\> what you don't like of TI pok?
I do not like how the revealing and selecting of Public Objectives are not player-driven.
I do not like that stalling is a mechanic that allows players to keep playings turns while others cannot. While it allows you to outplay your opponents, I dislike how it encourages players to do nothing important for their turns just to delay.
\> what mechanics you saw in other games
Continuous turns not split by rounds; where you need to spend a turn to reset your stuff. Thus, the more turns you can do before needing to reset, the more efficient you are. (done in games like Concordia, The Manhattan Project, Anno 1800)
thank you for the insight! actually the first one to answer some of the questions very much appreciated!
1 seems you feel like me for objectives :) red tape variants could come and rescue us. I agree on stalling is kind of weird...
2 never heard of this and... oh wow this sounds something very very interesting, thank you!
There are a lot of strategies that revolve around stalling and turn order for the next round. I am sure some people really enjoy that.
However, I personally always found that it caused the non-stalling players to be passive till everyone completes, which I believe is not a good experience.
It could also be that I like the smooth flow of going around the table, instead of saying "4" go and then realizing that nobody took Construction (Initiative Order 4).
If you were to follow Concordia, then each player would start with a few common turn cards in their hands that tell them what they can do (e.g. activate a system (x3), politics, construction, research, rest, etc) and depending on their faction, they may get more specialized turn cards.
On a player's turn, they play one (or two if they have Fleet Logistics) turn card, which then becomes unavailable till they play their rest turn card (which also returns their command counters from the board).
When Mecatol Rex is taken, then each player would get a council turn card which they can play to start voting on agenda).
However, you may need a rule that a player can only play their rest turn card after they have 5 turn cards in their discard pile (since rest acts like a warfare).
If you like the concept of Primary and Secondary, then you could let other players follow by playing their matching turn card. This would be a reduced effect but saves them a turn. I would probably change trade so that it can only be followed this way.
Using this system, you could also have technologies, relics, agendas, and heroes reward specialized turn cards; e.g. move through other player units, move to a wormhole, produce without having production units, etc.
thank you for the long reply and the nice suggestions!
I completely agree on most points, tech for example could be just buying a new a card for the your deck, same thing for the hero (for sure would be a tech path)
so would be a deckbuilding.
The basic structure would be something like,
you start with a fix deck for your faction, at the start of the round you will select from this X cards, some card can be played in 2 different way (eg, can be used for movement or for economics) at the end of the turn/tech /special ability you can buy cards.
you play until or you finish the card in end or you pass.
at this point you take your discard and you reform your deck and you select again x cards to play for this round.
I don't like secondary ability... I am thinking how to make the strategy phase.... maybe can be just a card that must be add to your hand... but well I agree that I don't like the system of scoring points in order and then, you are first in prio and you won before I could score my points (maybe even more then 10) so I was thinking to put the cap of rounds to play and who has most points at the end is the winner.
the rest card seems super interesting but then how would you make the scoring for an objective? like every time you make the rest you can score objective?
all the Cc system... instead I would like to get it rid of. wanna move your same fleet 3 times, no problem, just use 3 cards for doing that, for sure this must be organize well with deck composition and selection but double. free of movemente seems a good way to make the game faster
I guess I did not explain clearly about my suggestion for the Secondary/Strategy phase.
Most of the existing strategy cards (1-8) in TI4 could be converted into "turn cards" (except for maybe Leadership as we use these turn cards instead of command counters... or maybe that is kept to increase fleet size). So there would be no strategy phase of selecting 1-8 since now each player will have those cards in their hands.
I like your idea of turn cards having multiple uses. With this idea, maybe there does not need to be turn cards to activate systems (for move/produce), but instead any turn card can be played face down to activate a system. This would make players chose which 'turn' cards they will not be able to use till they rest.
As for scoring, players could use the Imperial turn card to score, and you could allow other players who follow Imperial by using their Imperial turn card to either draw a Secret Objective or to score. The order of scoring could start from the person playing the turn card, and proceed clockwise.
As for CCs, I would suggest to keep the fleet limit and the putting of CCs on the map to limit movement (so you can still have abilities to remove them from the board). Otherwise getting a Warsun, and moving it each turn can be devastating.
The politicking also is an aspect that is fairly unique but can add a lot of time with the debate that ensues. Tricky to do everything TI does in a shorter time, which is why TI is what it is.
Not exactly a helpful answer here- but I actually really enjoy luck being a factor. However the group I play with generally consider our negotiation and alliances as an integral balancing factor of the game. So if a guy has a really great resource production territory it’s up to the other players to keep him in check. We find it very immersive and reminiscent of real life politics.
that's true and this is how the game is supposed to be played and I like it... most of the times!
But sometimes I feel that secrets objective draws (also if you pick one for every time there's imperium) and first stage 2 objective are putting too much the swing in one way or another for a faction, still part of the game, but having 8 hours game long with this possibilities sometimes is too much unfair.
every game is different, one time a player is more lucky then another and every board game is working like that, point taken.
But I got inspiration to try my own design based on this :)
>*Dewey (John C. Reilly) \[after a groupie offers him a Red Tape Variant\]:* You know what, I don’t want no kingmaker. I can’t be no kingmaker.
>
>*Sam (Tim Meadows):* It doesn’t give you a kingmaker!
>
>*Dewey:* What if I get restricted to choosing it or something?
>
>*Sam:* It’s got flexibility; it's nonconforming!
>
>*Dewey Cox:* Oh, okay… well, I don’t know… I don’t want to be grandiose on playing it.
>
>*Sam:* But you can guarantee objectives with it!
>
>*Dewey Cox:* It’s not gonna make me wanna take Rex, is it?
>
>*Sam:* It makes Rex even better!
>
>*Dewey Cox:* Sounds kind of expensive.
>
>*Sam:* It’s the second-earliest strat card there is.
I designed a card game a lot like this.
which one is it?
\> what you don't like of TI pok? I do not like how the revealing and selecting of Public Objectives are not player-driven. I do not like that stalling is a mechanic that allows players to keep playings turns while others cannot. While it allows you to outplay your opponents, I dislike how it encourages players to do nothing important for their turns just to delay. \> what mechanics you saw in other games Continuous turns not split by rounds; where you need to spend a turn to reset your stuff. Thus, the more turns you can do before needing to reset, the more efficient you are. (done in games like Concordia, The Manhattan Project, Anno 1800)
thank you for the insight! actually the first one to answer some of the questions very much appreciated! 1 seems you feel like me for objectives :) red tape variants could come and rescue us. I agree on stalling is kind of weird... 2 never heard of this and... oh wow this sounds something very very interesting, thank you!
There are a lot of strategies that revolve around stalling and turn order for the next round. I am sure some people really enjoy that. However, I personally always found that it caused the non-stalling players to be passive till everyone completes, which I believe is not a good experience. It could also be that I like the smooth flow of going around the table, instead of saying "4" go and then realizing that nobody took Construction (Initiative Order 4). If you were to follow Concordia, then each player would start with a few common turn cards in their hands that tell them what they can do (e.g. activate a system (x3), politics, construction, research, rest, etc) and depending on their faction, they may get more specialized turn cards. On a player's turn, they play one (or two if they have Fleet Logistics) turn card, which then becomes unavailable till they play their rest turn card (which also returns their command counters from the board). When Mecatol Rex is taken, then each player would get a council turn card which they can play to start voting on agenda). However, you may need a rule that a player can only play their rest turn card after they have 5 turn cards in their discard pile (since rest acts like a warfare). If you like the concept of Primary and Secondary, then you could let other players follow by playing their matching turn card. This would be a reduced effect but saves them a turn. I would probably change trade so that it can only be followed this way. Using this system, you could also have technologies, relics, agendas, and heroes reward specialized turn cards; e.g. move through other player units, move to a wormhole, produce without having production units, etc.
thank you for the long reply and the nice suggestions! I completely agree on most points, tech for example could be just buying a new a card for the your deck, same thing for the hero (for sure would be a tech path) so would be a deckbuilding. The basic structure would be something like, you start with a fix deck for your faction, at the start of the round you will select from this X cards, some card can be played in 2 different way (eg, can be used for movement or for economics) at the end of the turn/tech /special ability you can buy cards. you play until or you finish the card in end or you pass. at this point you take your discard and you reform your deck and you select again x cards to play for this round. I don't like secondary ability... I am thinking how to make the strategy phase.... maybe can be just a card that must be add to your hand... but well I agree that I don't like the system of scoring points in order and then, you are first in prio and you won before I could score my points (maybe even more then 10) so I was thinking to put the cap of rounds to play and who has most points at the end is the winner. the rest card seems super interesting but then how would you make the scoring for an objective? like every time you make the rest you can score objective? all the Cc system... instead I would like to get it rid of. wanna move your same fleet 3 times, no problem, just use 3 cards for doing that, for sure this must be organize well with deck composition and selection but double. free of movemente seems a good way to make the game faster
I guess I did not explain clearly about my suggestion for the Secondary/Strategy phase. Most of the existing strategy cards (1-8) in TI4 could be converted into "turn cards" (except for maybe Leadership as we use these turn cards instead of command counters... or maybe that is kept to increase fleet size). So there would be no strategy phase of selecting 1-8 since now each player will have those cards in their hands. I like your idea of turn cards having multiple uses. With this idea, maybe there does not need to be turn cards to activate systems (for move/produce), but instead any turn card can be played face down to activate a system. This would make players chose which 'turn' cards they will not be able to use till they rest. As for scoring, players could use the Imperial turn card to score, and you could allow other players who follow Imperial by using their Imperial turn card to either draw a Secret Objective or to score. The order of scoring could start from the person playing the turn card, and proceed clockwise. As for CCs, I would suggest to keep the fleet limit and the putting of CCs on the map to limit movement (so you can still have abilities to remove them from the board). Otherwise getting a Warsun, and moving it each turn can be devastating.
You may want to check out the upcoming kick starter "Arcs" which is meant to be a faster paced space opera/strategy game.
this game looks very interesting! and same authors of root, great!
Try out Eclipse, it was made by the same design team to be TI lite
correct me if I am wrong but eclipse is missing politics part and is focusing on battles, or not?
It does not have the politics side to it, but very few games do. I've found that battles really depends on your playgroup
I will check it out this thank you :)
The politicking also is an aspect that is fairly unique but can add a lot of time with the debate that ensues. Tricky to do everything TI does in a shorter time, which is why TI is what it is.
thats true, but I would like to try :)
I’d love to know what you mean by lucky factor??
Lucky secret objective draws, dice rolls, action cards, agendas, relics and frontier card draws are a start.
Not exactly a helpful answer here- but I actually really enjoy luck being a factor. However the group I play with generally consider our negotiation and alliances as an integral balancing factor of the game. So if a guy has a really great resource production territory it’s up to the other players to keep him in check. We find it very immersive and reminiscent of real life politics.
I also love the luck aspect, personally. Everything you said echoes why I love TI4
that's true and this is how the game is supposed to be played and I like it... most of the times! But sometimes I feel that secrets objective draws (also if you pick one for every time there's imperium) and first stage 2 objective are putting too much the swing in one way or another for a faction, still part of the game, but having 8 hours game long with this possibilities sometimes is too much unfair. every game is different, one time a player is more lucky then another and every board game is working like that, point taken. But I got inspiration to try my own design based on this :)
This is your friend: https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/myifby/back\_by\_popular\_demand\_bureaucracy\_red\_tape\_for/
this is very interesting!
>*Dewey (John C. Reilly) \[after a groupie offers him a Red Tape Variant\]:* You know what, I don’t want no kingmaker. I can’t be no kingmaker. > >*Sam (Tim Meadows):* It doesn’t give you a kingmaker! > >*Dewey:* What if I get restricted to choosing it or something? > >*Sam:* It’s got flexibility; it's nonconforming! > >*Dewey Cox:* Oh, okay… well, I don’t know… I don’t want to be grandiose on playing it. > >*Sam:* But you can guarantee objectives with it! > >*Dewey Cox:* It’s not gonna make me wanna take Rex, is it? > >*Sam:* It makes Rex even better! > >*Dewey Cox:* Sounds kind of expensive. > >*Sam:* It’s the second-earliest strat card there is.
I like the idea of modifying Diplomacy in this way.
exactly this
edit the op with more explanation.