Introduction
Happy Friday! I thought I would mix things up this week by talking about one of biggest games on my shelf – Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition (TI4). I recently brought the game out after a six-year hiatus for an epic four-player game. Considering the only other time I played TI4, it took our group the entire weekend to play, and we didn’t even finish, I was a bit nervous to jump back in. Up until recently, the game has remained untouched on the shelf ever since, but after convincing three others to play and reserving a weekend months in advance, our four-person group got together for an epic game that both amazed and surprised us. So without further ado, let’s jump into my thoughts.
Playing Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition
Naturally the challenge with getting TI4 played is the complexity and time commitment involved. In an effort to speed up the experience, the four of us learned the rules ahead of time. Shout out to RTFM for this great 30 minute rules teach video. We also picked factions and set up the game in advance, so that by the time we all got together to play, we just quickly clarified a few of the rules and then got going. As a fun idea, we also documented the experience as we went, and I’ve included a few of the images below. I even made a short reel that you watch here.
My Thoughts on the Experience
First off, while it might have been because we had just finished Arcs: The Blighted Reach, and we learned the rules to TI4 ahead of time, but overall the game was less complex than we had initially anticipated. We had fully expected the game to take up most of the weekend; the rules teach video above even mentions that first games can take upwards of 12 hours to finish. However, our group blitzed that time by finishing the game in under six hours. While I know that’s still a long time to play a single game, considering The Blighted Reach took us around ten hours over two sessions, we were happily surprised by the length of TI4.
In addition, I was surprised by the amount of variety in the game. While we all played with the suggested introduction factions and on the suggested map layout, each of the factions still felt unique. There are also a ton of technologies, not even counting the two faction specific ones, which meant that in future games, I could use a new faction and focus on a completely separate set of technologies and get a radically different experience. That’s not even taking into account the fact that each game will likely have a different set of objectives, causing you to prioritize separate elements.
While combat is certainly a large part of the game, the game was also less combative than anticipated. In the later part of the game, it often didn’t feel worth initiating combat or even taking planets unless it was to secure an objective. There were a couple times that myself and another player took turns controlling Mecatol Rex, amassing large fleets and armies to take the planet, but by the end, we both commented that we weren’t sure if the losses were worth it in the end. I was nervous that the combat would feel very punishing, but instead I was pleasantly surprised that combat felt more tactical with players rightly prioritizing objectives rather than just galactic conquest.
In terms of some slight negatives, one thing is that I wished the early parts of the game went by a little quicker. For the first couple rounds, we mostly focused on colonizing nearby systems and researching technologies, and it wasn’t until a couple hours in that the galaxy started to fill up and the game really started to shine. Secondly, while there was one really exciting agenda vote involving voting for/against an agenda to score/lose a victory point, for the most part, the other agenda votes didn’t seem that impactful. It may have been just the handful that we drew, but I was expecting the agenda phase to have a bigger impact on the game. Finally, while it was awesome to see a player come from behind to secure the victory by taking the Imperial strategic action to immediately score a public objective to win, that ending did feel a little anticlimactic.
Overall, considering the trepidation I had coming into TI4 after such a long time on the shelf, the end experience was far greater than I could have anticipated, and I would happily pull the game out again (hopefully sooner than six years from now). While some games have tried to emulate the feeling of playing an epic space game, no other game quite comes close to replicating Twilight Imperium.
Closing
With that, I’ll wrap up this week’s highlight! For those that have played TI4, what do you like or dislike about the game? I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the games I’ve mentioned or future content suggestions in the comments below. Happy gaming!
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