Twilight Imperium - 4th edition

There was a mass exodus to Snake-eyes place at the weekend for the 2nd annual Twilight Imperium game - this time using the 4th edition. An early(ish) start with a customary Fully English on the way to Snake-eyes at around 11am. 

Races were picked randomly, with the option to chuck in and then get a 3rd random choice - DK managed to get the Hacan (trading space cats Yellow) .... Again! Everyone else got something new.

Sylon The Universities of Jol-Nar (Purple), Snake-eyes had The Arborec (plant people I think, Green), I had the The L1z1x Mindnet(Red). To b honest I can't remember what Steedo (Blue) and the Princess (Black) were playing. 

After races were picked seating was randomly allocated and the game was afoot at about noon!

(Just before opening the first mini keg!)

The initial placement gave DK and myself the best space around our home systems to expand into. Steedo and Snake-eyes were very poorly served with their starting points. 

Early positions - DK with the trading Hacan went into an early lead with Sylon supporting his rise. 

Myself and Steedo were nipping at their heels - Snake-eyes and the Princess were struggling to get started. 

The fleets are growing larger ....

War is coming!

The red mass of my War-sun and Dreadnoughts and my high point. Well at this point I was on 8 victory points 2 away from the 10 needed for a win. Sylon was also on 8 and DK and Steedo were on around 5/6. Snake-eyes had finally managed to get on the score track by this time. 

The end of game board - Sylon on 10 points then DK, Steedo and myself on 6 point each, then Snake-eyes and the Princess a little way behind. So not a bad effort for about 12 hours of gaming!

So how does TI4 compare to TI3 - well it is quicker! Well we ended the game with someone actually scoring 10 points which is a first (although I missed out on the first few games). The secret agendas and the restocking of them help game play along - indeed Sylon won with a cunning use of a secret agenda. We were able to get on with the public agendas pretty quickly (unless you were Snake-eyes), my error was not scoring a couple of easy ones earlier in the game (as in the last game I should have been more aggressive with the race I had). The promisary notes were a good addition to trading. We found the cards helped move the tech advancements along pretty well - and easier to follow than the "tech-trees" of TI3. Overall an improvement on TI3 and a good if long days gaming. 

Many thanks to Snake-eyes for hosting and DK for providing the transport!

Morts

We also managed to sneak in a game of "Secrets" (pretty good, if a little random - I had no idea what I was by the end, Soviet, CIA or hippy), "You are not alone" (a game to far - perhaps it will be better on the next play) and "Who's in the bag?" (A guess the name game, which Snake-eyes and I won, so it must be good).