Twilight Imperium

[davidmorton]

Hi folks,

I'd like to play Twilight Imperium much more often. To do this I propose a Twilight Imperium League, starting in February. Awards would be presented at next year's Summer Legends Tournament.

Games may be played in club, at Legends tournaments, at Winter Retreat (as per tradition!) and out of club. No joining fee, no particular rules - play wherever, whenever, with as many players as you like (players do not have to be club members, players do not have to be involved in the league) with whatever expansions, house rules etc you like.

Simply submit results & player details here (use first names, aliases, initials etc to protect privacy if you like - just make sure you use the same details for each post)...or give your results to me at the club. Entertaining stories of goof ups while playing are also welcome.

eg Game 1/2/2010 Bob's house - 3 players Bob L1Z1X 10 pts, The Grand Master of Mecatol Letnev 7 pts, dm Hacan 2 pts

I will collate the results. Feel free to propose a scoring system to determine the overall winner. I'm thinking minimum four games to qualify, averaging player scores for simplicity. Let me know what you think.

Please see me at the next club meeting to give me email/phone details so that we can get a contact list for interested folk. Or email the club address. (I don't like to post email addresses on forums - attracts junk mail)

PS let me know if you would like to play Twilight Imperium at the upcoming Legends of Summer - and on which day. I will ensure I'm there! With a cunning plan...

Looking forward to many hours of gaming complexity,

dm

[lyrebird]

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of Twilight Imperium.

However, I feel duty bound to comment.

Awards would be presented at next year's Summer Legends Tournament.
I'm thinking minimum four games to qualify

Do you think people will manage four games in that time? I organized a far more thrilling, organized and shorter game competition, and only just got enough for the final after 18 months.


On second thought, maybe the first person to finish four games could be the winner. And you won't have to buy the prizes until sometime in 2013.

Coquettishly

Lyrebird

[davidmorton]

I am hoping that the thousands of Twilight Imperium fans out there will put aside their far more thrilling, organised & shorter competitions to sit around a Twilight Imperium table & play for 6 - 8 hours for no apparent gain.

Not only that, I'm hoping they do it at least four times before Feb 2011 and include me in the games!

Now some of you might think that's sad & pathetic, but let me tell you.....

OK, it is sad & pathetic.

But let's do it anyway! For the poor lost little Lazax orphans, for the backward Yssaril tribes, for the poor students of Jol-Nar, for the poor nanobytes of L1Z1X...let's do it for the Lyrebirds of Sol...who have already followed their dream....

...uh...

You get the idea.

[keithdone]

I'm in -I suggest one in March, one at Winter Retreat, one in September and one in January 2011

Regards,

Keith

[davidmorton]

Twilight Imperium report #1

Late February - Sunday 9am 'til 5pm ish...we tried to play fast, but game mechanics prevent miracles of this nature!

We left out Distant Suns & anything else we thought might slow things up, we had grazing food so we didn't have to stop to cook lunch and we had 'callers' to let players know their turn was near...and it still took 8 hours. Lucky the Imperium Rex card turned up to end the game.

We conferred about a 'rules change' for the tournament once this happened. If Imperium Rex turns up, the winner is not necessarily on 10 points, so we decided to make the following 'rule':

If the game ends before a winning player has reached 10 points, then the winner has their score changed to 10 victory points.

We were also playing the Shattered Empire expansion with the new Strategy Cards and the rules state to play to 9 victory points only, so at the start of the game we decided to each start with 1 victory point & play to 10 points. In this way we hoped that the winner would finish on 10 points and be comparable with a standard game.

So at the end of the inaugural Twilight Imperial tournament game, we had...

Liam playing for Sol on 10 points
dm playing for Yssaril on 9 points
Ben playing for Hacan on 5 points
Keith playing for Sardakk N'or on 5 points
and Zac playing for the Yin on 2 points

Zac, although scoring low, was a constant thorn in the sides of his neighbours. He didn't appear to need a reason, only a target!

Keith finally (after many years playing peaceful races in an aggressive fashion) got to play an aggressive race. He naturally played this race peacefully...

Let me know the details here if you play a game & I'll add the results to the league table and calculate averages etc

See you on Mecatol Rex,

dm

[davidmorton]

Hiya folks,

The traditional game of Twilight Imperium was played at Winter Retreat. You can read about some of the highlights in Keith's wrap up of the Winter Retreat weekend.

As luck would have it, I won the game - or more precisely, the game ended in the nick of time to prevent me losing!

My "cunning strategy" of taking over Mecatol Rex early allowed quick collection of victory points. However, forces were thin and soon the planet fell. Just as my opponents ganged up to wipe out most of my forces, exhaust all my resources, steal all my money & assassinate my leader, the Imperium Rex card surfaced and ended the game.

Most of my opponents looked quite able to pick up 2 - 3 points in the next turn and more in the turn after that, while ensuring that my brave race would have been a distant memory...

So, the results:

dm 8 points with the Jol-Nar
Liam 7 points with Xxxcha
Andrew 5 points with Sol
Keith 5 points with the Clan of Saar
Vanessa 4 points with the Winnu
Darren 3 points with the Yin Brotherhood

...and now...looking forward to the next games...

See ya,

dm

[shags]

I definitely want in David.

How about on of the days at winter legends?

[keithdone]

The Saturday of Winter Legends would be good, if David can make it. I would have to see if Ang could run the canteen for me on that day.

Regards,

Keith

[davidmorton]

Hiya,

I'm sure I can make Saturday of Winter Legends for Twilight Imperium!

And by the way, historically, Mecatol Rex has always been mine.

See ya,

dm

[davidmorton]

Hiya folks,

I'm looking forward to playing Twilight Imperium on the Saturday of Legends of Winter.

Last time we played the game, Darren researched & came to the table with a strategy. Sadly, he researched the wrong version & had a slight misunderstanding of the rules.

So, I thought I might propose a version now, so he can fine tune his research.

I propose playing the Shattered Empire version with the new Strategy Cards & include the wormhole nexus, race technology & artifacts. This means playing to 9 VP & increasing the likelihood of warfare. Let me know if anyone hates this idea.

see ya
dm

[keithdone]

Increased chance of warfare......bring it on, that's where I live!


Regards,

Keith
"Only TI player to attack all other races in the last game"

[davidmorton]

Hiya folks,

Winter Retreat saw two tables of Twilight Imperium players. The games were typically long for no apparent gain. In other words...perfect games of TI!

Liam won the "shorter" game that I was in with the L1Z1X and 7 points while AJ won the "longer" game with the Mentak and 10 points.

Six of us are playing another game this Friday 8 July as a follow up to the Winter Retreat games....yep, sad.

For the empire,
dm

[davidmorton]

Hiya,

We just played a "follow up from Winter Retreat" game of TI.

It took about 8 hrs & Steve won with the Jol-Nar on 6 points as time ran out. Apparently the Jol-Nar Intergalactical Football Team was playing at 8pm.

In my opinion, the game was slowed too much by the new politics, councillors & spies etc, so I think this might be an option best left out.

And I have used the new Trade 111 Strategy card in 2 games now, and although I am undecided about the value of Mercenaries, I am pretty sure that I don't really like the card's actual trade mechanism, so I think I'll leave this option out for the next game too - unless other folk think it is worthwhile.

Flagships appear to be OK & don't appear to slow or overly affect the game...although that's probably 'cos we use them poorly! In this last game, Alex was playing the yellow colour & called his flagship "The Goldfish". I would keep the flagship option based on this alone.

For those sad & pathetic souls that would like to do this again, I propose to play on the Saturday of Winter Legends in August.

See ya,
dm

[davidmorton]

Important news!

Keith has won his first game of Twilight Imperium. He was playing Mentak & (also for the first time maybe!?) he took notice of the victory points that were available.

Steve was also playing and continues to be the favoured target for most players.

I have been keeping records since March 2010 & the top three players based on average placings are Tony, Liam & myself. Our average placing in games is 2nd.

(This average is based on playing at least two games - thereby demonstrating committment to the cause).

The top three races are the Ghosts of Creuss, Jol-Nar & Sol. Folk playing these races, on average, placed 2nd.

I'll bring a copy of my statistical analysis to the next club meeting for those sad folk that have an interest in this sort of foolishness...

My final note is to ask folk who play a game of Twilight Imperium to post the results here or bring them to the club. This way I can increase the information available for statistical analysis & thus improve the knowledge of the world. I would like name (or alias), score, placing & race please.

Yours in Imperial madness,
dm

[cleverfellow]

Woo! Well done Keith!

David, I may have only played this game once, a couple of years ago, but I find your information store fascinating...