Hello Everyone.

My every ti game goes the same: everyone rushes pds(3 on single hex, upgraded as hell). The one of us goes for warsuns, and he cleans the board with them. Usualy other players helps him by denying the attack. Can you give me some tips how to prevent this static gameplay?

Put together a couple of quick fleets early on and go attack somebody before they've finished building their wall of PDS. A couple CVs full of fighters ought to do nicely, or a cruiser with a few destroyers for back up.

Don't worry about taking planets so much as messing people up. You may get attacked back, but at least things won't be static anymore. =)

And warsuns? Problem is in race selecting. That warsun guy is keep drawing jol nar, and he gets warsun after 3 turns(needs to buy 3 tec, so he does that even if we take tech card. Also, he is on the opposite side of the board. And one more: is this normal, that fleet supply counts sometimes 10+ markers or we are doing somethink wrong?

Automated Defense Turrets. War Suns are expensive sitting ducks without a fighter coverage to absorb damage.

So in our games we must start use fighters. Usualy it was a huge fleet(5 crusers, 2 dreadnoughts, 3 destroyers and warsun) sitting on the borders and continious pds fire. Noone wanted to engage the other player, cause warsun was a beats taking down 3 cruisers per battle round.cv are transports?

And warsuns? Problem is in race selecting. That warsun guy is keep drawing jol nar, and he gets warsun after 3 turns(needs to buy 3 tec, so he does that even if we take tech card. Also, he is on the opposite side of the board. And one more: is this normal, that fleet supply counts sometimes 10+ markers or we are doing somethink wrong?

In EVERY GAME he draws Jol Nar randomly?

You should look into your randomization process. If this guy can repeatedly pull Jol Nar every time, the tile is probably marked or something.

In EVERY GAME he's sitting on the opposite side of the board from you?

Rotate seating position.

Protip: Jol Nar's tech ability only helps him if other people take Tech. So stop taking Tech. He'll have to pick it himself if he wants any tech at all, and then he won't be getting the primary of any other SCs.

And one more: is this normal, that fleet supply counts sometimes 10+ markers or we are doing somethink wrong?

It's definitely not normal, but it's legal if that's where you want to put all your CCs. In our games, Fleet Supply rarely gets as high as 6.

Just remember that the number of CCs you have is limiting. If you put 10 CCs in Fleet Supply, you have 4-6 (I think?) left for the other two bins. It's been a while since I played, so I don't remember exactly how many CCs each race has.

If a player is saving up 10 CCs for Fleet Supply before he moves out his undoubtedly massive attack force, you should have plenty of time to put together a smaller strike force, cross the map and harrass him, though.

You only get 2 new CCs each turn (IIRC) and if you're moving them into FS then you're not doing much else on the board. Also remember that this Jol Nar player still needs to spend a CC from Strategic Allocation to use Tech as a secondary. He gets two techs out of it, but it's still a CC that didn't go into Fleet Supply this turn.

Come to think of it, I'd also be very surprised if a player putting this much effort into building an attack fleet was scoring objectives on a regular basis. The object of the game is to score points. Whether you get decimated or not, the player with the most points is the winner.

Okay, thanks for help. We are still newbies in ti so we make probably mistakes in rules. We are planning next game soon 3-4 player, shorter one, so if you could write what we should be focusing i rules. And if you could respond for cv and fighter question.

So in our games we must start use fighters. Usualy it was a huge fleet(5 crusers, 2 dreadnoughts, 3 destroyers and warsun) sitting on the borders and continious pds fire. Noone wanted to engage the other player, cause warsun was a beats taking down 3 cruisers per battle round.cv are transports?

Yes, CV is a short for carriers (it's a military term.)

And yes, you need to start using fighters. Remember that the player receiving the damage decides what ships take it. Also, fighters don't count against Fleet Supply. So, having a huge screen of fighters lets you absorb enemy damage while leaving your bigger ships untouched. With 3 CCs in Fleet Supply, you could build a fleet of fighters to easily rival the above. And it will be a lot cheaper to build, too. The only problem would be the destroyers with Anti-Fighter Barrage, but that's only once per combat anyway.

The fleet you described above has 13 dice to roll per combat round. 2 CVs full of fighters have 14 dice. 3 CVs full of fighters have 21 dice. Granted the odds of hitting are much less with fighters and carriers, but with enough dice you're guaranteed to get some hits, and every point he has to take will hurt a lot more than the points you have to take. The first round will be bloody. Your fleet might not make it past two or three rounds, but his big impressive fleet will be decimated. Build a new fighter force and go back for seconds.

pds(3 on single hex, upgraded as hell).

Just double checking, you guys are only putting 2 PDS per planet, right? That is the limit

Even if, they use 4(2 planet hex) with re-roll and deep space. Its enough to masacrate my cruiser fleet. And huge number of counters comes from logistics. 4 or 5 (i dont remember right now) and mostly 3 goes for fleet supply. How could i take advantage on having smaller fleet? Everyone arms as hell even in first. Round, and they see the attack comming.

Logistics provides 4 CC. Are they claiming many systems in the first couple of turns? If they are putting most of their counters into fleet supply then they can't be activating very many systems to explore and claim, which would leave them short of resources. It also means they can't really be taking advantage of the secondary abilities of strategy cards.

I agree with the above, if Jol-Nar are in play, no one else should be taking the tech card, your providing too much benefit to another player.

What strategy cards are you playing with? Just the standard 8 that come in the base game, or are you using Imperial 2? How many players are usually in your games? About how many victory points does the winner usually have when the game ends?

If you guys are just selecting preferred races, try randomly dealing them. A good thing to do is deal each player 2-3 races and let them choose one of those. The races all play remarkably different and are a wonderful way of adding variety to the game, so it is good to always get a different mix. If your play group doesn't want to be random, pick the Yssaril Tribes and learn how to play them.

I guess I am just trying to get a clear picture of your play environment because, while I have seen Warsuns have an impact on games, usually by the time someone gets the tech, manages to build one with adequate escorts, and get it to the front lines the game is pretty much over.

If your play group doesn't want to be random, pick the Yssaril Tribes and learn how to play them.

Best. Advice. Ever.

Even if, they use 4(2 planet hex) with re-roll and deep space. Its enough to masacrate my cruiser fleet. Everyone arms as hell even in first. Round, and they see the attack coming.

Since your group seems to use PDS a lot, I'm just going to double-check this:

1) You are aware that plastic is limiting, yes? You can't build more PDS than you have plastic pieces in your colour. FT and GF are the exceptions, which is why the game provides tokens for those.

2) Are you aware the price for PDS on the race sheets is incorrect? I'm not sure if this was corrected in later printings, but PDS should cost 2 each. It's in the FAQ.

2) Are you aware the price for PDS on the race sheets is incorrect? I'm not sure if this was corrected in later printings, but PDS should cost 2 each. It's in the FAQ.

Oooh, good call. I had totally forgot to mention that. Yeah, if he has an older copy (I think they fixed it later) that could make a huge difference.

Also, the limit of PDSs per planet is 2.

We have just the core game

Twilight Imperium is a game so rich in variants, optional rules and dynamic game play that if your group has gotten to a point where things are static, its likely because you are using the same static spread of variants and optional rules. That said, I would say 90% of the things that make this true are found in the two expansions, so if your only using the original game then I fully understand why this has become a problem for you as these variants aren't available so your kind of stuck in the static "default" game.

Back in the days before we had the expansions, it was truly rare that players played the game without heavy house ruling and modification. In fact in the old forums 90% of the discussions surrounded how to fix the game as most believed it was a good base, but had too many flaws that experience would render it broken. This like PDS's turtling and B-line War Sun technological research where constantly discussed as well as the very painful unbalances of certain races.

Again most of these things have been largely fixed with the expansions so the default advice is, get them both and you will find all manner of ways to combat various problems as most of the variants take the approach of "if you want more of X, use Y expansion". For example if you want more politics, you would use the political intrigue variant. If you wanted influence to have a bigger role in the game you would use a combination of certain strategy cards. If you wanted more war, you pre load certain objectives into the game or use artifact planets. Every variant offers an answer.

The sheer amount of variants offered for the game in the expansions allows the game to become so full of "stuff" that it yields all sorts of new potential strategies and avenues to try that players would discover all sorts of new ways to win. More importantly it allowed you to remove aspects of the game you don't like without really affecting anything other than closing a specific strategy that emerges in groups. So in your case for example, I would simply remove the War Sun Technology from the standard techs or perhaps raise the price of PDS's to 4. Then I would add capital ships, mercenaries, mechanized infantry and maybe even leaders to the game.

The result would be people effectively not being able to rely on old tried and true strategies and have to find some new ones. Then each time you get together I would add and remove different variants (its how we do it). We have never played the same game twice, no strategy you could think of is ever applicable to all circumstances so you gotta think on your feet.

Don't know if that helps but, by the expansions, it really is your answer to the problem.

To get variety, I suggest trying a poor resource galaxy.

It is hard to build Warsuns in a poor galaxy unless players are willing to give you very large trade contracts.

So Jol Nar can get to War suns relatively quickly. That is an advantage with a shelf life. As soon as another race is able to start building one too the Jol Nar are outclassed , and that is against opponents without +1 to combat or other combat bonuses. Researching, and collecting enough Resources to build one will take loads of time. During that time they are flying around with a -1 to combat rolls and a really crappy starting fleet. They will need to balance their early expansion with expanding towards war suns or even trying for objectives. In the mean time he will have to build his fleet up and be vulnerable to attack by more aggressive races.

Things that slow down expansion like distant suns option could limit their ability expand quickly even further. So even if they get the tech they may not have the resources. A poor galaxy makes trading very important so he can save up trade counters to purchase the warsun.

Fighters, fighters, fighters. I think of fighters as cheap,flying, shooting pieces of armor. They are there to take a hit for your capital ships. I would say a Carrier ( cost 3) and 4 fighters (cost 2) has a fairly good chance against a dreadnought (cost 5). I am sure someone could run the probabilities on it . And even if you just wound the Dread someone could throw an action card to take it out. Fighter techs are worth taking. From the sample fleet the OP wrote, I think they are underestimating fighters and thus need huge fleets to compensate for losses.

How to take out a warsun? Try using Warfare strategy card. Attack with a heap of destroyers in order to strip away his fighter escorts or perhaps cruisers if he is screening with other ships. Use the strategy card to remove the counter. Attack again with another fleet of larger ships with carrier/fighter escorts. He may not see this trap coming and you can attack when he is unable to reinforce his warsun or move it. Action cards like flank speed could bring ships into the fray that he thought were out of reach and thus not threats.

Being the only player with a warsun also puts a big target on your back, so he had best be prepared.

I wonder how big of a map he is playing on and how many players. Close neighbors can easily box in the weaker Jol Nar denying them access to choice planets and restricting their empire size. If opponents attack them early it could throw a wrench in their plans.

Note: the name of the game is "collect victory points" not "win wars". The point of battles should be to further your objectives. If you take out everything of mine but my home system and I am the first to claim the lasted need point, then I win.

In my games with my father and brother there were a few things that would happen 1.) since I won mostly I was always seen as a threat and not to be trusted. 2.) they would be content to build up fleets and just wait for one person to attack the other so they could attack who ever was more distracted and left vulnerable. I would often send in attack fleets to keep them on their toes and to prevent huge buildups of ships. I would usually attack early before his spaceport in the target hex could build more ships or he could move more ships in the system. They did not use carriers and fighters as extensively as I. I would often have all of my carriers out and wishing I had more by mid game . I also made liberal use of PDS concentrations and Deep Space cannon to protect my weaker flank. You can easily set up the PDS to get most of them to fire on his incoming ships. Remember you can fire anytime an adjacent system is activated by ANYONE.

-wick