Certain things have a repetition for being taking a long time, such as a John Bonham drum solo (younger sufferers go google this guy, listen to his stuff, sit back and be amazed at the greatest drummer ever, and group of all time). Another such thing is Twilight Imperium 3.

Yesterday 6 wanna be rulers of the known universe gathered to scheme, plot, betray, bargain, manipulate, and outright attack their way to victory. How were they going to do this? By playing Jeff’s Twilight Imperium 3 with a few of the expansions thrown in.

Sufferer’s will remember I’ve only played the fourth edition, which I got last Winter, and miraculously have got to the table 3 times since buying it (which is really good going).

I’m not going to bore you with turn by turn plays. I’m not that cruel.

Jeff had everything setup by the time everyone had arrived. Jeff had selected expansions we’d be using, tailored the races available to balance out the game to cater for experienced and novice players, and the expansions being used. The action cards were also tailored to fit in with the expansions etc. All that was left to do was chose race, colour and seating position.

The map set up of 3 small galaxies for the known universe was pretty cool. The smaller middle galaxy had Mecatol Rex in the middle, while the other 2 galaxies had 3 players and their home worlds each. Movement between galaxies was with warp gates.

I think it was round 3 of the game, over in the other galaxy red was looking like getting out of control. And for us over in the other galaxy very scary, and likely targets for their aggressive expansionist ways sooner rather than later.

So when the politics action came up, I had the perfect card to vote on. It basically gutted reds fleet and didn’t affect the rest of us. Mainly because our fleets at that point were mainly carriers, with the odd cruiser/destroyer. Sadly red was mainly the latter ships. Luckily I was selected for my politics cards, after some bargaining (which saw me outbid red with Jeff for his votes, and allowing Jeff needing one less victory point to win), the vote was won, and the red fleet was gutted. I then played a card that got me an extra destroyer to rub salt into reds wounds. In retaliation red attack me (a carrier ship) in the middle galaxy with a single cruiser. They took each other out. Which was funny I didn’t mind losing the carrier, but losing another cruiser was more salt in reds wounds. He was not a happy bunny. This round had not been a good round for them. At that moment of the game I was happy, I didn’t care if I lost, I’d done something pretty cool/big in the game. Anything else from now on was gravy.

There is a picture above where red is looking a bit salty over their recent losses.

At the end of round 4, play stopped for burgers and hot dogs. The perfect fuel for wanna be rulers of the known galaxy.

Hostilities resumed on full stomachs. Apparently red was still hurting from their wing clipping before lunch, but was also adding to their list of payback. Luckily the others on the list were more local to them (same galaxy) and therefore higher on the list than me.

Apart from the skirmish above, and some skirmishes during the last round there was no battles between the 2 galaxies. Most of the exchanges took place in their respective galaxies between the empires there.

Towards the end it transpired that Jeff only needed 12 victory points thanks to taking bribes for his votes earlier in the game. I’d achieved my other game objective, get my flagship out by then.

The final round was spent trying to stop Jeff claiming that last victory point. Despite some valiant attempts our efforts were in vain, and Jeff was able to claim his final victory point and declare himself Emperor of the Known Universe.

Thanks to Jeff and an implied permission by his sharing the photo on Facebook, there is a photo of me looking wild and all dwarf like.

This was a really fun, long day. Great game, great opponents, great food, it was a blast.

Some final brief thoughts on TI:3 especially in comparison to TI:4. I enjoyed TI:3. I think I lean towards favouring TI:4. I prefer the streamlining, the way politics are integrated into the game once Mecatol Rex has been occupied. There is more reason to take Mecatol Rex in the newer edition. For starters it is worth a victory point. In our game of TI:3 no one took Mecatol Rex, it was left alone. I did like the artifacts from one of the expansions in TI:3, along with one or two of the others we got to use. Such as the tokens on the board that were turned over when you entered the system, which could be good or bad. Maybe we will see them as an expansion for TI:4 at some point. The leaders I didn’t use. Although Jeff and a couple of others did. Not sure about this one.

Our game from arrival to clear up with the food break, was around 9 hours! Ok that was 6 of us, with a few expansions mixed in. But the TI:4 plays (4 and 5 player counts) have at most been around the 6 hour mark. So the streamlining done by FFG between editions has made a big difference in play time.

A great day, great gaming memories.