Oh, it’s a big one. Now, I have been playing modern board games for over 8 years. I have conquered my first legacy game, beat the AI in a solo runthrough of The Gaia Project and I have even won a game of Blood on the Clock tower as the Lunatic convinced I was evil (and I am a terrible liar) but the one milestone I still needed to achieve was playing a game of Twilight Imperium.
To me, this game was the epitome of long, difficult games. It is the kind of game that requires a full weekend day…you need to plan for at least two meals, and it is the type of game you prepare for like an exam.
I was apprehensive, I won’t lie, it was a milestone I was not sure that I was ready for but when the opportunity presented itself to play with a great bunch of friends, I threw my name in.
There will be many of you out there who are also considering conquering Twilight Imperium, for you I share my thoughts and my experiences: What is Twilight Imperium really like the first time you play it?
The Night Before
It is always reassuring when you are sent a Youtube tutorial on how to play a game before even getting to the table. To fully learn the game in person can take a whole morning so I started revising the night before.
My thoughts, well it was a 32 minutes video so not as bad as I had expected. I had been ready for a feature film so the video length was a welcome surprise…that was until I had to watch the video twice and on .75 speed the second time around.
The first thing I learnt was that Twilight Imperium is published by Fantasy Flight Games, the company behind the Arkham series which I really enjoy. Also, the ‘Learn to play’ manual is only 24 pages long so no worse than the Spirit Island base game.
“Wait, did he just say this game takes 12 hours…”
The video took me through the components, the phases of a round, the types of actions and movement restrictions (and there were so many movement restrictions: Asteroid Belts, Super Novas, Worm Holes Alpha and Beta…). Then, he spoke about component actions, a familiar term from other Fantasy Flight Games so at least there was one thing I did not need explaining.
Overall, despite the many rules and anomalies, I actually felt ready. Not only that, but in a house 50 minutes away, my friends were getting the table set up so we could start straight away at 10am.
Bring on Twilight Imperium.
Hour 1
First off, you need a big table, my friend was using an extended table and with 6 players this game took up the whole thing. There wasn’t any room for drinks and until hour 4, even the strategy cards had to be held, rather than laid out in an arch as our unused pieces took up too much space.
When we arrived, the board was mostly ready, the last step was to choose who we wanted to be. Now, the names on the faction sheets don’t exactly roll off the tongue, so we renamed our civilisations as follows: Space Pirates (that was me), the Diplomatic Space Turtles, Khajiit (space lions for those of you unfamiliar with The Elder Scrolls), the Humans, Space Ghosts and the Peasants… (we thought that the Barony was a strange name choice for a whole faction as it is actually only a low-level rank of European nobility, so we renamed them the Peasants).
The first hour was, admittedly, still just about the set up, in fact we didn’t get started for 70 minutes BUT imagine how long the set up and teach would have taken if we hadn’t revised the night before…
Hour 2
The game was under way. The first part of each round involved taking a strategy card which could then be used during phase two (the action phase). I really liked the strategy cards: they had two parts (meaning the other players could also benefit from them being played), when laid out they created a very pleasing rainbow coloured arc and they had giant numbers on them to denote turn order – making it very easy to keep track.
In the hope of securing an early game objective, I spread out quite quickly…but then I was worrying close to a fleet owned by my neighbour. I was not yet ready to pick a fight so I stopped my advance and made my first deal, promising not to Pillage them in exchange for their support of my throne, that’s right the Space Pirates took the lead, I had 1 VP.
Hour 3
We moved into phase 3 (the status phase) which is effectively an admin/clean up phase. In Twilight Imperium, there are initially three phases to a turn, strategic (very short = pick a card), action (longest phase, each player takes an action in turn order, you keep taking actions until everyone has passed) and status (clean up). There is a fourth phase but this does not happen until someone owns the planet in the middle so we did not need to worry about phase 4 just yet.
As part of my player board, there was a really helpful reminder section explaining the action and status phases meaning I didn’t need to constantly refer to the rule book. Other games, such as Mansions of Madness and Betrayal at House on the Hill, really suffer by not having some form of turn reference card as part of the player area. These games are both much simpler than Twilight Imperium but by not including a turn reference reminder, I find I start every session by jumping back into the rule book to look up simple turn mechanics such as how many actions I can take.
At the end of Round 1, no one was even close to completing either of the two (out of 10) revealed public objectives…it was going to be a very long game.
Following the status phase I did realise that I was severely behind on trade goods (the currency used to buy extra resources and as such, make more stuff), my alliance with the Peasants was impacting my income and so when Round 2 began, I knew it was time to focus on trade and to snuggle up close to another neighbour.
The Space Ghosts wanted to come and spend some time on one of my planets to borrow some of my tech and so deal number two was struck. Yes you can come party on my planet for 1 turn but for this I need your support for the throne, and with that the Space Pirates had 2VPs.
Round 2 was also a big round for deployment, we suddenly had 3 flagships on the board.
Hour 4
Round 3 began and the rounds were taking about an hour each.
As I went into Round 3, my command tokens were severely depleted (the tokens you spend to take actions). Having 8 strategy cards to choose from at the start of the turn can be quite overwhelming, but as they all help you with different things, I actually found this decision really easy: when I needed trade goods/command tokens I just picked the strategy card that would help me get them. I really wanted the technology card but this proved a very popular choice, if you had 6 resources (which by Round 3 was very achievable) the technology card allowed you to improve two technologies instead of just one.
Questions about combat began and I could feel tensions rippling through the empty darkness of space. War was on the horizon.
Mandalore…I mean Mecatol Rex (the middle planet) was finally claimed and so when this round came to an end, we had our first agenda phase (phase 4).
If you have ever played Sid Meier’s Civ. 6, you will be familiar with the World Congress – the agenda phase in Twilight Imperium felt very similar to that. The Speaker (decided by the person who had taken the third strategy card) read out two agendas, all players could then use
influence to vote ‘For’ or ‘Against’, or vote for a card to apply to a particular player; the more influence you used, the more weight your vote had. Now the agenda deck was huge, as big as the action deck, but we barely saw any of those cards throughout the game and they were very hit and miss in terms of whether they actually were worth voting on or if they made any interesting changes to the game. In this first agenda phase, the players with the lowest VP gained a VP which did even the board out and boosted morale but overall I wasn’t blown away by the agenda phase.
Hour 5
Bring forth my plague!
By Round 4 my action cards were starting to really build up (to a hand limit of 7) and some of them had component actions on which I could use to cause little pockets of chaos, such as a plague I sent to the Humans.
In Round 4, the first battle took place (the Khajiit versus the Space Ghosts), it was only a small skirmish (and I think the Space Ghosts were still a bit hungover from their party on my planet) but it was a good reminder for all about the steps of combat. With so many extra rules (Bombardment, Pre-Combat, Anti-Fighter Barrage, Space Canons) combat and invasion was complicated and was probably the one aspect I would need to keep a rule book handy for during future plays.
Hour 6
It was Round 5 and the first level 2 public objective was revealed, this awarded two VP instead of one when fulfilled. The race for control of the universe was heating up.
Hour 6 was mainly taken up by the peace shattering battle between the Humans and the Peasants. The universe was starting to feel crowded and people wanted to expand making war inevitable. Due to the sheer volume of pieces on the tile, we had to move the battle to the coffee table. It was brutal, the Humans had amassed a huge armada and decimated the Peasants as a result. As an ally of the Peasants, I did feel the lack of allied functionality in the game was a shame, for example although we had an alliance I could not move through their tiles without starting a war, and when faced with the full force of the Humans I was unable to provide any support to the Peasants to even out their forces. Possibly allied mechanics would just make the game too long, but thematically, as the game encourages you to make deals I did feel the alliance aspect of player interaction needed more rounding out.
Hour 7
How was it hour 7 already, time was flying.
Round 6 began and the Peasants were back, they had a Death Star… I mean War Sun and vengeance was in their hearts. The second big battle of the game was much longer than the first and although the Peasants still lost, the Humans came away looking worse for wear.
The Space Ghosts were spreading their wormholes and providing me with more ‘neighbours’ to pillage. Suddenly, thanks to a faction specific tech card (Mirror Computing) my trade goods were worth twice the value of everyone else’s.
Hour 8
It was in hour 8 that the Diplomatic Space Turtles decreed the Humans had gone too far, their unwavering assault on the Peasant population was unfounded and balance needed to be restored to the universe. My fleet was ready and, thanks to an upgrade, my Cruisers now had a speed of 3: I went in for the attack.
This was the only battle I played all game and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it thematically as I felt that I was avenging my ally, as well as mechanically as I got to strategise with action cards and upgrades. I sent the Humans fleeing. Peace was restored and sanctions were lifted, the Humans had suffered enough.
Hour 9
The final round began, Round 7 and we knew the end was close. Amazingly, we all ended the round on 10 VPs and this meant the winner was decided by turn order (as you complete objectives in turn order and so one person will ‘reach 10 VPs’ before everyone else).
There was a really fun last moment though, the Khajiit were 2nd in turn order, we could see they would win and although I was going to get 10 VPs, my Space Pirates were only 3rd in turn. Now, the Peasants went first but they could only make it to 9VPs, that was until the Humans activated their strategy card. As part of the Imperial strategy card, other players can spend a token to draw a secret objective and so this is what the Peasants did.
The secret cards were laid out, the Peasants drew one objective at random, if they could complete that card with what was already on the board (they had no actions left to change it) they would win, if not, the Khajiit would reach 10VPs first…
All hail the Peasants, reigning Lord of Mecatol Rex and ruler of the universe.
But the really important thing that happened in that hour was that I learnt what a Greeble was. A Greeble (or greeblie/nurnie) is a small plastic part on a model which gives it detail. I love this fact!
Final Thoughts
Before we started, my friend explained that Twilight Imperium was truly about the experience, not the win; at the time I didn’t fully grasp what he meant but I get it now. So many large games, when played with high player counts, can leave you bored or frustrated as you wait for your turn to come around. Amazingly, this was not the case with Twilight Imperium. There was so much to discuss, so many deals to be made, alliances to form and break, meaning once your turn was over, watching other people take their turns was actually really interesting and you were constantly reworking your next move in reaction to what was going on on the board.
The game says that it can be played with 3-6 players however, the experienced members of our group both agreed that it was best at 6 and in some ways, not worth playing with less. Many characters need the proximity that 6 players bring, my Space Pirates for one need neighbours to make the most of their Pillage ability. On the other hand, some objectives and secret actions are harder to do with 6 players. One of our first public objectives was to own three planets with technology on them, but there were so few of these planets in the universe that no player was able to own more than two in the entire game. It would have only been possible if they had eliminated another faction and had taken over their tiles, but in an 8+ hour game you don’t really want to force a friend to sit out.
Twilight Imperium is a big game and it’s reputation has kept me from trying it for years as I was worried I wouldn’t be good enough to play. But with a little bit of prep the night before, a balanced table that had 2 experienced players and by us all talking through our first few turns, I really understood what I was doing very quickly. It is not a game that I would recommend for brand new board gamers as there is just SO much to think about, but you also do not need 8 years of experience. I would say once you are confident enough playing board games that you actively start strategising and thinking a few turns ahead, then you are ready. Don’t let its reputation put you off: I personally didn’t feel it was any more complicated than Gaia Project, Spirit Island or Battlestar Galactica.
I was out of the house for 12 hours, actively playing for 8 and the time just flew by. I was so invested and the day I spent playing Twilight Imperium with my friends will now stay with me as one of my fondest memories. We have even booked in our 6 month and 1 year Twilight Imperium sessions to ensure we are all able to get together again.
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