Normally I have time for a full game but there is a situation coming up that only allows me to play the game for 6 -7 hours with 4 people. 2 of those people are brand new to the game.

What are your thoughts on how to speed the game up?

Make the total victory needed at 7?

Thanks,

Gnomish

Are you using the expansion, or just the base set?

Here are some ideas that can help:

- If playing with the base set, consider using the Age of Empires option, and the Imperial II variant (you can find this in the official variants PDF on the TI3 product page here on the FFG site). This allows all the objectives to be visible right from the start, which means you can plan more effectively right from the beginning.

- With the expansion, use the Artifacts. These each give points, and as such, you can win with slightly less VPs. Also, it increases combat, as people fight over the Artifacts quite a bit!

You can also play to less points, though if you do that, you may find that the game is ending right when it's getting "good".

The largest slow downs we have found in our game is due to Distant Suns. Taking them out knocks 2-3 hours off our games.

Other things you can do is make a "turn marker" (+turn table) meaning when you're done your turn you hand it (marker) over to the next player by looking at the 'turn table'. As the other biggest slowdown in our games tends to be people not knowing it's their turn.

Further, if possible I would suggest a tutorial playthrough (2 rounds or so) an evening prior to the event with the new players so they don't get bogged down in the rules.

I regularly run TI for newbies at my FLGS' Board Game day. Here are the things I do to speed the game along. I normally finish in 5-6 hours.

1. I shoot for 4 players. This makes it so all the strategy cards are chosen every round, which makes the game move quicker towards endgame.
2. No Leaders, Facilities, Distant Suns, or Space Mines. The first two because people will constantly ask what each leader does and when they can build facilities. The last two because they really bog down the game, though for different reasons. Distant Suns slow down the early game so much that it takes so long to get everything rolling. Mines just add another layer to the already strong turtleing tactic and as such kills the military game.
3. Use one of the premade galaxy maps from FFG. This makes start-up a bit quicker as you can set everything up but the home systems ahead of time. It also has the advantage of evening out the map so no guy is too poor or too rich. I have seen games were 2-3 players gang up on a third in the galaxy creation step to eliminate a rival before the game starts.
4. This is the most important, have a Caller. When I am running I call out whose turn it is to help keep the game rolling.

As an aside to anyone in the St Louis area, I will be running a TI game this Saturday at the St Charles Fantasy Shop's Board Game day. We will start once I have a full table.