Got together for our first game of TI, a game I've had for a while and wanted to play, but hadn't been able to get to. Since this game has generated some interest and curiosity , I thought I'd post a recap. I'd be very interested in others' comments and observations.

Everyone was impressed with the components - some of the nicest spaceship counters in any game. We were less impressed with the rules. They were rather casually written and could have been better organized. Not horrible by any means, but the rules deserved at least the care and attention the pieces got.

Game Recap Our game was three player: Haccan, Sol and Jol-Nar. Play by all parties was very cautious, since we were new at the game. No one wanted to be on the short end of a two to one configuration, so zapping each other with action cards was probably not as common as it should have been (with notable exceptions), and all players tended to try to build up their forces to marked advantage before risking them in battle.

The game developed in what I would imagine to be typical fashion. The players built up carriers and ground forces to move out and claim the adjacent planets, and as they came up on one another on the frontier switched over to dreadnoughts, cruisers and fighters. The Haccan was hampered early on by the limitation on builds; with their spacedock at a planet with a resource rating of 2, they could only add two units a turn. Sol on the other hand, could build all it could afford. Both Sol and Jol-Nar expanded their economies faster than the Haccan, due in part to their having several double planet tiles nearby, while the Haccan didn't. Everybody established trade agreements with each other as the opportunity came up.

Strangely enough, the game had only one space battle of any size. A Sol force of dreadnoughts and a carrier with several fighters attacked a Jol-Nar system defended by a couple of PDSs and a fleet of cruisers (the Jol-Nar player had tried to compensate for his racial -1 combat penalty by obtaining the tech that allows cruisers to fire at +1, and concentrating on building cruisers). After destroying the Jol-Nar cruisers, Sol withdrew, since we determined that PDSs couldn't be hit in space combat(see questions below).

The course of the game was largely determined by cards, something that somewhat bothered us. The Free Trade law was voted in early, which added considerable wealth to the game. Once the Jol-Nar economy got going, his ability to buy techology advances kicked in and concerned the other two.

They voted in the law giving everyone level 3 in all techs; the effects of this law are considerable, since it frees up considerable credits that would have be used for tech advances, it gives everyone access to some fairly useful technologies (especially in the "general" category) and automatically qualifies everyone for the tech requirements for Empire level. The stunner, though, was Jol-Nar's play of the "Alien Artifact" action card on a system where the Sol player was massing for an attack. A fleet of 5 dreadnoughts, 2 laden carriers, and 3 cruisers went away, along a with a PDS, spacedock and several ground forces on the planet.

Ouch. The Jol-Nar player was almost sheepish about playing it and everyone agreed that the card was too devastating. Still, the Sol player won the game. The effect of a previous law that forced everyone to cut back to 4 planets was ameliorated by re-expanding into those planets, and coupled with special ability giving the Sol player an extra influence for every planet outside his home system, this pushed him over the 30 influence requirement to win. Everyone was a little surprised, having expected military action to play a more decisive role in the game (the Haccan player had fought exactly one battle - a cruiser to cruiser action in system where the ships from the two sides had been sent to stake a claim.) The Sol player's win was something of a surprise, and everyone realized that we needed to pay closer attention to certain aspects of the game (hey, it was our first time).

Observations

Politics

We found the Political Phase to be fun and innovative, a new way to interact with your opponents. Given the important impact it had on this particular game, we realized it was something we'd pay more attention to in the future and factor into our overall strategies more carefully. This is aspect of the game we felt would get better with more players.

Racial Differences - Having each player have a distinct race with their own advantages/disadvantages is a good idea of course, and pretty much de riguer these days for this type of game. We felt however that the three represented in this game were not equal. We had to agree with the Haccan player that his special ability was the weakest; it depended on drawing a Trade Agreement card and getting the compliance of other players. He also had poor intial tech levels. Jol-Nar's cheaper tech purchases seemed pretty scary, especially once his economy developed and he could buy an advance a turn. The lack of fighting in the game never really let us see how his -1 at combat offset that ability. Sol's abilities seemed quite good, always useful, and after all, the extra influence is what won him the game.

Playing Time / Complexity - We found the complexity of the game to be just right and the playing time was about 5 hours - not bad, since that included me giving everyone a briefing on the rules. I guess that playing with 4 or 5 players (which we are hoping to do) would add time to that.

Questions

1)When we were making the map we wound up with an inner ring around Mecatol Rex that was entirely made up of blank hexes. Planet hexes were on the outer ring on in knots around the homeworlds. This, I assume, is pretty common?

2) Does card play usually have the critical impact that it did in the game? This game's action was driven by laws and the Alien Artifact card.

3) Can some one clarify for me how PDSs participate in combat? Our reading of the rules that PDS fire once as enemy ships enter their system, once again at the beginning of the space combat and once again if there's an invasion. The roll made in the space combat segment is a one shot deal only (PDS don't fire in the regular rounds that ships do). The opposition doesn't get to fire back. We also concluded that PDSs can't be destroyed in regular ship to ship space combat; they can only be destroyed by a successful invasion. Lastly, we assumed that they don't participate at all in ground combat. Are we correct?

A final note: everyone enjoyed the game and we're looking forward to trying it again.

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