Bunker Project Log

In the Friday game of TI?there were lots of rules questions, but I had an answer for all of them (that I remember…) except one. For some reason, I had interpreted the rules for production of units to mean that any Tactical or Transfer Action could be followed by Production… anywhere. So, we would activate a system, move junk around, then activate the system with our spacedock, then build there. This did not sit well with Mrred5.

I had been prepared for this. My laptop was near the table, I had the rules, and printouts of a bunch of stuff including turn flowcharts, race descriptors, and unit cost breakdowns.?So when the question came up, I tried to look it up in all of the resources I had, and?still found no answer.?Later, days after the game?I had still not found anyone discussing this particular question. So I took it up with the the Geek.

The answer? It was spelled out pretty clearly in the rules (clearly enough that no one else in the known universe had missed it!) 🙂

?”Except for the first step (the activation itself), each individual step of the Activation Sequence is only resolved if the condition for its resolution applies or is initiated by the active player. A player, for example, may activate a system to produce new units there during step 7, but does not necessarily have to move any ships into the system during step 2.”

Special thanks to The Barefoot Killer for supplying the exact quote,?and sasquatchdjh and?Gilby for answering my query!

And extra special thanks to Mrred5 for coming to the dizzle having read the rules in the first place. It really helped to have someone else to corroborate with!

The unfortunate side effect is, now the turns will be even longer. Production will have to be a separate action from movement, adding one or two more required actions for each player. It also means a few more Command counters will be?going into the command pool.?Do you feel the squeeze fellas??

Having forced Mrs. G to take part in the Twilight Imperium nerd festival, I didn’t feel right trying to get her to play another game that wasn’t meant for two. So, I opted for a 4-player game by myself. Best… husband… ever.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the Catan games. I like having the possibility of getting something every turn, whether it is mine or not. I also like having the possibility of trade outside of my own turn. It makes me like I am playing more than just waiting for the other people to hurry up and finish.

In this way, Starfarers is much like the original. Production is the same, with some re-theming of the actual materials produced. Also, The concepts of of settlements and cities are intact, with a few mutations.

One of the four Catanian colonies at the start of the game

Where it starts deviating is in the third phase of the player’s turn. This is the “Flight” phase. Instead of colonies being connected by roads, they are flown to the next cluster of planets by transporters. A player’s entire fleet of transporters is defined by the upgrades that were made to the player’s mothership.

A fully tricked out mothership

At the beginning of the Flight phase, the player’s mothership is “Rolled”. That’s right, that silly looking rocketship also serves as dice, because inside it are four colored balls. When shaken and stood upright, two are displayed in the bottom.

The thruster showing the current speed of each of the player’s ships (blue: 1 + red: 3 = 4).

There are two kinds of ships, each with a different goal. Colony ships move toward planet clusters. Colonizing planets ultimately mean more resources, and more jumping off points for space exploration. Trade ships move toward alien outposts.

The outposts are where the “Longest Road” and “Largest Army” concepts come in. If you are the first to reach an alien outpost, you get that alien’s “friendship chip”, giving the bearer two victory points. There are five spots at each outpost though, and that chip is held by the player occupying the majority of those spots.

The Diplomat friendship chip is shown in the lower left

The Merchant Alien outpost gives us the “harbor trade” concept from the original game. By creating a trade outpost, you are able to pick a card allowing 2:1 trades for the resource specified on the card.

Finally, the concept of “Events” from the Card game and Cities and Knights is incorporated in the Mothership roll. An event is triggered when a black ball appears.

To resolve an Event, the player to the left pulls the top event card and reads it aloud to the active player. These generally have a flowchart of actions triggered by the answers given.

Here is an example of an encounter where the alien must be given a gift:

And a sneakier gift card:

And finally, a pirate encounter:

As I played through my turns, I found that events happened quite often, so it is probably wise to keep a few extra resources around to pay tribute to the aliens.

By the fourth turn, I was convinced that I would love this game in actual real humanoid play. The space theme is nice for the nerds, the bits are pretty, and the core Catanitude guarantees goodness.?Having to race up to the planets and alien outposts adds tension,?and the sheer amount of space to be covered eliminates the claustrophobic feel of the original.

The event cards were a little irritating, though. Mainly because I have legendarily bad luck. If/when this game actually gets played, I will blame them on my inevitable loss. 😉

Mrs. G suggested calling it Midnight Imperium, but the game went until almost 2am.

Markus O’Reallyus was the first to arrive, followed soon by MrRed5. Turbo Taxi ensued. ‘Twas okay, but not as rockin as it usually is. Once VitaminZ appeared, Mrs. G had to be roused from her ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep. We began at 8:30pm.

The beginning

I had sorted all the bits and laid as much out as I could beforehand. We had each drawn our races from a hat earlier in the week, and everyone had a chance to read their cards to familiarise themselves with their race. I handed out a pre-randomized set of six system hexes to each player, and we commenced placing. Since no one really knew why they were placing things where they were, it was more or less strategyless.

And then came the explanation of the rules. Contrary to popular belief, Twilight Imperium is not that complicated. There are three very distinct phases in each turn, with the first taking about 5 minutes, and the third taking about two. The second phase is the longest, but it also has a clear set of things to do. The part that takes explaining are the Strategy Cards. There are eight of them, and they are all very different. I went through each one, and by the third, there was yawning, by the sixth, eyes were watering. By the eighth, I thought everyone was going to get up and leave. Why they didn’t, I don’t know, but I was relieved when things started rolling.

The first turn took at least two hours. All I remember from it was that I had pulled the Trade Strategy card. This card allows the bearer to initiate trade negotiations, and officiate them. What is funny is, I had read the text on this card several hundred times, and explained it a few. In all cases I said, “I don’t know why you would dissallow a trade.” Until, of course, I actually experienced it. The creeps at the table had managed to trade with everyone, except me. When I discovered this, I basically pulled the first dick move of the night and said “screw you guys, I’m not allowing anything between you until I get my two.” (I may have used some less family friendly English, but you get the idea.)

The second turn was faster, probably an hour and 15 minutes. We were figuring things out and getting a little more comfortable with the game. Vitamin Z had pulled the Political Strategy, and found an awesome law for us to ratify: “Free Trade”. This law was straight up golden. It gave each player an extra Trade Good each time Trade took place. Unfortunately, the trade incident from the previous turn bit us all. Mrs. G was the only one of us who did not have an active trade agreement, and using the racial power of her race, the Xxcha, she killed the law dead and forced us to draw another. The one that came up next “Colonization Licensing” was a real mofo. This would force each player to pay resources every time they captured a new planet. Needless to say, we killed it.

By the third turn, we were firing on all cylinders, but we were tired. It was now about 12:30 and Mrs G had to bail out. We had all grown adept at moving our stuff around. We had had an actual space battle (poor little space bugs of MrRed5 suffered at hands of Vitamin Z’s reptile chicks.) And, I had managed to take Mecatol Rex in a move that shocked even myself. It was just getting good!

In the end, Markus was up to five victory points, having drawn the Imperial card twice (and totally screwing with Mrs. G’s end the game quickly strategy.) We talked about saving state, but the loss of Mrs. G unbalanced the game too much, and the alternative was starting a fresh game actually knowing what we are doing.

Near the end

As long as the game was, it didn’t seem it. I never felt bored, and I think those of us of the more nerdly sex were into it. I asked Mrs. G what she remembered about the game, and her answer was, “the dip, the salsa, and that I took the pie out too early.” In other words, it wasn’t her cup o tea.

Will we ever play it again? Will it ever be played at a Bunker party? Will anyone be interested in it after this writeup? That remains to be seen. Bunker regulars speak out in the comments, and I will make sure it is available on Bunker Party night, or maybe… Twilight Imperium Friday!

I have mentioned my feelings about card games before. However, Mrs. G dictated that tonight was the night that we were going to “sit down and play a game and watch an episode of Heroes” instead of working.

So I went downstairs to find the highest rated 2-player game in the collection that I hadn’t played yet, and Blue Moon is what bubbled to the top.

The game is simple. Each player has a deck of 30 cards. In the center of the play area there are three plastic dragons. As each “fight” is won, a dragon is “attracted” to the winning side. When all three dragons are on a player’s side, the next victory for that player finishes the game.

A fight is started by the active player, who must play a single “Character” card. These characters can be modified with other cards, after the first turn. When each player is finished with their turn, the opposing player must play a card with equal or greater value power.?The fight goes back and forth until the active player is unable to play a character and modifying cards that match or exceed the previously played?cards.?

On each character card are two numbers, one for Earth power, and one for Fire power. Generally, the cards have power combinations ranging from 7 Fire/0 Earth to 3 Fire/3 Earth to 0 Fire/7 Earth. Once this card is placed, the player must call out what power the continuing fight will be fought with. In the picture below, the?bear thingy on the right has a Fire power of 4, and an Earth power of 4. (The most recently discarded gladiator-guy character on the right?has a Fire power of 1, and a Earth power of 5.)?

For our purposes, I will call out “4 Fire”?which means that my opponent must play a character from her hand that has either 4 Fire, or can be modified up to at least 4 Fire with a booster or support card.

Booster cards are played on the current character. Support cards are played in the support area, and are cumulative over the course of the entire fight.?Each time a new turn starts, the previous character, and?its booster?is replaced by a new one. This means that you must choose carefully between your characters,?once they are gone, they are gone for the game (barring some cards special powers of course!)

The spread:

Luckily, the game is very fast. We made it through two plays in about an hour, including stumbling through the rules a few times. I had figured out how it all worked by the second one, and it mostly made sense. Mrs. G was annoyed by some of the “CCG-esque” card effects, and?I felt that the decks were incomplete, as if there should have been a few more of the Booster or Support cards to make the decks more usable. The cards were big though, and were appreciated by my spidery hands.

In the end Mrs. G was happy with her two-dragon victory. Blurry pictures of the win FTW!

I had?almost completely given up this game of Colosseum after a hideous second round, which had netted me only 14 points. I?passed a whole turn without a cent to my name, there was no way I could win.

When suddenly, I?managed to buy “Mare Spielbergum”, and everything came together. I had stars, I had a huge colosseum, I had season tickets!

I rode high for turns III and IV. I was doing the impossible, I was winning! In turn V, the end, I made my final production with 71 points.

Then, out of nowhere, Casper starts put on an amazing show. I was sweating every second, until… she came… one point short! One measly point! She rested at 70.

I had it made…?until Pottse and VitaminZ started doing the math. Pottse was out, way out. But Z had a chance. Slim, but a chance.

So, Pottse, being the martyr that he is, sacrificed himself to position the nobles for Z’s next turn.

Final tally… 72 for Vitamin Z, and the win. Stolen.

Douchebags.

A Turn in Twilight Imperium is broken up into three phases:

1) Strategy
2) Action
3) Status

This post will go over the basics of the Strategy Phase.

There are eight strategy cards, numbered 1 through 8. Each has a Primary and a Secondary Ability. The player holding the card when it is invoked takes the effects of the Primary ability, and each of the remaining players may take the effect of the Secondary ability.

Click on the images of the cards to get a more legible view. As I haven’t played the game yet, I can’t really comment on why you would choose a given strategy over another.

Strategy Cards 1 – 4

Strategy Cards 5 – 8

The number on the card dictates the order of play. For example, the bearer of the Initiative Strategy (number 1), will always go before the player with the Imperial Strategy (number 8).

The Strategy Phase is where each player chooses the strategy he or she is interested in. Players go around the table clockwise starting from the player who last held the Initiative card.

In a six player game, there will always be two strategy cards left. These are left on the table and a “Bonus” chit is placed on each. If a strategy card is left unpicked for many rounds, the Bonuses continue to accrue. This mechanic ensures that even an unpopular Strategy will eventually be played.

“Imperial” wasn’t chosen in the last round, and. “Warfare” hasn’t been chosen for three.

When all players have chosen a Strategy, the action phase begins.

Yesterday I went through the setup, but I broke my rule dictating that I must describe victory conditions first, so I am backtracking.

The only scoring metric for the game is the “victory point”. (Some day, I am going to try to find one of these, and describe what they look like. They must be pretty awesome because it seems that every friggin game is based on collecting them.)

The main game is played to 10, although there are ways to short-circuit this and finish the game sooner. There is also a variant called “The Long War” that plays to 14. I won’t be playing that one for… a while. Victory points are counted on the victory point track.

There are three ways to get victory points. Either complete a Secret objective, a Public objective, or use the Primary ability of the “Imperial” Strategy. (More on using the strategies in Part 2!) With the exception of the Secret Objectives, the Imperial strategy must be involved. Objectives are not revealed without the Imperial strategy being invoked.

The Imperial Strategy

Each player gets one secret objective. They generally have two victory points.

In addition, all players can get points from the Public Objective Cards. The main game has ten of these cards in a deck on the play area. Six of them are Stage I objectives. These are fairly easy to achieve, usually relating to amassing generic resources.?These grant one victory point.?The other four are Stage II objectives which are more complex, requiring players to own a?occupy planets,?or develop technologies.?These usually grant two points. Included with the Stage II objectives is the “Imperium Rex” card, which ends the game immediately.

As the “Imperial” Strategy is activated, the top card in the objective stack is revealed. Thus, the game begins with no objectives at all, and builds turn by turn thereafter (assuming that the Imperial strategy is played often.) If no player chooses the Imperial strategy during a given round, no new objective is revealed.

Near the beginning…

As each player fulfills the objectives, a chit is placed on the corresponding card.

Near the end…

As you can see in the picture above, the “Supremacy” Objective, if completed, grants victory to the player, regardless of points. Since there are nine different Stage II Objective cards, and the main game gives you three possibles, your game may not have this card at all.

It should be noted that the player using the Imperial strategy automatically gets two victory points. This means that the game could end by the beginning of the fifth turn if the same player picked the imperial strategy each time. So, if you don’t like the game and want to end it soon, you know what to do!

In one of the recent great Tangapacolypses, I pulled the trigger on Twilight Imperium. On paper, this is exactly not my type of game. Complex, massive, and epically long.

However, it is currently #22 on Boardgamegeek, and my previous Tanga policy was, buy anything in the top 50.

So, when all 10 pounds of it arrived on my doorstep, I wasn’t really sure what to make of it. I let it perk for a week in the analog room before I moved it closer. Then it started talking to me. Open me up and check out all my bits… there’s lots of them, and they are pretty!

I did, and read the rules, and enthusiastically told Mrs. G about how cool they were, and she explained how cool they weren’t. So being the “best husband evar”, I have decided to hold a meeting of the “Players with Yourself Club” rather than inflict another game on her. (For now.)

First of all, there is a lot of setup for this game. There are tons of hexes and different kinds of cards and chits and bits. What follows is a chronology of the cool parts. Or at least the parts that I got to tonight.

There are ten races in the game. Each has a distinct personality and special abilities.

The ten races also have a homeworld they call their own.

Each player’s race is determined by randomly drawing a hex from the set.

There are several different kinds of hexes, other than the previously mentioned homeworlds. There are one-planet systems, two-planet systems, completely blank space, wormhole endpoints, asteroid fields, nebulae, and the supernova.

Now, the galaxy is created. “Mecatol Rex” is placed in the center, and the player’s homeworlds are arranged around it, two hexes from the center. This is a six-player layout. The rules allow for 3-6 players.

The remaining 32 tiles are shuffled and two are removed randomly

The rest are distributed to the players face down

Going clockwise from the starting player, the first ring is created. Each player places a tile from their hand one at a time.

Once the first ring is complete, the last player puts the first hex in ring two. Each player can place their hex any where they want, as long as it is in ring two.

Ring two is now complete.

On to ring three.

The final pieces are added, and the galaxy is finished! Note the strategic placement of the special tiles, creating buffer zones between the homeworlds.

Now we move on to the objective cards. These define how points will be earned throughout the game. There are ten cards of each type.

First, the Secret objective cards. Each player is given one of these cards, which is to be kept secret by the player. The remaining cards are returned to the box.

Next, the Stage II Public Objective cards are prepared. Four of the ten cards are taken and placed on the table. Amongst these cards is the Imperium Rex card, which mandates that the game ends as soon as it is revealed. This is a mechanism that forces the game to end in approximately ten turns.

On top of the four Stage II cards are placed six stage I public objection cards.

In my game, the Imperium Rex card is the ninth in the stack. Depending on fate, this card can be from the seventh to the tenth in the stack.

All that’s left is the individual player area. This contains the race card, the various status cards, the command chits, and the bits!

The collected plastic bits, representing battling units, both space and ground.

From here the game really begins. Stay tuned…

I have infected two “non-gamers” with?Catan?this week. I am starting everyone with a tutorial game of the Settlers of Catan Card Game, which you can read about here.

My hope is that, by the next Bunker Party, there will be an army of Catan addicts. From there… Puerto Rico… and then… Twilight Imperium, my new Holy Grail!

The Emperor… which is not me. The emperor, as you married people know, is the wife.

I have now officially struck out three times with Mrs. G. First Settlers the Card Game, followed by Caylus, and ending with Colosseum.

?I was sure she was going to like it. I mean, the whole thing is about putting on a good show, and she had a drama career in High School and College… and… it’s a Days of Wonder game! They made a wargame that she liked! A?war game!

But alas, it was not to be. We made it through one?round before she begged me to stop. The game only has five. Seriously, I figured knowing exactly when the game was going to end would help. Obviously it didn’t.

So, I’ll tell you about what I’ve learned through playing one round. Maybe you’ll like it.

First, the game is about putting on productions in “Roman times”.? Productions boil down to groups of assets, represented by cardboard chits.

In the picture above, you see two of the “free” productions I was given at the start of the game. “Naumachia” and “Drama Ultima”. Above them are the six assets I started with. I have one of the four assets I need for Naumachia, the red gladiator. I have two of the six assets I need for “Drama Ultima”, the yellow actor, and the blue columns.

From here I need to acquire more assets to complete my production. They can be?purchased by auction?from the markets.

I can initiate bidding on any one of the five sets above. ?My best bet is probably the rightmost side of the pentagon, which has a horse, a torch, and an actor. This would give me four of the six I need.

Of course, I need to win the auction. It is very likely that another player desperately needs?parts of that set.

Unfortunately,?you must?produce something each round, so?you’re stuck with what you get. However, productions are slightly forgiving, and you don’t need?all the pieces to put on?the show. You?just don’t score as well without them. Had I acquired my desired set, I would have been?two assets short, and would have netted?eight points instead of the twelve for a complete production.

If the game was limited to this, I think she?would have been fine.?The game is notlimited to this though.?First, you have to?trick out your?colosseum?in a few different ways.?Making it bigger, to house?more elaborate productions,?adding an Emporer’s Loge, which makes it more attractive to the nobles, or adding season tickets, which guarantees spectators.

A basic Colosseum. There are two spots for a noble to reside in. As the Colosseum expands, there are more chances for nobles to land there.

From there you’ve got this whole noble thing. They are constantly circling the board, and through die rolls, you influence who moves where. Get a noble in your Colosseum, and they bring in more spectators. Get a noble to “resting place” and you get a medal which you can turn in for more stuff.

A senator on the track.

It was about this point where I really lost her. I must admit, I don’t know what the real-world equivalent of the “medals for resting places” is, but I understand how it works in the game, and she didn’t.

I liked this 1/5th of?the game that I played. There are lots of tricky decisions to be made regarding expansions. There is a social component with the bidding and trading of assets. And finally, the assets you acquire at the beginning of the game?ultimately contribute?to the final production at the end, so there is a?sort of climax?in the last round of the game that is probably very satisfying… if you ever get there.

I hope to rope some suckers into a full-on game at a Bunker party, or a game night or whatever, so go to the Days of Wonder site and download the rules!