Twilight Imperium

Twilight Imperium
Wargame published by Fantasy Flight Games
No. of Players	3-8
Session Time	Hours
Authors	Christian T. Petersen
First Publication	1997, 2000, 2005

This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it

Not to be confused with Twitlight

Twilight Imperium is the name of the manly game from FFG, and for the setting of some of FFG's science fiction games. Twilight Imperium itself comes in three editions (each better than the last).

The Setting

Enter a grimdark galaxy dominated by warring races, which players take the roles of. Conquer planets, build ships, make mercantile alliances, research world-killing weapons, and legislate your opponents to death with intergalactic politics. Twilight Imperium is basically a 4X space conquest game (Masters of Orion, etc) in boardgame format: It comes with a randomized Settlers of Catan-style tile system to create a board, and a variety of game mechanics that make each turn new and different.

The game's races are memorably unique, ranging from bipedial feline merchant princes to murderous post-human cyborgs to conniving space goblins who like to play James Bond. The game revolves around a political and military struggle for Mecatol Rex, the capitol planet of the galaxy and the seat of intergalactic politics (which all players engage in). This King of the Hill-style objective sits at the center of each star map, and players are given the mandate to win by any means necessary (supplemented by secret objectives for each player, random events, and legislative votes).

The full rulebook is available from Fantasy Flight Games

The MANLY Game

My god, someone made a computer version.

Jobs from Puerto Rico, hex maps from Cataan & Amoeba Wars, random exploration from everybody's first house rules to improve Cataan, alien races with different advantages from Cosmic Encounter, buckets of finely-crafted plastic minis from Axis & Allies... this is like the Flaming Moe of boardgames. The only awesome game mechanic it's missing is the hidden traitor player from Shadows Over Camelot.

(stolen from another site. Please replace with something /tg/ worthy.)

TI3 is played by at least three players who belong to ten possible alien races, each with their own advantages and quirks. The 'designer notes' in the rulebook candidly and humbly acknowledge the inspiration for some of the improvements to the original game. The strategic game-play borrows the governing element from 'Puerto Rico' to involve players in an iteratively complex and yet fast-paced game experience with very little downtime. The game map, basic player progress and overall victory are dynamically determined in almost exactly the same way as they are by imaginative players of 'Settlers of Catan', while the "Command" system cleverly improves on the 'oil' logistical mechanism of 'Attack' to both manage turn-based activity and limit the size of armies, uniquely enabling weakened players to bounce back if they play their cards right.

Shipping in a massive fuckoff hueg (12” x 24”) box, this new giant-size edition of TI feature almost 350 masterfully sculpted oversize plastic miniatures - the typical TI units (Ground Forces, Cruisers, Dreadnoughts, Carriers, Fighters, PDS, and Space Docks) as well as two new units (the massive War Sun and the Destroyer). TI3 contains new oversize board tiles, more than 400 cards, every known civilization of the Twilight Imperium universe, almost every expansion rule and component ever published for TI, a gorgeous graphical overhaul, and an impressive full-color rules set.

• Twilight Imperium module for playing online

Twilight Armada (the disc game)

Started out as a fighters expansion for TI 1st edition, later FFG bought the mechanics for a tabletop wargame that used cardboard discs instead of minis. Unit stats were printed around the edge, the illustration showed arcs of fire, and the size of the disc was the relative target profile of the ship. Discs were flipped to show different stats in a damaged state.

Rex: Final Days of an Empire (Remake of Dune)

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) has licensed the rights to the mechanics of the boardgame version of Dune published by Avalon Hill (not the board game based on the movie, the one based on the book). Fantasy Flight was unable to get the rights to the Dune license. They re-theme the game to fit into the Twilight Imperium universe. The game now centers on players waring for control of Mecatol Rex.

but the original game is too awesome to screw up, and Twilight Imperium is also awesome, so we can expect an awesome sandwich with a side order of awesome. Unfortunately FFG made multiple changes to match to boardgame trends. This has really dulled the edge of what had been pure evil in cardboard form.