Wargame Night 09-10

On September 25th, Wayne, Eric and myself got together for gamenight and engaged in a polite game of Twilight Imperium. The following races were randomly chosen:

Bruce - Federation of Sol

Wayne - Naalu Collective

Eric - Mentak Coalition



Wayne refuses to surrender.



Since everyone arrived at 6:00pm sharp we decided to go for the longer version of the game at 14 points. Allegedly, a 10 point game is shorter. I tried to incorporate "leaders" again in the game but Eric just outright refused...hmmm...you know, that leaders provide modifiers during gameplay to achieve victory in battle, extra movement for ships, abilities to thwart a planetary invasion...hint, hint...perhaps, we should delve into this next time we meet. Domain counters were agreed upon by all parties and I took up the arduous task of assigning them to the non-homeworld planets on the map.



Precious Lazax Survivors.



The game commenced as usual with all the fanfare and banter a TI3 game can engender as I asked Wayne if he wanted to just go ahead and surrender! Naturally, he declined. And so began the long process of dominating the known galaxy. Once again, there is always someone who gets "reamed" with bad domain counters. And this time, it was Wayne as all the nasty and visibly upset natives resisted the Naalu Collectives will to subjugate them for the "good of the galaxy". Eric and I both did fairly well in domain counter placement as was evidenced by my fortunate and timely discovery of not just one Lazax survivor group but two Lazax survivor groups! As you know if you recon planets with fighters and discover Lasax Survivors (Jews of outer space) then you get one victory point added to your score. Thus, I acquired two victory points in one fell swoop! Its good to be the Federation!

Eric as the Mentak Coalition were the galactic thieves in the game. On every turn his species could raid the coffers of the other alien and human races if they possessed at least 3 or more trade goods. Trade goods are represented by gold and silver coins that I have adapted for this game. Naturally, Eric as the Mentak was proud of his hoard.



Eric's 19 trade goods...space pirates anyone?



Wayne hires space pirates and is all smiles.



Eric was just asking for trouble however by hoarding all the trade goods that existed in the galaxy. Then without warning Wayne began to laugh uncontrollably and was just itching to play an action card. Neither Eric nor I had a sabotage card to negate whatever ill effects that Wayne had in store for us. Wayne then pulled out the Space Pirates action card in which the pirates steal your entire trade good hoard and then divvy up half of them to themselves and the other half to the card holder. Thus, Eric was out 19 trade goods with Wayne getting at least 9 them in return. The other half was dumped somewhere in deep space.



Its good to be the Federation!



Well, as for myself my strategy was to secretly acquire tech upgrades to fulfill my secret objective. Thus, on every turn I picked the Tech Agenda on every round because I needed to occupy Mecatol Rex, build a space dock on MR and then have 2 tech advances in three different colors. Since only three of us were playing we were able to pick two Agenda cards each turn. Thus, I acquired my tech upgrades in due order and then sent a task force to Mecatol Rex to occupy the planet. Neither Wayne nor Eric were in the vicinity to stop me and I was able to occupy without further ado. But when I suddenly erected a space dock on Mecatol it raised the hackles of the Mentak Coalition. Eric was in no military position to take me on in Mecatol Rex so he hired an agent to sabotage my space dock causing it to explode and collapse falling to the planet surface below. So outraged was I that I broke every trade agreement in the game in retaliation! Nevertheless, I built another space dock and claimed my secret objective of two points.

Well, the game ended with the Federation of Sol at 14 points! Eric came in second with 10 points and Wayne in third with 7 points. There were several records smashed that night. First, we started really early! Second, this game was very non-militaristic. No one attacked each other militarily (Eric did destroy my space dock and Wayne did steal Eric's loot with pirates) and yet the game was pretty peaceful. The pacifists would have rejoiced greatly if they could look past on the military build up that still occurred. Finally, the game ended at 10:30pm...that's right... Believe it or not! And here's the pic to prove it.