empty space, or a red-bordered system containing an obstacle (with additional types added in the expansions). The centre tile is always Mecatol Rex, with the remainder of the galaxy built out in concentric rings.

Plastic playing pieces represent various starship classes and ground forces. Players are limited to the number of playing pieces provided with the game, except for fighters and ground forces. Counters are included for record-keeping, including command tokens, control markers, trade goods, and extra fighter and ground force counters. Cards are used to track planet ownership, trade agreements, technologies, public objectives, secret objectives, special actions, and policy voting agendas.

Gameplay

Three to six (eight, with 'Shattered Empires') players can play, with games typically taking more than six hours to complete (approx. 1.5 hours per player), although players new to the game can take longer. The game works on a 'victory points' system such that players earn points by completing as combination of public and secret objectives.

Setup

Each player randomly selects a race to control. Either a pre-designed map can be used, or players generate a map via a pre-game mechanic whereby each takes turns in placing map tiles to construct a galaxy map with Mecatol Rex at the centre and home systems around the periphery.

Races

The game includes several alien races (10 in the base game, plus extras in the expansions). Reference cards describe relevant game information on one side and a brief history of the race on the other. Up to six (or eight, with the 'Shattered Empires' expansion) of these races will appear in a game, depending on the number of players. Each race has unique special abilities, homeworld(s), and starts with different units and technology. Each race has distinct characters and themes, with advantages in particular game mechanics, such as trade, combat, technology, and politics.

Rounds

Play consists of 6-10 rounds, each of which contains several turns. In each round players choose a strategy card which provides large bonuses to a particular gameplay mechanic and determines the order in which the players take turns during the round.

Players take turns to perform actions (building units, moving units, using strategy cards, using special action cards). Players are limited in the number of actions they can take during a round by their supply of command tokens, which are divided between strategy (used to access the secondary action of other players' strategy cards), fleet supply (limiting the number of ships that can occupy a system), and command pools (used for tactical actions). Players continue taking actions in turn order until each player has passed.

Units and combat

Units are purchased throughout the game using the resources from occupied planets. Combat is fought in rounds with each unit rolling one or more 10-sided dice to attempt to score "hits" on the enemy player, who is allowed a counter-attack with all their units before choosing which units are destroyed.

Politics

Political agendas are voted on at multiple points through the game, with votes proportional to the influence of a player's occupied planets. Laws can greatly modify game rules.

Scoring

At the end of each round players have the opportunity to score victory points for a public goal that has been revealed and/or for a secret objective assigned to each player at the start of the game. The first player to achieve 10 victory points is declared the new Emperor and wins the game. After the 6th round, the game also has a mechanism where the game has a chance of ending on any subsequent round and the highest scoring player at that point declared the winner.

Strategy

Generally each player will attempt to expand quickly into the unclaimed systems around their home world, and then use those resources to achieve the revealed public goals, which usually involve control or expenditure of resources, technology, or units (currency) in order to score victory points. It is not generally necessary to engage in combat in order to win the game.

In the base game, half of the secret objectives (which are all worth 2 victory points) involve control of the former imperial capital Mecatol Rex, and controlling the planet grants the most political influence of any planet in the game. These facts and its central location usually lead to conflict over the ownership of Mecatol Rex. In the expansion, Shattered Empire, 5 out of 13 secret objectives involve control of Mecatol Rex.

A decisive factor in most games is the choice of the Imperial Strategy card. Executing the card's strategy immediately scores the controlling player 2 victory points, and reveals the next public goal card (the only way outside of the secret objectives to score victory points). With a group of players that have previously played the game, the Imperial Strategy card generally circulates regularly around the table, with each player taking it as a first choice when possible, and a player who succeeds in taking the card out of turn is usually seen as a threat by the other players. The card effectively acts as a clock on the game, since it is almost always chosen each turn.

Many fans were unhappy with the original Imperial Strategy Card, which they saw as far too powerful, and an alternate was included in the expansion, which allows a player to qualify for multiple objectives, instead of the usual one.

Twilight Imperium: Shattered Empire

Fantasy Flight Games released an expansion called Shattered Empire in December 2006. It includes two new sets of playing pieces and additional system tiles, expanding maximum player number to eight. It also introduced several rules-fixes to address common criticisms of the base game.

Twilight Imperium: Shards of the Throne

Fantasy Flight Games released a second expansion called Shards of the Throne in May 2011, with additions including new races, technologies, scenarios and units.

Variant rulesets

The base game and its expansions come with several optional rules and the counters necessary to play them out. The simplest variant is the long game, where the winner must score 14 victory points, rather than 10. However, most variants are intended to allow players to customise the game-play in favour of their preferred mechanics. For example, there are alternative variants of all the strategy cards, which can drastically alter how players organise their turns. Some rule variants introduce new units, whist others can introduce completely new mechanics, such as race-specific leaders and diplomats, or random encounters for the first player to land on each neutral planet.

Second Edition vs Third Edition

The third edition significantly changed many of the game mechanics. While some of the core elements remained the same, the game as a whole was completely revamped. Here are some of the more significant differences:

Main game (first edition)

Main game (second edition)

Main game (third edition)

Spin-off game

Role-playing game