Hey folks,

I have read in a couple of places that there is a 2 player variant game out there. It has supposedly been playtested a lot.

I can't seem to find those rules anywhere. I tried searching a TI3 wiki page, but no luck.

Can anyone help out with this?

Thanks!

You were pretty close. Its included in the Shattered Expansion rules booklet (a fanmade expansion)

Topic here

Rulebooklet here (page 8)

2-player works well and is a lot of fun.

Bill

For what it's worth, you don't really need to use the rest of the Shattered Ascension variant - the 2-player game works fine even using the regular rules, too.

Thanks for the responses and the links.

Darkman said:

i would like to play test this 2 player version.

Thanks,

we will test this 2-Player-Variant...

Michael

A buddy of mine and myself play a 2 player variant where we each take 2 factions and set them up across from each other in a standard 4 player galaxy. Then we play a 4 player game pretty much normally, with a few extra rules.

1 - You cant have the speaker token twice in a row, so if you have the speaker token and assembly, then you must choose one of the other players factions to recieve the speaker token. This prevents one player going first every turn with one of his 2 factions.

2 - Write down secretly one faction to play to 10 points and one to play to 14 points. That way you never really know how close someone is to victory, this prevents ganging up a bit, as your never really sure how close to victory either race is.

3 - Your two races can never occupy the same space/planet, they cannot go through each others controlled space. Essentially standard rules apply just as if your two races were played by different players. This is so you wont see super armies running around, and to ensure that if each race were to help one another it would have to be indirectly.

4 - You cant give trade goods, action cards or politics cards to your other race. This prevents one race being a factory of resources for the other race.

That's about it, with 2 seasoned players, you can run a game like this in about 3-3.5 hours.

screengurl2007 said:

When it comes to playtest, a three digit number of games have already confirmed this one as solid. Actually, I believe SA has gone through more testing and revisions during the last 6 years than the original game.

However, if you want to join in on the fun and play, visit ti3wiki.org

Just be aware that Shattered Ascension changes quite a few things with the game, from some core mechanics to techs to action cards to setup, etc.

For some (like me) it strays too far away from the original game.

That doesn't mean you won't enjoy it - but just know that SA is not "necessary" by any means to enjoy the 2-player experience (any more than it's necessary to enjoy the full game experience).

That is true.

But vanilla races, setups and techs won't always be sufficiently balanced for a 2-player games, which is more critically "sensitive" to such things. You can use as many core rules as possible if you prefer that, but SA is tailored and tested for this kind of play. If this isn't very important to you and you don't want to hassle with new rules, keep the basic ones.

Fair enough, those are good points. I think most of the races are probably fine, with just a couple that may not work well in 2-players (Yssaril, for instance).