Hi to all,

do you know if exist a ruleset or custom rules for a cooperative scenarios?
Our group really like Battlestar Galactica (without Cylon player) and want a similar experience with Twilight Imperium... it's possible? Do you have any hint?

Alternatives will be one very strong player against the others (like L1Z1X against all others races) or all the players against a common enemy (extra-galactic invaders and so on) but controlled by an Artificial Intelligence (for example, roll a die and check on a table of possible actions for the invaders).

Thanks in advance

I don't think that any single race is powerful enough to stand up against two or more others on its own without somekind of boost, be it starting with a pile of trade goods, extra planets, or even getting a few turns head start on the others.

However, this is something similar to something I've been thinking about for a while: team rules. I haven't sat down and actually tried hammering out a rule set yet but a few things have popped in my head. I've got one in particular I've been thinking about more than others; multi-race fleets. I was just going to post what I've come up with so far in here, but I just realized there's so much info, I might as well make its own topic.

Bah, I've decided to just put them here for convenience's sake. There's still a lot of conditions and situations that I haven't addressed or even thought about yet. These are also NOT playtested mind you. Just some things I thought up while pondering the topic. Any input anyone has to offer would be more than welcome.

Team Play:

Teams pool their victory points. Use a single racial marker to represent the team on the victory point track. Whenever a single team member qualifies for an objective, place the team's marker on the objective's card and move the flag on the point track. Teams do not get extra points if multiple players qualify for the same objective. However, each player's secret objective adds points to the team upon completion. In addition, at the start of the game, players may reveal their secret objectives to their team mates.

Players may establish trades with players on the opposing team as normal, but players may also have two trades with a player on their team. When playing with teams of two, a player may establish a trade with themself.

Players may 'pool' their resources amongst their team. For example, during a team mate's production phase, a player may exhaust one or more of their own planets to donate resources to the other player. The team may also collectively exhaust planets to qualify for objectives.

Players may move through a system containing a team mate's fleet.

Players may also form multi-race fleets amongst their team, as described below.

Multi-race Fleets: If a player activates a system that has already been activated by a team mate, and the system contains a fleet belonging to that team mate, then the player may move ships into the system and have them join the team mate's fleet. Ships in a fleet that belong to another team mate do not count against their fleet supply. Instead, the number of team mate's ships that a fleet can hold are equal to the number of players on that team. So a two player team can contain up to two ships belonging to the other player. Or a three player team could contain up to three ships belonging to either other player.

Your team mate's ships do not destroy a Saar spacedock upon entering it's system, and may join with it to form a fleet. However, Saar spacedocks can't join another player's fleet. A multi-race fleet containing a Saar spacedock may only exist under the Saar player's control.

Ships in another player's fleet are still modified by your own technologies and racial bonuses, but are under the control of the other player as long as they remain a part of the fleet. For example: If a Naalu cruiser and carrier full of fighters joins a Sardakk N'orr fleet, the Naalu ships would not recieve the Sardakk N'orr racial combat bonus, though the fighters would retain their +1 Naalu racial bonus. However, the Naalu's ability to cause a fleet to retreat before combat would not carry over. The ships are no longer in a Naalu fleet. The fleet itself is considered to belong to the Sardakk N'orr.

In another example, let's say a Mentak cruiser and destroyer has joined with a Yin carrier. Later, the joined fleet enters a space battle. The Mentak cruiser and destroyer would retain their preemptive strike racial ability, and would take their shots before combat begins. Before the second round of the battle, the Yin kamikaze ability would come into play. Even though the fleet contains a cruiser and a destroyer, they are Mentak ships. Though they are in a Yin fleet, the ships themselves are not piloted by the Yin, and therefore the ships could not be sacrificed.

The player controling the fleet may remove another player's ships any time by simply moving the fleet to a different system and leaving the team mate's ships behind.

A player may remove their own ships from the team mate's fleet ONLY if the system containing the fleet has not been activated by either player. They may do so by activating a system within the ships' movement range, and then move the ships out of the fleet and to the activated system.

In terms of combat, you are considered to be participating if either fleet contains a ship of your race. Ground troops inside a team mate's carrier may also participate in planetary invasions.

If a general of either race is present during invasion combat, its bonuses are granted to both races in the landing party.

And that's about all I have right now. A penny for your thoughts? Anyone?

This rules are great!

I'll give a try... however what our group want it's a fully cooperative game, like Battlestar Galactica without Cylon where all players must resolve problems and crisis in the whole galaxy... it's possible in TI universe?

I'd try Arkham Horror, Lord Lele.

If you have your heart set on full coop TI, that might be a tough order, the game is simply not designed that way.

You could take a cue from Descent the Board Game and have many players on a team, being coop, vs a single opposing player who plays as "the game". It's not quite fully cooperative, but it's close. Naturally you'd have to give the odd player out some major fleet bonuses, but I could see this working.