It is here, the big review is here and man oh man I am dreading trying to write all of this, without a doubt this will be my longest review to date but it is worth it. Twilight imperium the game to end all games!
Now I would just like to start by saying that I LOVED THIS GAME. Now back to the usual s**t that I talk.
Basic info:
Players 3 - 6
Age: 14+
Playtime: Forever! Now I have heard this game can take from 3 hours to 12 hours.... be warned!
We have covered that little section now let us jump to what the f**k is in this mega box!
What is in this jumbo box?
There is so much in this box that I do not know where to begin! It weighs a ton and contains lots of goodies that you just see and think.... Holy cow s**t batman how on earth are we going to a) Play this game and b) Fit it on a table.
I will start by saying you need a lot of "space" to play this game, see what I did there? Hahahahaaaaa.
Not only in this box do you get;
1 rulebook
You also get a rulebook to explain the rules more in depth, like a rulebook for the rules! That is how big this game is....
1 lore book which I have no ready yet but I am looking forward to learning all about the history of this universe.
It is not just a game this is a game with a lot of back thought into the universe the game is set in. Right before I get lost in a wormhole and start rambling on again let us look at what you get in the box;
17 fraction sheets
6 command sheets
51 system tiles
59 units per player (354 in total)
8 strategy cards
8 ten-sided dice
1 victory point tracker
59 planet cards
40 objective cards
80 action cards
50 agenda cards
41 promise cards < this is what I call them
1 speaker token
122 technology cards
62 unit upgrade cards
2 alpha/beta wormhole tokens
1 naalu 0 token
1 custodian token
2 nekro x/y tokens
272 command tokens
289 control tokens
48 trade/commodities tokens
49 fighter tokens
49 infantry tokens
1 kitchen sink < this bit is a joke.... stop looking for the sink you fool!
That is a lot of components to the game and you are going to need them all, other wise why would they put them in there? I know it is almost like they knew what you needed and gave you that! Voodoo magic.
How to win the game?
Like any game in the world, there is an objective to this game to win, the idea is to be the first player to reach 10 victory points (or 14 if you have the other side of the tracker showing).
I looked and it did not mention that you could win by wiping out the other players. You can wipe out another player but the main goal is to score VP, while you might be trying to become the new galactic empire by brute force other players can rank up VP by playing the game without fighting wars.
Setting up the game
When you are playing the game for the first time like we did please follow the how to play rule book and use their first time playing set-up. This will make your life a lot easier and really help you get to grips with the game.
1 = Pick a player to be the speaker, we rolled the dice and let the highest roller go first.
2 = Assign fractions, now in the first game it recommends that you use one of the following;
The Xxcha Kingdom
The Federation of Sol
The Emirates of Hacan
The Barony of Letnev
The Sardakk N’orr
The Universities of Jol-Nar
That is because these races are simple and easy to use without any advanced rules or tactics needed to play them. You could be like us and let people pick whichever one they wanted which made one player really struggle!
The speaker is meant to deal 1 of each randomly to each player, however, we let players pick whichever one they wanted to be. This is really up to you.
3 = You now need to collect all your starting pieces and components, each player will pick 1 of the 6 colours and collect;
1 home tile
17 control tokens
16 command tokens
2 technology cards
The easiest way to find these is to match the symbol found on your fraction sheet with the ones on the list above.
Now it is time to get your game pieces that match the colour you picked you will need;
59 plastic units
1 command sheet
25 technology cards
Once you have these pieces lay them out in your game area and put your command sheet next to your fraction sheet. The command sheet contains a quick reference guide that slides under your fraction sheet.
4 = Gather the planet card that matches your planet tile for your fraction. place these face-up (colourful side) near your game area.
5 = It is now time to create the game board, follow the guide in the book for your first game. They have 3 to 6 player set-up guides that you can use. If you are feeling crazy you can build your own board but there are build rules that need to be followed! This is all listed in the rule reference book and they need to be obeyed! Just like your mother should be obeyed you pesky little swine. When you have set up the game board remember to collect the matching planet cards from the planet deck and keep them in a pile near the game board. When you control a planet you must take one of these cards.
6 = Place the custodian token on Mecatol Rex planet with the 6 side showing.
7 = You need to shuffle the following deck of cards and place them near the game board, we placed ours near the point tracker;
Action cards
Agenda cards
Objective 1 cards
Objective 2 cards
Secret objective cards
8 = Create supply pools of the following tokens;
Trade/commodity tokens
Fighter tokens
Infantry tokens
9 = Collect all the strategy cards (8) and place them all face-up near the game board.
10 = Look at the back of your fraction card (the side that does not show you the stats for each unit) and you will see in the lower left-hand corner what your fraction starts with. You need to collect all these components.
Place all the units on your starting tile and put them where you would like them to start, for example, you might want infantry to start on the home planets or maybe on a carrier ship if you have one.
Technology cards are placed face-up near your fraction card. Now we need to place the following on our command sheet;
3 command tokens on tactics
3 command tokens on the fleet (showing the ship logo side of the token)
2 command tokens on strategy
11 = This is the last section! Are you excited? you have almost set the game up!
Each player takes 1 secret objective and keeps it to themselves, this is important, do not let the other space scum know your secret objective.
Place the victory point tracker with the 10 side showing for your first game near the game board. Now place 1 control token on the tracker at 0 because we all start with 0 points.
The speaker draws 5 objective 1 cards and places them above the point tracker and then 5 objective 2 cards and puts them below the tracker.
Finally, the speaker reveals the first 2 objective 1 cards and all players need to look at what these are and how they can score valuable VP from them.
Believe it or not, you have set the game up! You are now ready to learn how to play this complex and yet simple game.
How to play?
In this review, I am not going to cover all the rules for the game because that would take me forever. The game is massive and you get a rule reference book with the game to help you out.
If you are ever unsure on a rule please just use the rule reference book or even google to see what you should do. I do not think there were any times when we played that we got stuck and had to use the main rule book. So you want to be a rock superstar? No, wait what am I doing? A little sip of Pepsi and I am sugar buzzing my tits off! Now back to the blog!
There are 4 main phases to the game and they go in this order;
Strategy - The easiest section
Action - The most fun
Status - Watch someone score VP and plan how to wipe them from this galaxy
Agenda - Let's all argue
Until a player takes over the main planet Mecatol Rex the fourth phase agenda is skipped.
Let us start with the agenda phase, I joke who the f**k starts it at the end!
Strategy Phase;
In this phase, all the players starting with the speaker will pick a strategy card. You all go in clockwise order and pick one of the 8 cards. I am not going to tell you what each one does fully but give you a little idea. Also please note that in a 3 or 4 player game you all take 2 cards each, however, it is important you all pick 1 first and once you all have 1 you all pick a 2nd in the same order!
1: Leadership - Use to gain more command tokens.
2: Diplomacy - Stop people f**king you up.
3: Politics - Gain action cards quickly.
4: Construction - Build planet defense systems and space bases to build.
5: Trade - Gain trade goods for resources.
6: Warfare - Used to move units more than you should.
7: Technology - Gain technology to make you more powerful.
8: Imperial - Collect another secret objective (you can never have more than 3 of these!).
Each card contains a number like you can see above, the player with the lowest number goes first and then play continues with the next player with the lowest number (not clockwise order!).
Also, any unpicked strategy cards need to have 1 trade good placed on them. If someone picks this one next turn they gain that trade good.
This is by far one of the easiest phases in this game and it is over, now we must turn to a phase that takes up the mast majority of this game!
Action Phase;
First cry, because you need to be mentally strong to hand this phase because so much will happen!
Starting with the player with the lowest strategic card the action phase begins. The player who is taking an action is called the active player and they only get to perform 1 action before it passes to the next player with the next lowest strategic card. Now from this point on I will just say the next player but remember the turn order above it is not clockwise but always the next lowest strategic card that goes next.
It says you perform 1 action but a lot can happen in 1 action and once the round goes back to you, you can then perform another action, this continues until everyone passes and we move to the next phase.
There are 3 main types of actions;
Tactical
Strategic
Component
Now, what do they mean? Well if you stop asking me I will get around to telling you.
Tactical - This is the main action where you use the game board, you can build units, invade planets, move units and basically be a space badass.
On a tactical action, you perform the following steps;
1: Activation
You take a command token from your tactic pool (if you have none left you can not do this) and place it in a system. Once the token is in that system that is now an active system for you. You can not activate a system that you have already activated but you can activate one that an enemy player activated.
2: Movement
You can now move units from any system to any active system, long as they have a high enough move value. They must end in the active system, if they can not make it they can not move it is that simple. They can not move out of an active system either. They can not also pass through a system that contains enemy units.
If a ship contains a capacity value they can move fighters and ground forces with them by taking them onto the ship. If a ship has a capacity of 4 that means they can take a maximum of 4 units from fighters or ground forces or a mixture of both.
Also, in a system, the number of fighters and ground forces (ground forces not on a planet as they do not count) can not exceed the capacity of the ships and space base in that area (a space dock not base haha can look after 3 fighters). If you had 2 carriers and a space dock you could have 11 in total in this space! This is for fighters and ground forces not larger ships they have different rules. You are not allowed more larger ships in one system then you have command tokens in your fleet section on the command board, if you have 3 still this means you can only ever have 3 larger ships in one system, if you have 4 then 1 is destroyed and returned to your pool.
There are some anomalies in the game that also impact movement;
Wormholes, allows you to move through them to another spot in the galaxy.
Asteroid fields, you can not enter unless you have a technology upgrade.
Nebula, you can enter them and then on another turn move out of them but never pass through it. Also, they give you a tactical advantage you gain +1 to any combat rolls while inside. Ships leaving the nebula can only move 1 space.
Supernova, do not even look at this! You can do f**k all with this space.
Gravity rift, when you move out or through you move +1 space, but before you leave roll a dice, if you roll a 1 - 3 the ship is destroyed! Oh no :(
The last part I will talk about is the fact that if you move into an area with another players cannons (on a planet) they can fire at you.
3: Space combat
If you enter a system with another players units (ships not ground forces) you start space combat. The way combat is played is that the players roll dice and must roll higher than the combat stats on the player's fraction sheet. Any results are taken as wounds and then each player assigns these among their ships. Now, this is worked out after all of the rolls and steps (not including the first step as that is resolved straight away).
This is pretty easy to follow, and you perform these steps;
Anti fighter barrage - Any ships that have this ability perform this action first and all results are applied on fighters only! These results are taken straight away and any fighters destroyed in this section are removed now.
Announce retreat - if a player is feeling like a little scared person they can say hey look I am a chicken and would like to fly away with my tail between my legs. However, they need to know that combat does happen first!
Combat - This is what we have been waiting for! Is it not? Well, I have, all players roll at the same time, get extra dice for this game because you do not have enough!
We played the game so that you roll for ships at the same time and keep track of the damage you score, we did it so that it went roll for;
Fighters
Carriers
Destroyer
Cruiser
Dreadnoughts
War sun (no one got one out though)
Capital ship
You need to also check if the ship shoots more than once and other such rules (these are explained in the book).
For example, if I had 5 fighters I would roll 5 dice, if I scored 1 hit I would mark that 1 hit down and wait for the other player to roll for their fighters and mark their hits down. Once we had both rolled for the fighters we would move on to carriers and carry on doing this. If one of us did not have a sip and the other player did they would only roll for that ship and we would wait for the next ship on the list. This made it easy to make sure we did not lose track of which chip had attacked this turn.
Score hits - Now it is time to score all the hits, if the other player had hit your fleet 7 times you would need to remove 7 ships, now some ships have sustained damage which means they can take 2 hits, 1 hit hurts them (flip the ship over) and then it would take a 2nd hit to destroy that ship. It is always best to make sure the cheaper ships to build are destroyed first or the ones that are harder to score hits on.
Retreat - Now the player who wants to run away does that, they need to move all of their ships into a system adjacent to this one that they either own or have a ship in. If they move to a system they need to place a command token from their reinforcements (not from their command sheet) into that system. If they do not meet these requirements they can not retreat and must fight!
Once this is complete it all starts again and players can say if they want to retreat or not and then then the combat starts, hits are socred and it continues until one player wins and as units or a unit left in the system.
4: Invasion
You commit ground forces (infantry) onto a planet, if another player owns this plant and as ground forces or defence cannons you perform ground combat.
When completing an invasion action you need to do the following in order;
Bombardment - If you have a ship in the system with this ability complete this first to try and weaken the ground forces (please note: if you are invading a system that no other player owns just skip to the end of this section (establish control) after commit ground forces are complete). This will allow you to hopefully weaken the planet and take control easier.
Commit ground forces - The active player picks which ground forces will land on which planet in that system, you need to land on and take both to own the system this is important.
Space cannon defense - If the other player built a PDS on the planet, roll the dice for the PSD and score hits, you must then discard any units that were killed before landing.
Ground combat - This is the same as space combat, roll for all the units first, once all rolls are complete you then score the hits and remove units. Unlike space combat you can not retreat this is to the death, keep doing this until 1 player wins!
Establish control - Take the system card for this system and place it face-down (grey side) in your play area.
That is how you take a planet that is unoccupied or owned by another player, it is easy and the rule book does show good examples of this.
5: Production
If you have a space dock (space base I seem to call it) in the active system you can produce new units by spending resources.
The planet cards that you own (also trade goods) are worth resource points (the number in the yellow circle, not the blue one). Each unit on your fraction card shows a cost, this is how many resources you need to spend to build that unit.
Your space dock also has a productivity value and that is how many units this space dock can build in 1 action.
You need to also remember that in a system you are limited by the tokens in your fleet section to how many ships you can have, the same goes for fighters and ground forces but with the ships and space docks capacity.
When you are producing units always make sure you have the stats needed to build them in that system or they are built and destroyed! You do not want that do you?
If a unit cost shows two flags next to it, this means that cost value will produce two of that unit. Bargain!
Fighters and ground forces are unlimited in size and you have tokens to build more if you need them.
Other units are limited by the number of plastic game pieces you have, you can never build more of that type than the pieces you have, however, if you d want to build another dreadnought but all of them are on the board you can remove one from a system that does not have a command token in and then place it in the system you activated. This means you kinda just paid the cost to move it back to that system.
Once you build a unit you exhaust (flip to grey side) the planet cards used or return any trade goods used to pay for them.
You might not perform all the actions above in your turn but there are the steps in the order you should complete them. This action is by the far the biggest because once all players have performed 1 action they can do it all again if they wish to do so.
Okay now for the next action you can take!
Strategic - This is where you use your strategic card, you can not pass on your go until you have used these cards!
When you declare this action you perform all the events on the card in the order they are written. This is for the 1st ability as this is the one for you.
You then read out the 2nd ability on the card and each other player can perform that ability for the cost that it lists.
Once you have done this you then flip the card over and it is the next players go!
Now see how quick and simple that is compared to the one above! Component - If any game card contains the word action: you use this action to activate the text. That is it, all done, nailed it, simple. wooo! That is everything covering this phase, there is a lot more to it but I think that gives you a good idea of what to do!
You need to remember that you can not pass until you have used your strategic cards and this can keep looping over until every player passes.
Sometimes it is worth passing to keep your command tokens for any serious game plans you have in your mind. Status Phase;
Now we are in the status phase and we have some actions we need to complete in order;
1: Score objectives, any player can score 1 public or secret objective if they met the terms for that objective in the last turn if they have, score the points listed on the VP tracker.
2: Reveal new objective, the speaker flips over the next public objective in the row for everyone to see.
3: Draw an action card, says it all.
4: Remove command tokens, any of your command tokens on the game board (not your command board!) need to be removed and put in your reinforcements (stack of command tokens not on your command board).
5: Collect and move, collect 2 command tokens from your reinforcements and now you can move any command tokens into any of the 3 areas on the command sheet. This means on the next turn you could increase your fleet if you wish to do that.
6: Ready your cards, any cards you used this turn that is exhausted are flipped to the other side.
7: Repair units, repair any units that took damage that turn that were not destroyed.
8: Return the strategy cards, place them all back together ready for the next turn.
That is how this phase is complete, now unless Mecatol Rex was claimed the game would go back to the strategy phase, however, if someone does have that planet it now goes to the agenda phase!
Agenda Phase;
Now that we have someone on the main planet the galactic council is formed and we all get to vote (well not all....) get to vote on important matters in the galaxy that could affect us all.
Just like all the other phases, we have steps that need to be completed in order;
1: Reveal the first agenda card, The speaker takes the top agenda card and reads it out to all the players.
1a: Now during this section of the game you can try and influence other players or make deals so they vote on the agenda how you wish it to turn out.
2: The first player to the left of the speaker (we go back to clockwise turn order here) casts a Yes or No vote for the agenda, or names another player, or finally names a planet for the agenda, this all depends on the agenda card, they cast their vote and back that vote up with influence points (blue circled numbers on planet cards and once again trade goods). If you vote yes and exhaust a planet with 3 influence points and discard 2 trade goods you have voted yes with 5 points.
3: The next player does the same as above but votes how they wish to vote and spend what IP they wish.
4: Resolve the outcome, if the vote passes, or a player is named, or a planet is named. Now if it is a directive then it only happens once and the card is discarded. If it is a law this will always stay in effect and all players must abide by this new rule (law). If it comes to a draw then the speaker actually picks the final outcome!
5: Do this all again but for the second agenda.
6: Ready all your cards again!
Okay, we have got to the end of how to play the game, well not the end because there are a lot of rules that you need to know for the game and I have touched the surface here!
I would leave it here because my fingers hurt from typing, I need a shower from all the sweating of typing like a demon but I just want to cover some more rules that I think will help you!
Movement: You can move any ship from any section into the activated system long as they can reach it.
Space combat: You can move more ships into combat than you are allowed in one system (due to your fleet limit) but once the combat is over you need to make sure you are obeying this limit again. I.E you have a fleet of 5 but move 10 large units into this system but only lose 3 after the combat is over you must then discard 2 so you only have 5 in the system.
Action cards: You are only ever allowed a maximum of 7 in your hand, never show other players these until they are used, action cards at the top tell you when you can use them, only ones that say Action: must be used as the component action during your turn.
Trade goods: These are used for both resources and influence points if you wish to spend them.
Commodities: These are used to trade with other players, when traded they turn into trade goods for that player. You can replenish these only with action cards or the strategic card that allows you to do so.
Neighbours: If you have systems next to another player or units you are then classed as neighbours, this allows you to trade commodities, create deals and so on. You can only trade goods once per turn with a player but can trade goods with every player if you are neighbours with them all. Once a deal is set then it is finalized and can not be reversed.
Deals: There are two types of deals, binding and non-binding, a binding deal means that it would happen straight after the deal and must be honoured, a non-binding means that the deal might be in the future but they do not have to do this!
Example: If you entered a players system with space cannons but strike a deal to give them 1 trade good not to shoot you and they take the trade good they can then not shoot you this turn.
If you gave a trade good to a player and said in 4 turns I want you to attack Joe with me they can take the trade good but then in 4 turns turn on you with Joe!
Technology: There is a lot to technology in this game and all I can really say is read all about it because it can be vital to the game.
That is all I want to say extra about the how to play, there is a lot to this game so either watch a video on the game (this sold it to me!), download and read the PDF on how to play the game from fantasy flight or buy it and play it and learn as you go! That is the best option if you ask me and have money laying around!
Final Thoughts!
Many moons ago I started writing the review for this game and now I have mega cramp in my hand from typing (broke my hand (a lot (not from writing this though))). It almost feels like a lifetime may have passed while I was sat here typing away (I think this one took me about 5 hours to write.... maybe longer) I enjoyed just talking about the rules and how to play the game. I was looking at the photos and thinking "man I can not wait to get this back to the table".
The game does cost a lot, I mean who does have £100+ laying around alongside the tears of a unicorn and the heart of a Viking? I managed to get it on sale for under £100 and even then I was like epppp what the f**k am I doing?
Is the game worth the cost? Yes, it comes with a lot of pieces and weighs more than a sperm whale. The game itself is fantastic to play and I will talk about that next but I feel like you get what you pay for in this game, plastic ain't cheap people! Or is it? I have no clue.
The game does take a while to set up because it is f**king huge, the rules take ages to read because there are so many. However, you do not give a s**t because you are invested in this game, you want to know how it all works, you love setting it up and lining your fleet up in the production yard (that's what I called my reinforcement area) and thinking I will build you all and set this galaxy alight! At no point was I bored! Not even when I was waiting for other people to pick what they were going to do, that is because I am watching what they do and planning on what I will do next.
This is not a game about war, far from it, if anything avoid conflict it hinders you.... a lot.... It is a game about making p[eace, betraying that peace, taking planets, trading with people, voting on laws and directives, getting into more conflict, wishing you never bothered fighting, rebuilding, protecting your borders, crying in the corner and so, so, so much more!
Every time it is your turn you just wonder what the f**k can you do to win? Which objective do you go for? Is your secret objective worth doing? Should you get some more, wait can't go over 3 and what should I do! Arghhhh!
I was daunted by the size of the game, the size of the rulebook and well everything but when you start playing you soon realise it is simple and easy to play, but there is so much you can do in this game at the same time!
If you have not played this game I can not stress how much you need to play this game and see what I am rambling on about. This game is close to perfect and I am giving it a great score but just because it does cost so much it loses 1 point.
9/10
