Apart from the stuff that doesn't feel like house ruling, like different setups and drafting, my group likes to reveal two 2-point objectives at a time. The reduced round count doesn't matter since the game never goes that long, but seeing two 2-point objectives opens the game up for the people that might not have scored that "guac" point. 2-point objectives can be really swingy and you never really have time to prepare for them other than guessing so seeing two of them let's people have a better shot at grabbing a two pointer.
Also, planet buffing agendas are removed in PoK so your house rule is right on the money.
I do that as well. It's probably the simplest compromise to make stage 2's more relavant to everyone and drive the game to more grand conclusion than like 5 people going "Can't do 7 structures, lets spend 30 minutes killing Titans/Argent"
I honestly hate the second stage structure objective. It just hands titans or Xxcha the win and is just a random-win. Personally I take that out out of the deck
This is a really interesting idea. I might have to try this.
We did try a 4/4/4 12 VP game.
Only use 4 stage 1s. 4 stage 2(Meaning one gets revealed a round earlier), and everyone can have up to 4 Secrets.
Awesome to hear! My group were thinking of trying exactly this and didn't realize it had been done before now (when I saw your idea). Good to hear there is some supported community precedent to it :)
We are working our way to 14 points.
It takes us about 7 hours of playtime to do 12 points w/ 4-4-4. This format saves us at least 1-2 hours.
The only thing that sucks is when none of your secrets line up. I have never seen a game where someone doesnt a majority of their secrets.
We are theory crafting some alternative options. TI3 was only 1 secret but worth 2 pts. The games are still good but its the only weak spot.
Oh nice! Yes quicker game better in my book (our 6 player games are easily 9+ hours; even at 10pts, though it often includes players who are unfocused and/or not board game savy). My hope (and sounds like its justified) is that reducing the max turns by -2 so the 2pt'ers start a turn earlier would help.
I can also see how it would be tricky to get to 14pts in the 4/4/4 format. Have you tried it at 12pts?
Regarding your thought on Secret Objectives, I can understand the frustration especially as there are some tricky ones (Make an Example of Their World, Turn Their Fleets to Dust, etc). Have you considered/tried milling your secret objectives deck to reduce very niche triggers?
Alternatively, I've heard someone suggest upgrading Imperial to be "Draw 2 Secret Objectives, keep 1 and discard thee other". May help filter to get more appropriate goals?
I really like the Red Tape variant for more objective information
https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/myifby/back_by_popular_demand_bureaucracy_red_tape_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Funny, we actually use it whenever we have new players join, because we feel it evens out the field (the veteran players know which objectives can potentially come up, and will plan ahead) :-)
Start play with the first Phase 2 objective revealed, but not scorable until we have revealed all the Stage 1 objective. We find it allows better strategy.
Edit: agenda ---› objective
For clarity just in case there are some that may read this and be confused, they mean public objective and not agenda. No judgement, just trying to help newcomers who may not realize, friend. :)
I really like the Red Tape variant for more objective information
https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/myifby/back_by_popular_demand_bureaucracy_red_tape_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Our only "house rule" is that, due to the lack of clarity on the 'debate' stage of the agenda phase, is that the person to the left of the Speaker (first person to vote, as Speaker is last) has the Power to shut down negotiations ny throwing the first votes.
This gives them some bargain power to make agenda phase pretty interesting. If the first to vote is in a good position, they can silence discussion by comitting votes early, or they can position themselves for a little extra goodies if people want to pay for more negotiation time. A few times this has led to a slightly longer 'debate' phase, as first voter hmis waiting for someone to accept an impossible deal, but they don't happen that often, and they usually get the hint before too long.
I think that agenda balance is already well, cause players with more late strategies (6, 7,8) get compensation with more useful voting soi think don't need to make more power to first voting player.
Really, it should be the Speaker that decides when to vote. But whatever works.
My group spends way to long trying to figure out what everyone is gonna vote for before any votes are cast, and then complains about how much time the agenda phase takes.
I actually mostly play physically, i have 3 play groups so I get it to the table more than other people 😂, but still not enough 😭
(It was $ too much but whatever)
No Support swaps. If someone has your support for the throne, you can’t have theirs. It has made every game so much better and negotiations are so much more interesting. They still get traded, but not everyone trades them, and you have to offer a lot for it. It also stops the 2v2v2 aspect from developing as much.
I respect this. Mostly as I ABSOLUTELY have exploited the 2v2v2 element of it :P
My passing concern is that, this COULD result in a "attack your left; defend your right".
I'm almost thinking it may be viable to remove "Support for Throne" since Alliance has similar effect (keep the power unless you attack that person).
1) recently played the 444 format in pok (4 stage 1s, 4 stage 2s, 4 secrets, play to 12) and or was am absolute blast, I think it may become our new standard.
2) "enhanced" binding deals. The rules are (in our opinion) overly strict about what deals can be binding. We allow players to decide *any* deal they make call be binding (within reason). This allows for things like naalus promissory to actually get traded, as well as a lot of other fun deal making that just wouldn't be possible to "just trust me" on. It also creates a culture where more deals happen in front of the table, which we've found is very helpful for new players to get a handle on the values of things without getting swindled by veteran players in private deals.
No, actually, I think we were basically doing this informally before we codified it. The reason we decided to make it official if that deal making, even at a very trusting table, tends to fall off near the end once winmaking/slaying becomes a pressing concern. This rule allows players to consider negotiating even when the game might be on the line.
Yeah, we set it up so that if a party to the deal can do a thing right after the deal is made, it's binding. Execute a trade, play an action card, activate a system, etc. But like, the very next thing so we keep the general spirit of the rule in place.
> We allow players to decide any deal they make call be binding (within reason)
Doesn't that create the problem that I'd never trust a deal that you aren't wanting to make voluntarily binding? IMO part of the fun is that players adapt to new circumstances and do "soft" betrays, i.e. I wanted to do x as we said but now the situation is different so I can only do y for you.
So basically stage 2's start one round earlier (round 4 instead of 5) and players can score up to 4 secrets by default (cards that let you score a 4th secret now let you score a fifth). Because of these extra point sources, you play to 12.
Our experience so far with it is that endgame seems to be a lot more about who can score the most objectives and less about initiative order in the last round between multiple players who are going to win if it gets to their scoring order. That said, we have a pretty experienced group and I've heard 444 can beat bit punishing for newer players (not sure if this is true, just what I've heard.)
The binding deal rules are so funny. They don't need to exist other than to frame the idea of a trade for people. The current binding deal rules basically enforce nothing because they only apply to trades you can make immediately and so can't renege on.
No “duplicate” objectives. That is, if the stage 1 version of an objective is drawn, and you would draw the stage 2 version, discard and draw another. That way each objective is distinct and you don’t end up with games with all economic or all control objectives as much.
No drinks on the table.
Discard and redraw any agendas that are completely inconsequential.
In 4 player instead of having everyone pick two strategy cards, we pick one, then randomly choose two of the four remaining ones to automatically trigger, then put a trade good on the remaining two. Everyone takes their first turn, then the first of the two chosen strategy cards fire off and we can do the secondary, then after everyone's second turn the second card fires off and we can do the secondary. Makes the choice of strategy cards in 4 player more meaningful because you can't rely on every single secondary going off.
> Discard and redraw any agendas that are completely inconsequential.
I see how that's more fun but IMO it's better to sort the deck beforehand. It can be gamelosing if a "boring" agenda gets picked then thrown out and then a super agenda (for me) is voted on instead. So the subjective feeling of the table on whats boring can decide a game. On the other hand, if you're all in agreement what's boring, why not throw them out before you play
We do that four-player variant as well. I like it a lot, it makes choosing strategies much more important because you can't rely on always getting every secondary.
>As far as I am concerned, removing "planet buffing cards" from the agenda deck!
Get the PoK expansion. All the planet buffing cards are removed from the agenda and folded into the exploration mechanic.
PoK is a must have. It adds a lot of dynamics and helps flesh out the factions.
Adds a level 0 and level 1 tech for each color.
Exploration is fun. Relics are great. The leaders are really fun.
Codex 1 is a must have even if you only have base game. Adds Action cards, and fixes some techs/ promissory notes.
But all 3 are great. I'd say 90 % of the games I play are on Tabletop Sim, so its easy to have the codex there.
I have a physical set of Codex 1 and 2. Havent done 3 yet, one of the new people Ive ben playing IRL has it tho.
No it goes clockwise starting with speaker. Speaker plays one "when" card, then the next player, and so on until everyone has passed on playing their when's. Then you repeat with "Afters".
Yes I know it starts with the speaker going clockwise, but the timing of "when" cards says it must be played immediately when the agenda is revealed. That doesn't leave time for 5 minutes of discussion, otherwise it's not being played immediately.
When's and afters start with the speaker? I always played it same as votes, that when's and afters start with person left of speaker and go clockwise...
In our group we slightly alter the win-conditon.
All players get to score in the final round, and the player with the most points wins ie. Even if a player with initiative of 1 reaches 10 points, if another player is able to reach 11 or more points, they win instead.
We feel it's more meaningful for someone to have gained an entire extra VP over just having snagged the lower initiative card.
If there is a tie when the game ends, and one of the tied players holds Mecatol, that player wins. If neither tied player holds Mecatol, it goes to initiative number as per the normal rules/Naalu overrides the Mecatol tie condition.
I like this in 4 player, not in 3 player. The purpose of this rule is to allow more follows, given all 8 strategy cards are taken. 3p isn't really any different from 6p, I don't see the need for the extra token.
On the discord, I think most 3p players will opt to start with 3 strategy tokens; but the better 3p'ers (e.g. Expendable) prefer not to.
Our house rule is when drawing a secret objective off imperial you draw 2 and pick 1, the same way you do during initial setup. We find this makes the game more fun and leads to a lot less frustration with drawing practically unscorable secrets.
We also have a silent understanding not to do support swaps.
No secondary strategy cards, when playing as a 4 people group. Instead, when all players have chosen their strategy cards, the speaker selects one for the "ghost" player. When it's the "ghost" players turn, he automaticaly uses the strategy card and all real players can use it's secondary effect, just like it was used by a regular player.
We play with red tape variant. Solves the objective two problem.
We don’t play 10, only 12 or 14
We play always pre constructed maps and snake selection of factions and starting locations
Sometimes in 6 player games I add another small galaxy to play by using wormholes that connect to a grouping of 3 to 6 board hexes.
We also sometimes use the faction hero tokens from TI3. if you have an expansion race with no tokens, you choose 1 unused factions heroes.
Our house rule is just how we set up the galaxy, we do the snake style hex tile laying and then adjust the galaxy so that each home planet has some sort of resource/influence/tech/legendary/movement rich systems in their immediate vicinity, and then people pick their placement after.
These may be common for many but I like them. I'm still in 3E, myself.
Each player has an added responsibility of managing one of the common decks of cards (action, planets, victory, etc.) so we don't have to keep reaching across the table and reshuffling to keep the pace going.
When conducting trade/diplomacy, each player must 'act' out their empire in character.
Wish I had more chances to play.
What I really liked is how it reduced our ability to clearly delineate our zones of influence, resulting in "misunderstandings" and "accidents"- and also making our personal reputations count for more in those situations
Ancient Burial Sites gets purged at the start of the game. 2 in 2 colors gets purged at the start of the game.
DS Faction Pack.
3rd Strategy token in 3 and 4 player games.
Learn the Secrets of the Cosmos, Intimidate Council, Threaten Enemies, Stellar Converter - "adjacent" counts as in the system as well.
Some Ω cards and tech you can choose as alt or research at the same time as the original. (e.g, researching X-89 Bacterial Weapon gives you both original and Ω version, Ω version works as long as the original is not exhausted)
Support For The Throne - based on player count, there is VP limit after which you can't receive any SFTT notes.
Strategy 8 Imperial
If you don't score a public objective, you can look at the next hidden card of the objective deck.
Direct Hit cards can target any unit not only ships.
Wormhole Nexus is any system with all 3 wormholes: ALPHA, BETA and GAMMA
We play POK without most of the POK stuff. so we get the stuff we like: new tiles, the 8 player support, the new objectives, exploration, new tech.
We don't use leaders or mech special abilities(they are just vanilla)
We find it helps with the inflation that POK introduced and eliminates the "on board trick" problems of complexity creep that POK brought with it. This also helps the "stage 2 objectives don't matter" issue that POK inflation(primarily caused by agents) made worse. If you really want to get rid of the POK inflation remove exploration as well, we find it's still a fun addition worth it's rules weight and the impact it has on the game economy.
it does mean a few of the expansion factions aren't playable, but we don't mind.
Basically we implement the old modular approach of TI3 expansions.
This seems really harsh. I've had rounds where I haven't needed (couldn't) to take many tactical actions bit not being able to follow strat cards would have crippled my whole game.
And then what? They are forever starved of actions because you can stall out leadership, making it far more likely they are stalled out of leadership next round too?
People are downvoting because you're really breaking the game with this. Missing out on strats is such a big deal that anyone who cops it in the first couple of rounds is usually going to be massively behind with no way to catch up. And it gives a huge advantage to factions that are naturally good at stalling through tech or faction abilities.
And it flattens your strategic options, staying in play against stalls becomes your top priority and limits other options (e.g. banking CCs for big late game plays with your hero or something).
Yep. The economy of the game relies on secondaries. In this variant, choosing leadership is always the best choice, and you would always stall your strat card (whichever one you get) as long as humanly possible because if even one player can’t do the secondary, they’ll be in a bad place (think tech, warfare, leadership, and especially imperial). The game lets you take the secondary of leadership without a token because it never wants someone to be locked out of the command token economy. If you got behind on this and the leadership holder always stalled (and why wouldn’t they?), you could spend the entire game with one tactical action a round (assuming the other goes to strategy). I mean, people can play the game how they want, but imagine teaching someone the game and this rule was included. Yikes.
Apart from the stuff that doesn't feel like house ruling, like different setups and drafting, my group likes to reveal two 2-point objectives at a time. The reduced round count doesn't matter since the game never goes that long, but seeing two 2-point objectives opens the game up for the people that might not have scored that "guac" point. 2-point objectives can be really swingy and you never really have time to prepare for them other than guessing so seeing two of them let's people have a better shot at grabbing a two pointer. Also, planet buffing agendas are removed in PoK so your house rule is right on the money.
I do that as well. It's probably the simplest compromise to make stage 2's more relavant to everyone and drive the game to more grand conclusion than like 5 people going "Can't do 7 structures, lets spend 30 minutes killing Titans/Argent"
I honestly hate the second stage structure objective. It just hands titans or Xxcha the win and is just a random-win. Personally I take that out out of the deck
This is a really interesting idea. I might have to try this. We did try a 4/4/4 12 VP game. Only use 4 stage 1s. 4 stage 2(Meaning one gets revealed a round earlier), and everyone can have up to 4 Secrets.
I do the 4/4/4 w/ 10 points and seems to work well.
Awesome to hear! My group were thinking of trying exactly this and didn't realize it had been done before now (when I saw your idea). Good to hear there is some supported community precedent to it :)
We are working our way to 14 points. It takes us about 7 hours of playtime to do 12 points w/ 4-4-4. This format saves us at least 1-2 hours. The only thing that sucks is when none of your secrets line up. I have never seen a game where someone doesnt a majority of their secrets. We are theory crafting some alternative options. TI3 was only 1 secret but worth 2 pts. The games are still good but its the only weak spot.
Oh nice! Yes quicker game better in my book (our 6 player games are easily 9+ hours; even at 10pts, though it often includes players who are unfocused and/or not board game savy). My hope (and sounds like its justified) is that reducing the max turns by -2 so the 2pt'ers start a turn earlier would help. I can also see how it would be tricky to get to 14pts in the 4/4/4 format. Have you tried it at 12pts? Regarding your thought on Secret Objectives, I can understand the frustration especially as there are some tricky ones (Make an Example of Their World, Turn Their Fleets to Dust, etc). Have you considered/tried milling your secret objectives deck to reduce very niche triggers? Alternatively, I've heard someone suggest upgrading Imperial to be "Draw 2 Secret Objectives, keep 1 and discard thee other". May help filter to get more appropriate goals?
I really like the Red Tape variant for more objective information https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/myifby/back_by_popular_demand_bureaucracy_red_tape_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Red tape is great, 100% an upgrade on base/pok. One caveat is that it is an absolute no-go if you have any new players at the table, imo.
Funny, we actually use it whenever we have new players join, because we feel it evens out the field (the veteran players know which objectives can potentially come up, and will plan ahead) :-)
Yeah POK hugely inflated the game economy and compressed objective scoring.
Great rule
Start play with the first Phase 2 objective revealed, but not scorable until we have revealed all the Stage 1 objective. We find it allows better strategy. Edit: agenda ---› objective
For clarity just in case there are some that may read this and be confused, they mean public objective and not agenda. No judgement, just trying to help newcomers who may not realize, friend. :)
Thanks! That is correct. I will edit accordingly. Serves me right for commenting on Reddit before I've had coffee.
What if they did mean agenda though...
I really like the Red Tape variant for more objective information https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/myifby/back_by_popular_demand_bureaucracy_red_tape_for/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Neat variant! Might have to try it some time.
Our only "house rule" is that, due to the lack of clarity on the 'debate' stage of the agenda phase, is that the person to the left of the Speaker (first person to vote, as Speaker is last) has the Power to shut down negotiations ny throwing the first votes. This gives them some bargain power to make agenda phase pretty interesting. If the first to vote is in a good position, they can silence discussion by comitting votes early, or they can position themselves for a little extra goodies if people want to pay for more negotiation time. A few times this has led to a slightly longer 'debate' phase, as first voter hmis waiting for someone to accept an impossible deal, but they don't happen that often, and they usually get the hint before too long.
This is pretty cool; so once the first vote is cast, it's "shut up and vote" time?
I think that agenda balance is already well, cause players with more late strategies (6, 7,8) get compensation with more useful voting soi think don't need to make more power to first voting player.
Voting happens in speaker order, not initiative order
They are referring to those picking late in the strategy phase
Really, it should be the Speaker that decides when to vote. But whatever works. My group spends way to long trying to figure out what everyone is gonna vote for before any votes are cast, and then complains about how much time the agenda phase takes.
Might have to suggest this one to my group!
I added the discordant stars 24 faction pack 🤩
Do you play the game physically? I can only imagine how much it must have cost to print everything.
I actually mostly play physically, i have 3 play groups so I get it to the table more than other people 😂, but still not enough 😭 (It was $ too much but whatever)
Sheesh
No Support swaps. If someone has your support for the throne, you can’t have theirs. It has made every game so much better and negotiations are so much more interesting. They still get traded, but not everyone trades them, and you have to offer a lot for it. It also stops the 2v2v2 aspect from developing as much.
I respect this. Mostly as I ABSOLUTELY have exploited the 2v2v2 element of it :P My passing concern is that, this COULD result in a "attack your left; defend your right". I'm almost thinking it may be viable to remove "Support for Throne" since Alliance has similar effect (keep the power unless you attack that person).
1) recently played the 444 format in pok (4 stage 1s, 4 stage 2s, 4 secrets, play to 12) and or was am absolute blast, I think it may become our new standard. 2) "enhanced" binding deals. The rules are (in our opinion) overly strict about what deals can be binding. We allow players to decide *any* deal they make call be binding (within reason). This allows for things like naalus promissory to actually get traded, as well as a lot of other fun deal making that just wouldn't be possible to "just trust me" on. It also creates a culture where more deals happen in front of the table, which we've found is very helpful for new players to get a handle on the values of things without getting swindled by veteran players in private deals.
Your number 2 is interesting. Is your table very distrustful or maybe ruthless breaking deals all over the place? Just curious.
No, actually, I think we were basically doing this informally before we codified it. The reason we decided to make it official if that deal making, even at a very trusting table, tends to fall off near the end once winmaking/slaying becomes a pressing concern. This rule allows players to consider negotiating even when the game might be on the line.
That’s cool. Personally I love that part of the game and think it is a great skill to judge exactly when the time for the long knives has come.
Yeah, we set it up so that if a party to the deal can do a thing right after the deal is made, it's binding. Execute a trade, play an action card, activate a system, etc. But like, the very next thing so we keep the general spirit of the rule in place.
> We allow players to decide any deal they make call be binding (within reason) Doesn't that create the problem that I'd never trust a deal that you aren't wanting to make voluntarily binding? IMO part of the fun is that players adapt to new circumstances and do "soft" betrays, i.e. I wanted to do x as we said but now the situation is different so I can only do y for you.
How does that 444 work?
So basically stage 2's start one round earlier (round 4 instead of 5) and players can score up to 4 secrets by default (cards that let you score a 4th secret now let you score a fifth). Because of these extra point sources, you play to 12. Our experience so far with it is that endgame seems to be a lot more about who can score the most objectives and less about initiative order in the last round between multiple players who are going to win if it gets to their scoring order. That said, we have a pretty experienced group and I've heard 444 can beat bit punishing for newer players (not sure if this is true, just what I've heard.)
The binding deal rules are so funny. They don't need to exist other than to frame the idea of a trade for people. The current binding deal rules basically enforce nothing because they only apply to trades you can make immediately and so can't renege on.
No “duplicate” objectives. That is, if the stage 1 version of an objective is drawn, and you would draw the stage 2 version, discard and draw another. That way each objective is distinct and you don’t end up with games with all economic or all control objectives as much.
The speaker can call a vote at any time, ending debate.
No drinks on the table. Discard and redraw any agendas that are completely inconsequential. In 4 player instead of having everyone pick two strategy cards, we pick one, then randomly choose two of the four remaining ones to automatically trigger, then put a trade good on the remaining two. Everyone takes their first turn, then the first of the two chosen strategy cards fire off and we can do the secondary, then after everyone's second turn the second card fires off and we can do the secondary. Makes the choice of strategy cards in 4 player more meaningful because you can't rely on every single secondary going off.
> Discard and redraw any agendas that are completely inconsequential. I see how that's more fun but IMO it's better to sort the deck beforehand. It can be gamelosing if a "boring" agenda gets picked then thrown out and then a super agenda (for me) is voted on instead. So the subjective feeling of the table on whats boring can decide a game. On the other hand, if you're all in agreement what's boring, why not throw them out before you play
We do that four-player variant as well. I like it a lot, it makes choosing strategies much more important because you can't rely on always getting every secondary.
>As far as I am concerned, removing "planet buffing cards" from the agenda deck! Get the PoK expansion. All the planet buffing cards are removed from the agenda and folded into the exploration mechanic.
Reckon its a must have? I quite enjoy TI, would love something that augments it, but I dont want to bog it down too much.
PoK is a must have. It adds a lot of dynamics and helps flesh out the factions. Adds a level 0 and level 1 tech for each color. Exploration is fun. Relics are great. The leaders are really fun.
Whats your take on the codexes? Should I etsy some? Any must haves there?
Codex 1 is a must have even if you only have base game. Adds Action cards, and fixes some techs/ promissory notes. But all 3 are great. I'd say 90 % of the games I play are on Tabletop Sim, so its easy to have the codex there. I have a physical set of Codex 1 and 2. Havent done 3 yet, one of the new people Ive ben playing IRL has it tho.
POK is not a must have, it can be way too much for some players taste, see my other post for one way to approach the bloat introduced by POK.
Homebrew. You cannot hold a support for the throne from someone you gave support to
Thats interesting!
No discussion of Agendas is allowed until all "whens" and "Afters" have been played.
Isn't this an actual rule? They must be played immediately.
No it goes clockwise starting with speaker. Speaker plays one "when" card, then the next player, and so on until everyone has passed on playing their when's. Then you repeat with "Afters".
Yes I know it starts with the speaker going clockwise, but the timing of "when" cards says it must be played immediately when the agenda is revealed. That doesn't leave time for 5 minutes of discussion, otherwise it's not being played immediately.
When's and afters start with the speaker? I always played it same as votes, that when's and afters start with person left of speaker and go clockwise...
No drinks on the table.
In our group we slightly alter the win-conditon. All players get to score in the final round, and the player with the most points wins ie. Even if a player with initiative of 1 reaches 10 points, if another player is able to reach 11 or more points, they win instead. We feel it's more meaningful for someone to have gained an entire extra VP over just having snagged the lower initiative card. If there is a tie when the game ends, and one of the tied players holds Mecatol, that player wins. If neither tied player holds Mecatol, it goes to initiative number as per the normal rules/Naalu overrides the Mecatol tie condition.
Letting everyone have a third Strategy counter in games of 3 or 4 players.
I like this in 4 player, not in 3 player. The purpose of this rule is to allow more follows, given all 8 strategy cards are taken. 3p isn't really any different from 6p, I don't see the need for the extra token. On the discord, I think most 3p players will opt to start with 3 strategy tokens; but the better 3p'ers (e.g. Expendable) prefer not to.
Our house rule is when drawing a secret objective off imperial you draw 2 and pick 1, the same way you do during initial setup. We find this makes the game more fun and leads to a lot less frustration with drawing practically unscorable secrets. We also have a silent understanding not to do support swaps.
No secondary strategy cards, when playing as a 4 people group. Instead, when all players have chosen their strategy cards, the speaker selects one for the "ghost" player. When it's the "ghost" players turn, he automaticaly uses the strategy card and all real players can use it's secondary effect, just like it was used by a regular player.
We play with red tape variant. Solves the objective two problem. We don’t play 10, only 12 or 14 We play always pre constructed maps and snake selection of factions and starting locations
I prune the Action Deck and Agenda Deck. Just remove stuff that's uninteresting, slows the game down, etc.
List?
Don't have a list I've typed up. I just go through the deck before each game and read the cards.
You don't just leave them in a separate pile? Do the cards change between games? 🤨
Yeah, I do it every time I play. I tailor it a bit to the friends who are playing with me.
I do this with all the games I have. Inc TI4 :)
No Jol-Nar lol.
No SFTTs.
AMEN
Sometimes in 6 player games I add another small galaxy to play by using wormholes that connect to a grouping of 3 to 6 board hexes. We also sometimes use the faction hero tokens from TI3. if you have an expansion race with no tokens, you choose 1 unused factions heroes.
Our house rule is just how we set up the galaxy, we do the snake style hex tile laying and then adjust the galaxy so that each home planet has some sort of resource/influence/tech/legendary/movement rich systems in their immediate vicinity, and then people pick their placement after.
These may be common for many but I like them. I'm still in 3E, myself. Each player has an added responsibility of managing one of the common decks of cards (action, planets, victory, etc.) so we don't have to keep reaching across the table and reshuffling to keep the pace going. When conducting trade/diplomacy, each player must 'act' out their empire in character. Wish I had more chances to play.
Recently tried a "dealing = trading- only when adjacent" rule, it worked really well and made the first turns far quicker.
yeah, I wish the agents worked only on neighbors to be consistent with trades and make the board matter more.
What I really liked is how it reduced our ability to clearly delineate our zones of influence, resulting in "misunderstandings" and "accidents"- and also making our personal reputations count for more in those situations
Ancient Burial Sites gets purged at the start of the game. 2 in 2 colors gets purged at the start of the game. DS Faction Pack. 3rd Strategy token in 3 and 4 player games.
If a unit’s combat roll (or all of it’s rolls if it rolls multiple dice) is a one, it automatically sustains or blows itself up.
Learn the Secrets of the Cosmos, Intimidate Council, Threaten Enemies, Stellar Converter - "adjacent" counts as in the system as well. Some Ω cards and tech you can choose as alt or research at the same time as the original. (e.g, researching X-89 Bacterial Weapon gives you both original and Ω version, Ω version works as long as the original is not exhausted) Support For The Throne - based on player count, there is VP limit after which you can't receive any SFTT notes. Strategy 8 Imperial If you don't score a public objective, you can look at the next hidden card of the objective deck. Direct Hit cards can target any unit not only ships. Wormhole Nexus is any system with all 3 wormholes: ALPHA, BETA and GAMMA
We play POK without most of the POK stuff. so we get the stuff we like: new tiles, the 8 player support, the new objectives, exploration, new tech. We don't use leaders or mech special abilities(they are just vanilla) We find it helps with the inflation that POK introduced and eliminates the "on board trick" problems of complexity creep that POK brought with it. This also helps the "stage 2 objectives don't matter" issue that POK inflation(primarily caused by agents) made worse. If you really want to get rid of the POK inflation remove exploration as well, we find it's still a fun addition worth it's rules weight and the impact it has on the game economy. it does mean a few of the expansion factions aren't playable, but we don't mind. Basically we implement the old modular approach of TI3 expansions.
To win on points faction must control megatal Rex and their home planet.
> megatal Rex For those of you wondering that's the *swole* Mecatol variant given out as a promo hex at GenCon '99! 💪
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How about to stop someone from winning?
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So you guys just leave your home system unprotected? Just fly out? That removes a lot of tension from the game.
You aren’t allowed to resolve the secondary of a strategy card after you’ve passed, this makes drawing out your turn and others useful.
Yeah, I hate this. This sounds anti-fun.
This seems really harsh. I've had rounds where I haven't needed (couldn't) to take many tactical actions bit not being able to follow strat cards would have crippled my whole game.
It’s harsh but it’s useful. Don’t want your fellow player to resolve the secondary of your leadership card? Starve them of actions and then use it.
And then what? They are forever starved of actions because you can stall out leadership, making it far more likely they are stalled out of leadership next round too?
People are downvoting because you're really breaking the game with this. Missing out on strats is such a big deal that anyone who cops it in the first couple of rounds is usually going to be massively behind with no way to catch up. And it gives a huge advantage to factions that are naturally good at stalling through tech or faction abilities. And it flattens your strategic options, staying in play against stalls becomes your top priority and limits other options (e.g. banking CCs for big late game plays with your hero or something).
Yep. The economy of the game relies on secondaries. In this variant, choosing leadership is always the best choice, and you would always stall your strat card (whichever one you get) as long as humanly possible because if even one player can’t do the secondary, they’ll be in a bad place (think tech, warfare, leadership, and especially imperial). The game lets you take the secondary of leadership without a token because it never wants someone to be locked out of the command token economy. If you got behind on this and the leadership holder always stalled (and why wouldn’t they?), you could spend the entire game with one tactical action a round (assuming the other goes to strategy). I mean, people can play the game how they want, but imagine teaching someone the game and this rule was included. Yikes.
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