This is an early review, based on our first play-through. I plan to post another one once I have several games under my belt -- and I guarantee, that is going to happen, because we had fun.

I hesitate to describe TI4 in terms of TI3, because it's been revamped from the ground up. The changes to the strategy cards and voting rules alone are so fundamental that they don't track to any comparable expansion/rule/variant/etc. from TI3. Every strategy card finally feels useful. Nothing sat for more than one turn throughout our entire game, because everyone wanted everything.

We ran a five-player game: Sol, Xxcha, Nekro, Naalu, and Arborec. I was Sol, and I was fortunate enough to draw the Flanking Speed action card on Turn 2, and then rush to Mecatol Rex, Imperial strategy card in hand. This introduced voting, which was the first eye-opening change. Voting matters. In TI3, Assembly was one of those cards that you usually waited until it had a few trade goods on unless you had a good reason, and half of the time, the agendas themselves were pretty "meh." Not here. We got passionate about these votes, with everyone sort of set against me (since I was in the lead), but also not wanting to exhaust their planets unnecessarily. If you want a behind-the-scenes peek at this, here you go . (Warning: Potty language.)

Sure, we were screaming at each other, but laughing and enjoying it because it was refreshing to actually care about politics. And when the others banded against me, I knew I couldn't hold out, so I used careful action card play to slip away from Mecatol Rex and reestablish bulkheads in other systems. Meanwhile, Nekro built up to an insane fleet size, Xxcha and Naalu spearheaded the "kill Sol" movement, and Arborec quietly grabbed tech-specialty planets, trying to fly under the radar. Everything culminated in utter chaos.

My point is that it felt like there were just as many ways to race to victory, but at the same time there was no doubt that holding Mecatol Rex was the most straightforward. (Yes, Mecatol Rex has become the true center of Twilight Imperium, not just a side quest.) Unfortunately, it paints a heck of a target on your back. With the loss of transfer actions (which had long been used to get a "free move, then produce" instead of actually transferring), it felt like command tokens were scarcer and thus more meaningful. It took a bit more effort to get your fleets into place, which meant that other players had a bit more time to figure out what you were doing and try to adapt to it or counter it. And this isn't a bad thing! Not only did it make things feel more tactical, but each round felt shorter (never "dragged out") and each new public objective just got us more excited. I'm glad that we didn't house-rule transfer actions back in, and recommend trying it without them; it does play well with just the three types of actions (tactical, strategic, component).

Based on one play -- which I absolutely agree is not a respectable sample size, but it's what I've got so far -- I enjoy this edition more than its predecessor. And I strongly recommend that everyone try it out with no house rules, at least for a few plays. They put some effort into fine-tuning this version, and it shows.

I agree that CC starvation does mean each round will be shorter, and less "stall" or "defensive actions, like putting a single DD in an empty system" can be taken.

You can't just move every piece you have every round, and that's OK.

Thanks for the detailed review! I look forward to your next one.

If possible please have someone play in your next game as the Winnu. They are the only faction that looks completely useless to me; weak on every front. I can't see how playtesters thought they were balanced. I'm hoping to be convinced otherwise.

I have one question regarding the Winnu : When they land on MR, they gain a SD and PDS immediately.

Can they build units in that Space Dock during the production step of that activation? I don't see why not and this could be quite strong.

Winnu have a very weak starting fleet, but there is another race with a similarly weak starting fleet : the Creuss. Yet nobody talks about them.

Although the Creuss are also a weak faction (the lowest value starting units in the game [12] for example) they at least have some decisions in regards to strategy and are not part of nearly so many loser clubs. The Winnu are unique in that they must be played using a very specific strategy of rushing and holding Mecatol Rex. And if they fail to do so, they are essentially without abilities or racial tech. Even if they do take that strategy but fail to get the MR first one of their abilities is nullified. I believe they needed a complete rework to make them more versatile and less prone to either being too strong or too weak.

Add on top of that, they are the only faction in almost all the 'starting loser clubs': only 1 unit with capacity, only 1 tech or less, only 2 ground forces, and lowest home system resources (3). On top of this they have the second lowest resources of starting units in the game (13). It is a universal **** show. I am waiting for a playtester to come forward and explain why they were nerfed so badly. At the moment, the least that can be done to help them is to permit them to pick any tech regardless of requirements. They can then pick Cruiser II and be *almost* guaranteed to take Mecatol first round. Otherwise they will be a large coaster on my coffee table as no one will play them.

As to your question about 'Reclamation'. It only triggers after you resolve the tactical action. By which time you cannot build.

Reclamation: After you resolve a tactical action during which you gaind control of Mecatol Rex, you may place 1 PDS and 1 space dock from your reinforcements on Mecatol Rex.

If Winnu had been able to immediately produce at that new space station, it could at least have been a bit better to protect MR.

Starting with ANY tech on the other hand wouldn't be a good thing, as this would also allow Warsuns for example (which they can't afford, but hey)

Starting with Cruiser II as their only tech would have been okay (strong) I guess, since in TI3 they did start with Stasis Capsules

I guess Winnu will be even worse on an 8P map with one extra space to cross.

Winnu at first seemed quite interesting, but they probably indeed overnerfed them.

8 hours ago, Evernoob said:

I have one question regarding the Winnu : When they land on MR, they gain a SD and PDS immediately.

Can they build units in that Space Dock during the production step of that activation? I don't see why not and this could be quite strong.

Winnu have a very weak starting fleet, but there is another race with a similarly weak starting fleet : the Creuss. Yet nobody talks about them.

They don't gain the Space Dock and PDS as part of a production action. They get them as part of a racial ability that triggers right after they land on the planet. There is no reason they can't immediately produce during that same activation. They can only make a few pieces of plastic because the resource level of MR is low, but still... take the planet and then drop in some dreadnoughts or something for backup.

7 minutes ago, IndyBart said:

They don't gain the Space Dock and PDS as part of a production action. They get them as part of a racial ability that triggers right after they land on the planet. There is no reason they can't immediately produce during that same activation. They can only make a few pieces of plastic because the resource level of MR is low, but still... take the planet and then drop in some dreadnoughts or something for backup.

The Winnu race sheet states that they gain the free PDS "after you resolve a Tactical Action". The production step will already be over.

11 hours ago, pklevine said:

but also not wanting to exhaust their planets unnecessarily.

Did you remember that after the Agenda phase you unexhaust them again? If they wanted to screw you over they could definiinitely do that on the second Agenda, since theycould just exhaust everything with impunity

2 hours ago, vidyaraja said:

Did you remember that after the Agenda phase you unexhaust them again? If they wanted to screw you over they could definiinitely do that on the second Agenda, since theycould just exhaust everything with impunity

We did not! Whoops. Okay, that was definitely a mistake, thanks. So maybe voting will be a bit less tense next time.

Isn't planetary invasion a tactical action? Doesn't that mean every time they take MR their ability triggers?

10 hours ago, Taki said:

Isn't planetary invasion a tactical action? Doesn't that mean every time they take MR their ability triggers?

Planetary Invasion is one of the steps of a tactical action, yes. So basically, Winnu on MR will always have a space dock and PDS.

So, to address those talking about Winnu, we finally played a game with Winnu in it and . . . well, it's hard to say from just one game, but they definitely felt a bit weak and very pigeon-holed.

Winnu basically has only one strategy in the entire game: take MR. So they had no choice but to start with Antimass Deflectors, get Gravity Drive on the first turn, and take MR immediately afterward. Then they reinforced the holy **** out of it as quickly as they could, which was not that fast because they didn't have a lot of resources.

The first problem was that this left their home world practically undefended for a round. They had to give their nearest neighbor (Yssaril) a ton of concessions to play nice, and were just lucky that Yssaril had no objectives involving home systems. (It was a 5P game, so Yssaril was close and N'orr was far.)

The second problem was that until they got the ability to flip values, they had very few resources to work with, because it took a lot of energy to just defend MR and their homeworld, once N'orr started creepingup.

The third problem was that they eventually lost MR, and weren't able to get it back easily, at which point they had very little to work with and couldn't recover.

So I do agree that the Winnu seem problematic. It's not so much that they're "weak," it's more that they only have one possible strategy, which makes it too easy to stop them. All you have to do is keep MR away from them, and Winnu's racial abilities are useless.

Again, I need to play more games with Winnu before I can really say for sure, but my initial instinct is that they're the only race so far whose revamp was unsuccessful.