Is it possible to play this game with 7-10 players?

By Tyzuris Vinserix, in Twilight Imperium

So I got Twilight Imperium as a Christmas present, and I noticed that there's 10 species you can play as, so is it possible to go over the official 6 player limit to 7-10 players?

Depends how much work you're prepared to do. From a purely component based pov the practical limit is 8 (since there are 8 strategy cards) but if you're going to hack the game anyway you *might* be able to figure out some solution to that. Either way you're not in Kansas anymore so I wouldn't expect it to work as intended. Could be a fun experiment if your group is into that.

Side note: I'm guessing you have 3rd Edition (10 species) so you might have better luck checking for 3rd Edition stuff. There are official expansions to take the game to 8 for 3rd Ed. 4th Edition comes with 17 species.

Yeah. I got the third edition as a Christmas present, but did not see a dedicated forum for it, so I asked here.

If you go up a few categories, there is a Forum Archive which is where the 3rd Ed Forum is located.

It got moved there about a month ago now.

Ok. Thanks for the heads-up. Tried searching for Third Edition expansions and couldn't find any store with them still in stock... the third edition is well over a dozen years old, so that probably has a lot to do with that... and some used ones went as high as four hundred bucks. Straight up robbery I tell you.

So does anyone here know any places that still stock the Third Edition expansions? Any help is welcomed. :lol:

The expansions were out of print for quite some time as well, and anyone who had one to sell was looking for several hundred each. Prior to 4th announcement, the Base 3rd Game was still at about $90 though.

Your best bet for the TI3 expansions is get lucky and find a small local game store that stocked the game and still has unsold copies. Might even get a discount now that 4th is out. I know a store in Akron Ohio that probably still has a Shards of the Throne on the shelf.

I only ever played one seven-player-game in TI3. I will never do that again.

17 hours ago, Stefan said:

I only ever played one seven-player-game in TI3. I will never do that again.

Why?

It adds to the playing time, it adds to resources (fourth ring), and it doesn't add to value because with seven players, there will always at least be one you don't have contact with.

The longer and more epic the better i.m.o.

On 1/18/2018 at 8:50 AM, Stefan said:

I only ever played one seven-player-game in TI3. I will never do that again.

Seconded. Did that once too, never again.

9 hours ago, Fnoffen said:

The longer and more epic the better i.m.o.

As someone who enjoys playing the long version of twilight imperium with the higher VP threshold, I understand where you're coming from but there is good long and bad long. Longer does not necessarily mean more epic. Once you get to 7-8 players , TI3 really groans under its own weight. The already considerable downtime (which honestly I don't normally have a problem with) is a little too much with more than 6 people, also, you don't really interact with the extra players. I can't remember if the extra rings grants more resources per player given the extra player count, but generally speaking, more resources per player also leads to a more stagnant game.

If I ever had 8 players willing to play TI3 again, I'd play two seperate 4 player games, with the long VP track if people wanted extra length. You'd end up interacting with the game a lot more.

55 minutes ago, Gregor Eisenhorn said:

The already considerable downtime

Curious, since one of the strengths of the game I always tote to perspective players is how little down time there is.

10 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Curious, since one of the strengths of the game I always tote to perspective players is how little down time there is.

For the type of game it is, it handles DT as well as it can, but there are relatively long periods of time when a player isn't doing anything. In games up to 6 players, this DT is fine, it's long enough for players to consider their next moves and wait for their turn to use a secondary on a strategy card, but at 7-8 players, it becomes tediously long. Your mileage may vary.

Edited by Gregor Eisenhorn
22 hours ago, Fnoffen said:

The longer and more epic the better i.m.o.

I totally agree. Unfortunately, my core group is only four people (including me) so we always have difficult in finding two more players who can handle a game of such lenght to set up a four rings map.

So go for a 4 ring 4 player map? Shouldn't be a problem just adding a 4th ring with the HSs staying in the 3rd ring.

As others have said, a 4th ring and a maximum of 8 players is 'the' limit due to the strategy cards.

Again, even 6 players is a bit of a grind personally having played TI4 that way. I would consider playing it again, my first game and only game of it everyone was a newbie so that would've slowed it down, the game took 13 hours.

However I've worked to make a 5 player game more balanced, so if we have more than 4 I'll play that and see. 8 I think would be... if you have 7 hardcore friends, that have all played TI3 or TI4 before, and they're willing to start at like 8 or 9am in the morning until 10-11pm at night, with minimal breaks, sure go for it and let us know.

On 21/1/2018 at 6:06 PM, Fnoffen said:

So go for a 4 ring 4 player map? Shouldn't be a problem just adding a 4th ring with the HSs staying in the 3rd ring.

Maybe by adding more non-planet sistems it could come out a balanced map even if there are many sistems per player. I'll propose this solution to the other three.

TI3, but still

0C51EB14-EEB9-4828-B10B-17938A62F05F.jpeg

18 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

TI3, but still

0C51EB14-EEB9-4828-B10B-17938A62F05F.jpeg

The covered exes are impassable zones or will be flipped while exploring?

6 hours ago, Pretorian said:

The covered exes are impassable zones or will be flipped while exploring?

My understanding is that they were flipped as players explored.

It wasn’t a game I played, just an image I found online that perfectly captured the kind of game I WANT to play.

Well, that would certainly add to the eXplore X that is the weak part of the game in the 4x department

On 1/23/2018 at 2:07 PM, Forgottenlore said:

TI3, but still

0C51EB14-EEB9-4828-B10B-17938A62F05F.jpeg

On 1/24/2018 at 3:29 PM, Forgottenlore said:

My understanding is that they were flipped as players explored.

It wasn’t a game I played, just an image I found online that perfectly captured the kind of game I WANT to play.

On 1/24/2018 at 3:59 PM, Vilnic said:

Well, that would certainly add to the eXplore X that is the weak part of the game in the 4x department

Yeah Eclipse does something like that. Thing is Eclipse has no impassable hexes, well not exactly they use connecting circles but at the same time you can use those to isolate yourself. The one thing I don't like about eclipse, is how a player can easily isolate himself if he is the right race and win without having any contact with other players, and this is in a 5 player game.