Twilight Imperium 4 announcement review.

I know I haven’t posted on this in a long while but I’m super excited about the news: Twilight Imperium 4th edition is coming out for pre-order.

Now while I am excited about more Twilight Imperium I am on the fence about buying a new edition. My initial excitement was a little dulled when I noticed what was missing: Distant suns, Frontier tokens, Leaders, Mercs, politicians, and various other optional rules. Personally I think losing the Distant Suns and frontier tokens do take away the eXploration element of 4X gaming. BUT I’ve had a couple of days to think about this. Everything stripped out of the new edition were optional rules. Begrudgingly I must admit that this makes both game play and business sense. Without all those other tokens the price point can be kept down. New players should be able to learn the basic rules and enjoy the game without over-complicating it, and without the optional rules debate. And I have to say optional rules belong in expansions as an optional purchase option. Have I said option enough yet?

The skin of the game doesn’t look to have evolved much. The units are functionally the same, the planets have a cosmetic upgrade but I don’t see much functional difference. So on the surface I have to ask: Did the game change enough to warrant the new edition?

My answer is to dig deeper. The strategy cards do effectively change the fundamentals of the game significantly. 

First up is Trade. I always found that the TI3 mechanic of trading with the guy across the table then never interacting again was thematically lacking. Also having the ability to just end all trade deals doesn’t make sense. A real world equivalent would be North Korea deciding they don’t like the west having economic deals and unilaterally announcing that NAFTA and the EU both end… with the rest of the world going along with it “because the rules say so.” The new system will require players to set up trade routes because you can only trade with people you border. Expanding to open yourself to trade will be a must. Wormholes will be more like DS9 where they can be used for commerce or war. Having a local wormhole might become a huge boon for a trade alliance (as opposed to TI3 where it was just another invasion route.) Making or breaking trade blocs will require thoughtful expansion and work. Also gone will be the days of people refusing trade because you only have 1TG deals. A trade deficit can be offset simply by a matter proximity.

Next is politics. The TI3 politics strategy was suboptimal. Even if the political deck is thinned it lacks a certain punch. The new method requires Mecatol Rex to be claimed before politics starts. Thematically it means a player has reclaimed the seat of the empire and restarted the council. When it does start TWO laws will come up for vote every turn. So taking Mecatol Rex becomes a big turning point in the game. Doing so starts politics, adds more influence for politics, and grants access to more victory points. Oh and did I mention, planets reset BEFORE politics start. So all players will always have access to their complete influence. I think with this version politics will become a more integral part of the game.

Next is technology. Gone is the tech tree. Now each tech card will display icons showing prerequisites. For instance some will have no icons meaning they are intro techs with no prerequisites. Some will have 2 blue icons meaning you need 2 other blue techs before they can be researched. While others may have 2 red and a yellow icon. Meaning you need that many of each tech as a prerequisite. While it does make sense to have a line of technology in the real world, navigating the tech tree often required players to purchase techs they didn’t need to get high level techs, while missing out on ones they could really use because they just fit into another tech line. I think this will open players to purchasing higher level tech more often. Also I just had to print off enough tech trees for all players so they could all have time to review what they wanted.

It seems like the designers focused on increasing player interaction and streamlining rules to keep players focused on game play. I really think that I will be looking into grabbing this game but I may be waiting to see how well it plays first. I will definitely be waiting to see the Shut Up and Sit down making of documentary first.

Until Next time, I'm hoping to have some more posts preordered for you.