Having played a vanilla game...yes, the objectives are too easy.

Have also had our first game but my first impression is a bit different.

It seems to me that 4e is geared more towards early interaction which was the case during the Imperial I (round robin) pre-expansion play. The simpler objectives in 4e, have a similar effect that the Imperial I card had in Vanilla except with a little bit less predictable route. Rather than "auto-rewarding" players still have to manage well, but for the most part unless people are getting under each others feet, most races will be able to steadily gain victory points at the same pace and the end game is kind of a crap shoot of bucking for initiative and scoring those final points first.

In 3e with the Imperial card, there was a mechanical clock effect in play that assured that regardless of anything the game would come to a predictable conclusion unless players ventured outside of the resource management race. Another words, if everyone turtled and avoided conflict, the predictable clock would bring the game to an end. The effect of simpler public objectives is effectively doing the same thing 4e. The objectives don't give "free points" like the Imperial card did, but the effect is the about the same in the sense that if everyone does effectively nothing to each other and waits until "end game" to begin trying to stop each other, it is basically too late for anything climatic to happen.

In post Imperial I games, players effectively turtled in unison until someone started to "get close" than they would act and because objectives were pretty difficult to get on their own and because the Imperial clock is no longer ticking, the result was a very slow start with a typically big finish where players would stop, counter stop and push each other out of contention in the final moments of the game until someone pulled out the final points.

I think the main difference in 4e is that in round 2, the end game has begun. There is no early or mid game. The first round you grab 2 or 3 systems, after that the peace is over. You can't simply "resource" manage into victory, avoid interaction and try to "win the game on points". In effect you have to be getting in peoples face right out of the gate and curtail their progress.

I spotted that in about round 3 of our game, it was quite clear that presuming that everyone would turtle as normal, the game would be won by the player who best resource managed in the final round, the one who got the right initiative at the right time or the right strategy card at the key moment.

I started throwing the wrench in people's program late in the 3 round, I swiped Mecatol Rex, smoked action cards like the world was ending and made what would ordinarily be considered end game moves. The result was that I hit 10 points, the closest player to me was at 7, most were at 4-5, we had one guy at 2 points. Had I not pushed hard out of the gate the game would have likely ended like 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 or something thereabouts. When I started forcing plays people didn't want to have to make, others started ceasing opening opportunities and doing something simple like coughing up some resources or buying was a luxury no one could afford.

So I agree the public objectives are much easier, but I much prefer the game this way. It was by far the most action packed TI game I have played in a decade, there was tension all over the board and people were treating 1 trade gold like it was a bag of leprechaun gold, the value of everything was so high. I mean the most tech'ed out person at the table had 4 techs, trade was a rare luxury, every agenda round was a game changer. It was pretty fantastic.

You definitely can't take the "building up for the end game" approach that was kind of standard in TI3. This is a game you have to turn on the heat early and often. You have to go super aggressive, controlling Mecatol Rex is absolutely vital.

That was kind of my take away from our first game.

My problem is that too many of the objectives can be fulfilled without coming into conflict.

2 hours ago, Stefan said:

My problem is that too many of the objectives can be fulfilled without coming into conflict.

That's really not true at all, its actually just a perception, the objectives are actually super hostile. You just have to break down the game outside of the thematic concept and into the mechanical reality. Its a game of resource competition, but its more often played as a game of resource management. If played "cooperatively" than yeah, its basically a Euro victory point race, but unlike most Euros, you actually have the means to go after people in a very direct way. Its a choice to allow the objectives to be fulfilled without conflict, one players make, not mechanics. If everyone sits back in there pie slice and scores points, the player who best manages resources will win, inherently at a table full of experts it will be the player who has the best starting conditions and resource potential, something that is relatively easy to predict if looking at a game with the assumption that everyone will "behave".

Consider that there are 5 Public I objectives and 5 Public II Objectives.

Now in order to win you have to score 10 points. The public objectives I can be broken down into two basic category, resource expenditure and control.

Resource Expenditure
Erect Monument
Develop Weaponry
Lead From The Front
Sway The Council
Negotiate Trade Routes
Diversify Research

Control Objectives
Corner The Market
Found Research Outposts
Expand Borders
Intimidate Council

Now since there are only 5 public I objectives, the most points you can score are 5. Its presumed that all things kept peaceful, generally everyone should be able to complete these without direct confrontation. Another words, during the early game you can avoid conflict and still score points, but strategically speaking this is insufficient to win the game, if you focus on these 5 objectives you will not win against someone who has their eye and has an understanding of how you actually win which is Public II Objectives, Secret Objectives and most importantly control of Mecatol Rex.

Even still here the fundamental confrontation is established through the two ways TI interaction takes place, competition for control of resources and competition for planetary control. The main difference is that with P1 objectives you can with your expected "pie slice" still be able to complete most of them. None the less, it introduces you to the basic principle of how you are going to score points and ultimately win the game.

Public II Objectives, again of which there are 5 and break down the same way however its unlikely you will be able to accomplish most of them from your pie slice unless people are being incredibly patient and allowing you to "save up" resources over multiple rounds or allowing you to move around the board and control systems. In general it doesn't take much to prevent someone from achieving a P 2 objectives and its rare that the means to do so are easy to achieve.

P2 Objectives break down as followed

Resource Expenditure
Centralize Galactic Trade
Found A Golden Age
Master the Sciences
Manipulate The Galactic Law
Form Galactic Brain Trust
Revolutionize Warfare
Galvanize The People

Control Objectives
Conquer The Weak
Subdue The Galaxy
Unify The Colonies

All P2 Objectives inherently require multiple rounds to achieve and strictly speaking can only be achieved if people let you achieve them. In particular the Resource Expenditure ones. Spending 6 tactic/Strategy pool for example should be physically impossible unless you are left alone outright, 16 Resources? Getting 16 resources requires at the very least a lot of cooperation. Its true for most of these, P2 resource expenditure objectives are pretty hard to get if someone is actively trying to stop you from getting them. The design here is a more extensive version of competition for resources.

Then there are the control objectives which really can't physically be accomplished unless people just let you do it.

Consider Unify The Colonies: Controlling 6 planets that each have the same planet trait. When you remove systems without planets, special tiles, Mecatol and home system tiles non of which qualify for this objective you are left with 17 tiles broken down by planets that is 10 Cultural Planets, 9 Hazardous Planets and 11 Industrial Planets. Effectively it means in any given only 3 players could potentially have the requirements at any given game/time.

Intrinsically, its not possible to accomplish any of the control objectives peacefully unless you have gotten stupid lucky and are left uncheck for many rounds.

Strictly speaking its potentially possible to win by completing all P1 objectives and 3 P2 objectives, but I don't see how any TI player can say that is easy. I mean it would require for people literally getting out of the way of each other on purpose, effectively "avoiding" interaction to be able to achieve that.

That leaves secret objectives which break down very differently then P1 & P2 objectives. You have Control Objectives (6), Resource Expenditures (7), War Objectives (6) and one Mecatol Objective (1).

Now the difficulty of secret objectives is wildly unreliable. In some games certain ones will be easy, in others the same objective can be impossible. For example control 4 Hazardous Planets. You might be sitting on those in your pie by sheer luck, or you might have 0 in your pie slice which will require taking 4 separate planets from another player. You just don't know, secret objectives are kind of a wild card and this is very intentional. Basically it means you are effectively playing an 8 point game. Meaning that, most players can expect to filter down 2 secret objectives to squeeze out 1 or 2 extra points. Everything else you can expect to happen in the open on the board. You are going to know several rounds in advance if someone has the potential to spend 16 resources to get a P2 objectives, if you wait until after they score the points to do something... that's not objectives being easy, that's you being an easy opponent.

Than there is Mecatol Rex and this is in the open by absolutely vital, the player who gains control of it gets 1 point and has the potential to get more through manipulation of the speaker token and the imperial card.

Public objectives are not"easy" to get, there are just easy opponents. The issue is that that your group is making them easy to get by playing cooperatively in a very docile game, allowing everyone around you to score points without interference. Sure you can expect most players will be able to score 5 points relatively easily, but the remaining 5 have to be taken or given to you and you have to have the foresight to realize that the competition for those 5 points begins in about round 3. Its at this point you can stop someone from controlling X planets or spending Y resources in round 5 or 6 to score 2 points.

This games interaction primarily comes in the form of competition for the resources that will ultimately be needed to win the game, but that competition starts a lot earlier than people think which results in this sort of end game flood of cooperative scoring. You can generally see who is leading in this race very vividly by round 3 at which point the interaction should feel forced. If I know that people will play "peacefully", I can call the winner by round 3 or 4 with pretty good accuracy. It will be the person who has the most resource potential at that point and its where really mechanically speaking most people judge races. Aka, the races with the most resource potential are the strongest.

My observation is this. Twilight Imperium when played as a purely resource management game is very predictable, but by design, its only partially a resource management game, its far more about resource competition game. Its not about what you earn, its about how you force others to spend. Every action you take should be forcing someone to spend resources in ways they don't want to and if they don't they should feel the punishment for doing so.

At a table with expert TI3 players, I can see how TI4 might be considered easy. In TI3, scoring objectives for most races was pretty hard even without someone getting under your feet so it might be a trained response to play TI4 very cooperatively. TI4 is actually a very different game, its super hostile once you realize the subtle shift in how the game is won.

11 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

In post Imperial I games, players effectively turtled in unison until someone started to "get close"

BigK, I’ve mentioned this before, but your experiences with TI3 seem to be radically atypical. In virtually every discussion of the game I have seen people have commented that it was PRE expansions that everyone turtles in unison. The alternate strategy cards, and basically every other addition in the expansions were designed to discourage turtling and encourage players to interact earlier and more aggressively, and it seems that most people generally agree that it worked that way.

58 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

BigK, I’ve mentioned this before, but your experiences with TI3 seem to be radically atypical. In virtually every discussion of the game I have seen people have commented that it was PRE expansions that everyone turtles in unison. The alternate strategy cards, and basically every other addition in the expansions were designed to discourage turtling and encourage players to interact earlier and more aggressively, and it seems that most people generally agree that it worked that way.

Well for what its worth, I think the TI3 community was very, lets just say, critical of the TI3 design very early on as they have been with TI4 already, I wasn't and neither was my gaming group. I think my experience differs because I actually played TI3 by the rules for a decade and my gaming group spent all their time trying to figure out how you win with the different races, objectives, etc... rather than trying to figure out how to change/balance the game. I think that lead our group down a very different path of understanding and approach to the game than what is prevalent online where editing the rules is practically a religion.

Its kind of hard to describe the differences, I have only ever played PBEM with people outside of my gaming group but the couple of times I tried it, it was very obvious that people were very gun shy. I think its in part because its a long game and there is kind of a personalization rationalization taking place.

Just as an example I recall my first PBEM experience. I was playing as the Mentak and between the status phase and political phase I had acquired 2 action cards (Local Unrest) in the start of the second round. My opening 2 moves was to play both on my neighborhoods highest resource planets to cripple him, then I sent a couple of suicide cruisers to blow up one of his space docks he had just built. He was pretty much out of the game in round 2 and the guy running the PBEM was considering kicking me out of it for "being a ****". Generally I think there is a general expectation that "you should turtle" and be "considerate". Like we aren't playing a competitive game but rather a quasi role-playing game where you don't attack people just because you gain a benefit from it or you might cripple them because its not in the spirit of the game or not nice. Its worth pointing out that the GM instead altered the rules for Local Unrest in the middle of the game with everyone's approval (except mine), which again, was really typical for the TI3 community.

My group lacks that sort of personality. Everyone plays to win and its generally agree that the best tactic for winning is making sure no one else has a chance to. People don't really take it personally, we are quite accustomed to crushing each other mercilessly in many different games this one included, although it had been quite a while since we actually played TI prior to the TI4 release. We explored TI3 pretty thoroughly and I think the only house rule we had was that political cards could be used as trade goods.

I think its also worth pointing out that often when we do find a rule that someone think is unbalanced or some power that is too strong or to weak, they are promptly told to shut the f up, man up and win anyway.

I get your argument, and I will certainly retry TI4 vanilla, but I am firmly in the camp of "rebalancing and modding", so I'm biased. Thanks for your insights.

I'm really hoping that an upcoming expansion will add some combat-focused public objectives. Otherwise this game is too good for Jol-Nar and too unfair for N'orr and similar races.

2 hours ago, pklevine said:

I'm really hoping that an upcoming expansion will add some combat-focused public objectives. Otherwise this game is too good for Jol-Nar and too unfair for N'orr and similar races.

If you want to have combat objectives and you 3rd edition, I really don't see what they would change on those cards in an expansion other than the card backs, so just use those. An easy implementation is to create the objectives using the mixed cards and draw from the bottom.

Really much of the expansions from Shattered Empire and Shards of the Throne can easily be implemented into 4e, even the tiles size wise are only slightly smaller and can be used.

So if you like War Objectives, Artifact Planets, Shock Troops, Mines, Facilities, Mercenaries, Political Diplomats, Mechanized Infantry, Leaders, Distant Suns... they can all just be added to 4e, most without changing any rules, some you might need to make small adaptions like with Mercenaries I would say you could just make it so that instead of "getting trade goods" when using the primary you can draw a mercenary. In general they are pretty much no fuss implementation across the board. There is really no reason to wait for an expansion if you like those elements.

The public objectives are definitely easier. They're also non-combative which makes them even easier. In our last game, for instance, of the 10 revealed objective cards, 7 required totally no combat, 2 were maybe's, and only 1 public objective would have almost certainly required combat (take home system). Many of the secret objectives are non-combative too.

In three player games this is especially exacerbated, I think, since it's relatively easy to fulfil the "resource expenditure" public goals given that the planet to person ratio is really high. Players will pretty much avoid combat until they're around 5 or 6 VP, since anything but minor aggression generally exposes you to third non-combative party. In the last 2 3-player games I've played, for example, every single person was in a position to win in the last round and it came down to who could claim their objectives first. And even in my 3rd game - a 5 player game - 4 out of 5 of us were in a position to win in the last round, and again, it came down to who could claim their objectives first just like in the 3 player games.

I'm seriously considering keeping my 3rd edition (rather than selling it off) just to switch out some of the objective cards.

I've reconsidered my opinion a bit. If you put in the more aggressive ones instead of the spend-onjectibes, it works a lot better.

I only have 2 plays in, one 4 player and one 6 but I find all the objectives too easy in this, especially most of the secrets.

That means that a good player will have 30% of their victory completed without issue before the phase 2 objectives turn up.

Also, I find the secrets that are scored during the turn to be an issue. If i top deck one of them (especially the easier ones), believe that I will save it and score it immediately on the turn where I am 1 VP away from the win, there really is nothing anyone can do about it . Game over. Thats a crappy way to end a long game.

I just feel that from a design perspective having a few objectives score differently is a bad idea and should have been better tested.

16 hours ago, Malloc said:

I only have 2 plays in, one 4 player and one 6 but I find all the objectives too easy in this, especially most of the secrets.

That means that a good player will have 30% of their victory completed without issue before the phase 2 objectives turn up.

Also, I find the secrets that are scored during the turn to be an issue. If i top deck one of them (especially the easier ones), believe that I will save it and score it immediately on the turn where I am 1 VP away from the win, there really is nothing anyone can do about it . Game over. Thats a crappy way to end a long game.

I just feel that from a design perspective having a few objectives score differently is a bad idea and should have been better tested.

Again I'm just going to paraphrase what I have already said. If people are scoring public I objectives with ease, your table is playing waaaay to peaceful and cooperative. There is a big difference between TI3 and TI4 gameplay and strategy wise, if you apply TI3 style to TI4, objectives will be very easy. In TI3, you really couldn't afford nor was it a particularly good move to be aggressive early in the game. It really was a game about buying your time and making big plays at the end of the game. In TI4, not only can you be aggressive, you MUST do this and you are given the tools to do it and there are far greater rewards for doing so.

Just think of it this way. Round 3 to TI4 is what round 6 or 7 is to TI3. Round 3 in TI4 is the end game, this is where you make your big plays and start pushing for the win like the game could end any moment.

Ti3 was a game of making big plays, TI4 is about stopping your opponents from making little plays.

6 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

Again I'm just going to paraphrase what I have already said. If people are scoring public I objectives with ease, your table is playing waaaay to peaceful and cooperative. There is a big difference between TI3 and TI4 gameplay and strategy wise, if you apply TI3 style to TI4, objectives will be very easy. In TI3, you really couldn't afford nor was it a particularly good move to be aggressive early in the game. It really was a game about buying your time and making big plays at the end of the game. In TI4, not only can you be aggressive, you MUST do this and you are given the tools to do it and there are far greater rewards for doing so.

Just think of it this way. Round 3 to TI4 is what round 6 or 7 is to TI3. Round 3 in TI4 is the end game, this is where you make your big plays and start pushing for the win like the game could end any moment.

Ti3 was a game of making big plays, TI4 is about stopping your opponents from making little plays.

Except stopping 5 other players from making little plays is not possible. You assume all other player play this way, not to mention that you can't be aggressive, score and defensive all at the same time. You will either slow yourself down, or you will open yourself up to get steamrolled by the guy who attacks later.

My point stands, the objectives are too easy, your way of dealing with it is irrelevant.

First game done, second to come tomorrow. I agree with BigKahuna so far. Game was quite different compared to TI3. We actually got stuff done. When ppl see how everyone rises on that victory board, tension starts. That's the key.

My impression compared to TI3 was, that less time is spend at the lower VP stages. It's basically just a psychological thing: When you see all player at low VP till mid game (as is the case in TI3), you keep your options open. You play opportunistic. You play towards your own agenda. But when you see everyone race to the 4th VP in turn 3 already, and then to 6 VPs in turn 5, you feel pressured. Everyone at the table starts to doubt his own plan, everyone starts to get wary of how much time is still left and how close victory already is. The logical consequence is to get out of your comfort zone and do something about it.

It encourages less parallel "each for his own" play and increases concerns about someone winning the game much earlier. Therefore is also means less material overall on the board when stuff gets going.

Kind of equalizing the curve over a broader time-frame. Steady gains vs spikey VP hops.

16 hours ago, Malloc said:

Except stopping 5 other players from making little plays is not possible. You assume all other player play this way, not to mention that you can't be aggressive, score and defensive all at the same time. You will either slow yourself down, or you will open yourself up to get steamrolled by the guy who attacks later.

My point stands, the objectives are too easy, your way of dealing with it is irrelevant.

This is not an unusual opinion, I think it explains a lot of the concerns raised here.

What I'm trying to get you to understand is that, the only difference between TI3 and TI4 is the "when" of end game. In TI3 the end game starts around round 6 to 8, until than players are building up and preparing, scoring some points, getting themselves ready for the big climax of the game. The main difference in TI4 is that this "climax" begins at around round 3, round 4 at the absolute latest.

If players do nothing in round 6 to 8 to stop each other in TI3, just playing cooperatively, everyone will hit 8 points as well. It's the exact same effect, good players will know how to score all of the objectives and given uninterrupted freedom to do so, they will. Its the same in TI4, again, the only difference being "when" this happens... aka, much earlier.

The strategy is no different in TI3 and TI4 either in terms of how you approach the climax of the game. You throw yourself into the action trying to stop one or two of your neighbhoors, you can't stop everyone in TI3 either and you work under the same assumption as in TI4 in which you assume that other players will also try to stop their neighbhoors and people they can reach and effect in an effort to slow them down.

Absolutely nothing has changed between the two games other than the fact that in TI4 you get to the action/climax of the game quicker. That "build up and get ready" period lasts 2-3 rounds instead of 6 to 7 rounds.

I think the problem is that a lot of people are trying to play TI4 like they playe TI3, thinking they can wait until people hit 6 or 7 points before they start doing something, but the threshold in TI4 for "danger of winning" is at about 4 to 5 points. Once someone has reached 4 to 5 points, its time to treat them as if they are about to win the game, aka, you are in your last round or two. In TI4 if someone hits 6 or 7 points, that the equivalent of in TI3 someone hitting 8 or 9 points. The game is about to end and that person is going to win unless you take their homeworld.

I think after 10 years of TI3 a lot of people are having trouble making this transition. Making the objectives harder won't change anything, it will simply slow the game down. The results would be the same, except that the things that would normally happen in round 4-5 will take place in round 6-7.

Its also worth mentioning that this goes to game balance. Strictly put, in TI3, only about half the races where really "geared" towards completing objectives early. Another words, certain races would consider "objectives to be too easy" .. for them. Other races found it hard because they weren't equipped to deal with the objectives hence it took more time to get to them. The result in TI3 was that some races would always catapult ahead while others struggled. This wasn't a good thing, it was a bad thing, it meant that certain races had to be actively "stopped" as just a default of their strength. Aka, if you played in a game and you had the Hacan, Jol-Nar or Yssaril, you knew from round 1.. ok, these guys need to be stopped. There was no question they would go through any objectives with ease, their abilities hand them to them on a silver platter.

One key balance difference is that in TI4, given no ones interference all races have that advantage, they can all complete objectives with ease. This would also explain why people think "the objectives" are easy compared to TI3, though the real reason is that none of the races are gimped out of the gate in terms of having oppertunities to complete objectives.

The ultimate result is that in TI4, you don't have the luxury of knowing that X, Y and Z races can be ignored since they struggle to complete objectives.. they can all complete them and you need to actively worry about all of them.

This is a very positive change in the game in my opinion. One of the biggest flaws of TI3 was the fact that so many races where out of the gate, gimped in terms of being able to compete. In TI4, there is still some of that, but considerably less, there are really only a couple of races that will have trouble in normal circumstances to score points. Most are able to do it relatively easily assuming no one is actively trying to stop them.

I also disagree with the sentiment that you can't play aggressively, this was true in TI3, its adamantly false in TI4. Not only can you play highly aggressively, the benefits for doing so are grossly in your favor. This is largely because of the considerable cost reduction and recovery time of building up fleets. You can quickly take a planet, build a space dock and be ready to replenish units by the start of the next round. In TI3 the process for taking a planet, building a space dock and building units at that space dock would take no less than 3 rounds.. that's practically half the game. In Ti4, in normal circumstances you can do it in 2 rounds, its even possible to do in 1 round in some scenarios.

To Big Kahuna:

There is no "right way" to play TI4. You can play it any way you want, and if you analyse the game from a Game Theory perspective you'll see that attacking people early is not really a good idea. Generally, the structure of a game is as follows:

Early in the game people expand out into their slice of the pie, claiming tech, command token, and resource objectives, with the occasional small conflict for a secret objective. You have at least 2 neighbours, and not many ships, so aggression early only exposes your very vulnerable flank to one to one of your neighbours and generally does nothing to further you towards any objectives in the near future since, to reiterate, most objectives can be completed peacefully and are basically economy objectives. Even if you do manage to grab a planet or two, at this point in the game your spacedocks are usually quite far away and you'll likely loose that system very quickly, and make an enemy in the process. At the 5-7 point mark players start to get antsy and will begin to compete for territory at their borders, the stage 2 objectives come out or have already come out, and at that point you better hope you end up with the speaker token because someone is easily going to claim 3-4 points in one round, without anyone else being able to do anything about it since nobody is near anybody else's home system, again, because you've just started to butt heads.

Very often the game ends in a very anti-climactic way when a Stage II Objective is revealed, someone already meets the prerequisites, nobody is near their home system and everyone scrambles in futility to stop what is inevitable. That's my experience, anyway.

13 hours ago, Torvum said:

There is no "right way" to play TI4. You can play it any way you want

I hate people who tell me there's a right way to play any game. As long as I follow the rules, the only right way is the way I want. Sometimes you play for competition, sometimes to relax, sometimes to introduce new players, sometimes to try new strategies. Several of these involve "sub-optimal" plays from a Game Theory perspective, but such theoretical analyses are fundamentally flawed in that they assume everyone plays to win as efficiently as possible, which is not even remotely always the case.

21 hours ago, Torvum said:

To Big Kahuna:

There is no "right way" to play TI4. You can play it any way you want, and if you analyse the game from a Game Theory perspective you'll see that attacking people early is not really a good idea. Generally, the structure of a game is as follows:

Early in the game people expand out into their slice of the pie, claiming tech, command token, and resource objectives, with the occasional small conflict for a secret objective. You have at least 2 neighbours, and not many ships, so aggression early only exposes your very vulnerable flank to one to one of your neighbours and generally does nothing to further you towards any objectives in the near future since, to reiterate, most objectives can be completed peacefully and are basically economy objectives. Even if you do manage to grab a planet or two, at this point in the game your spacedocks are usually quite far away and you'll likely loose that system very quickly, and make an enemy in the process. At the 5-7 point mark players start to get antsy and will begin to compete for territory at their borders, the stage 2 objectives come out or have already come out, and at that point you better hope you end up with the speaker token because someone is easily going to claim 3-4 points in one round, without anyone else being able to do anything about it since nobody is near anybody else's home system, again, because you've just started to butt heads.

Very often the game ends in a very anti-climactic way when a Stage II Objective is revealed, someone already meets the prerequisites, nobody is near their home system and everyone scrambles in futility to stop what is inevitable. That's my experience, anyway.

I find your post very confusing. You have effectively described exactly how TI3 is played, practically quoting my post, than at the end complain about the game ending anti-climatically (as I pointed out it would) if you play the TI4 with the same approach as TI3.

I guess I agree with your post, if you play TI4 like you played TI3 with all the assumptions, the objectives are too easy and the game is anti-climatic. So.. don't. Don't play TI4 with the same presumptions and assessments as you make in TI3 and you won't have the end game problem and the objectives won't feel easy. In TI4 you cannot "start getting antsi" at 5-7, in TI4 that is End Game you are literally 1-2 rounds from the game ending.

I don't really fully understand what you mean by right way or wrong way to play a game anyway. I mean, its a board game, you play to get victory points to try and win? If that's not what your about, why do you care if the objectives are too easy or not or whether or not the objectives are balanced or the game end anti-climatically? I mean if you don't care if you win or lose and your just playing to play, than who cares how hard or easy the objectives are.

I don't want to join the current discussion, but as an FYI I am going to playtest swapping out the 20% public tech objectives with control objectives as part of my house rules. I dislike tech objectives because I see them as not encouraging player interaction (ie. not fun), don't have a downside (such other spending objectives which give you nothing but VPs), and favor already decent races that start with 2 tech.

Swapping out:

• L1: Diversify Research: Own two techs in each of 2 colors.
• L1: Develop Weaponry: Own 2 unit upgrade technologies.
• L2: Revolutionize Warfare: Own 3 unit upgrade technologies
• L2: Master of Science: Own 2 technologies in each of 4 colors.

For these (I'm still brainstorming but these are the draft leading contenders):

• L1: Aggressive Colonization: Control a planet at least 4 systems from your home system. (ignore wormholes)
• L1: Forward Borders: Have 1 or more ships in 3 systems containing no planets.
• L2: Demonstrate Mercy: Have 1 or more ships in 2 (3?) systems containing a planet controlled by another player.
• L2: Control the Trade Routes: Have at least one ship in a system with a printed A wormhole and at least one ship in a different system with a printed B wormhole.

Other ideas:

• L1: Long Distance Trade: Be neighbors with a player only through a wormhole. (note: likely applicable only with high player counts)
• L2: Defy the Dangers of Space: Control 6 (or 5?) planets adjacent to or within an anomaly.

If anyone has any additional cool ones to suggest please let me know. Thanks!

I just want to remind everyone that if folk are scoring too quickly for the game state you can always increase the number of points required for victory and that's a nice and perfectly vanilla option.

Playing to 14 points with three players is a completely different end game than playing to 10, I see no reason why this wouldn't hold true for 4, 5 or 6.

Depending on the pacing you want, you could also consider changing the total number of revealed objectives and the ratio of stage 1 to stage 2 and even the limit on held/scored secret objectives for your particular home games. If you're all playing really passively, I'd be very tempted to reduce or remove secret objectives to prevent the sudden sprint that happens when everyone is sitting at the same points. In a crowded game you might say 10 stage 1 objectives, in a sparse one only stage 2s. There are many, many levers to pull on to tweak it if you're into building your own house rules.

I share BigKahuna's impression of the game completely. The objectives are easy for every one, which actually makes them hard. If I miss too many I will be left behind and have less chance at victory. If I want to get an early lead I am steered towards Mecatol Rex which will make me open for attacks if I'm not careful. The general feel of the games I played were, in contrast to TI3, that conflict could arise at any given moment. There were a tension that superseded even the combat oriented objectives in TI3- shattered empire. And it was all because of balanced factions and new objective criteria. Love it!

On 1/7/2018 at 3:44 PM, Dweomer said:

I don't want to join the current discussion, but as an FYI I am going to playtest swapping out the 20% public tech objectives with control objectives as part of my house rules. I dislike tech objectives because I see them as not encouraging player interaction (ie. not fun), don't have a downside (such other spending objectives which give you nothing but VPs), and favor already decent races that start with 2 tech.

Swapping out:

• L1: Diversify Research: Own two techs in each of 2 colors.
• L1: Develop Weaponry: Own 2 unit upgrade technologies.
• L2: Revolutionize Warfare: Own 3 unit upgrade technologies
• L2: Master of Science: Own 2 technologies in each of 4 colors.

For these (I'm still brainstorming but these are the draft leading contenders):

• L1: Aggressive Colonization: Control a planet at least 4 systems from your home system. (ignore wormholes)
• L1: Forward Borders: Have 1 or more ships in 3 systems containing no planets.
• L2: Demonstrate Mercy: Have 1 or more ships in 2 (3?) systems containing a planet controlled by another player.
• L2: Control the Trade Routes: Have at least one ship in a system with a printed A wormhole and at least one ship in a different system with a printed B wormhole.

Other ideas:

• L1: Long Distance Trade: Be neighbors with a player only through a wormhole. (note: likely applicable only with high player counts)
• L2: Defy the Dangers of Space: Control 6 (or 5?) planets adjacent to or within an anomaly.

If anyone has any additional cool ones to suggest please let me know. Thanks!

Wouldn't swapping out the "spend 16 influence" "spend 10 trade goods" be better than ones 3 tech based ones?

Having played the game three times now, I don't think the public objectives are too easy, I think some are really easy, some are really hard and most are fair. The planet technology and trait ones, are some of the hardest, buying them are some of the easiest, the others seemed most people could achieve.

The best thing is that you can only score two objectives during the status phase (one public and one secret), as long as everyone is scoring one during this phase and it gets to the 2 point cards, it can be played in a balanced way.