Apologies for creating another thread immediately after my last one. The last one is long enough as it is and I felt this topic was different enough to warrant its own thread.

I'm in the position now where I have a core group of 3 players, including myself, that have 2 games of TI3 under their belt and really enjoy it. We're quite busy in real life but we're looking at having a game of TI3 once a month, or every 6 weeks or so. I'm also in the fortunate position to be able to get another potential 4 players into the game, possibly more in the longer term, meaning larger player games shouldn't be too hard to organise.

My question is, what's the best way to introduce these people to the game? I'm not planning on using Vanilla TI3 because there will be more experienced players there to help them through the basic mechanics and it'll be good to introduce them to the more fun aspects such as the brokering of deals between players which I've seen happens more in the expansion and the rules are generally just better. However, I would like some advice as to what I should and shouldn't do. My current plans are:

1) Keep the game size down. If I keep the game down to about 4 players with 2 experienced and 2 new it should help keep the game time down whilst providing enough interesting player interaction. Out of interest, how well would a 5 player game work with 3 experienced players and 2 new players? I dare not run a 7 player game in which 4 players are completely new, I fear it would put them off as it may seem just a little too overwhelming!

2) Preset maps- a must I reckon- it'll ensure a nice balance so no one is disadvantaged from the start and as I know myself from experience, new players cannot know the importance of different planets. I'm only about to use a random galaxy set up for the first time in my next game.

3)Age of Empire to provide focus and to make it clear to the new players from the start, what they have to do to win the game. This will be accompanied by a quick briefing informing the players the game isn't about warfare, warfare is merely a tool to help you achieve your goals, which is claiming Victory points. If you go to war for no point, it can really hurt you as much as your opponent.

4)Variant objectives and strategy cards. The variant objectives are simply more interesting and encourage player interaction a bit more and the new strategy cards are also much better. We'll have the experienced players help push the new guys along if they're flagging a bit. Undecided between bureaucracy with the red tape variant or Imperial II at the moment.

5)Player hand outs. These have been standard in my games, having your own tech tree to refer to really helps as you don't have to keep passing the rulebook around. I'll also print out a reference sheet for the strategy cards as well.

6)Territorial Distant suns if the game includes no more than 4 players. In our game we felt this added a lot of fun and flavour to the early part of the game. Sure it adds time, especially with new people but on the day we'll try and make sure this isn't a problem by setting the entire day aside for TI3, explaining that it'll take a long time but with experience, you can shorten the game to an hour per player.

7)Artifacts to help keep play time down a bit.

That's pretty much it, it's quite a bit but should be a good compromise of keeping the game interesting and accessible (the experienced players will help out the new players, we wont be looking to crush them at all- we'll see this as a tutorial game). We'd normally use more variants but I'd like to keep it simple for brand new players- in fact they only true 'variants' so to speak that I'd consider optional that we've included are territorial Distant Suns and Artifacts. I'm umming and arring about including Racial Tech but to be honest, I found the basic technology list intimidating enough as it is. On the other hand, it is simply one extra technology but to be honest I'd probably leave it out, What do you guys think?

Cheers,

El

Hi El,

I had my first game of TI in November with all new players and I noticed a few things that helped. I'm a rulebook fiend, so I don't mind reading rulebooks in detail several times before a first play and teaching everyone. I'm not sure how into board games your new players are so I'll approach this based on who I introduced to this game.

My first run through I played with my bro-in-law who has played lots of BG's including cosmic encounter, arkham horror, starcraft, age of conan etc.; a friend from work who plays more typical board games from the parker bros. variety; and another friend who isn't really into board games and hasn't played that many, but will play and be competative.

So I noticed a few things that helped and after reading the rules for the expansion I know what I would and would not have done with this particular group had I owned the expansion on our first game:

1. I had everyone take a look at the rulebook beforehand. Normally I wouldn't do this with just anyone, but everyone knew the size and length of the game so this didn't intimidate them. I told them that it would be handy for them to skim the broad concepts out of the rules and I would fill in the gaps and fine detail during setup and the first play. This helped a lot because a basic understanding of the game structure was there and they didn't have to piece it together while I was explaining it.

2. I noticed that the players who had familiarity with other games that shared mechanics with TI helped. For example, Arkam Horror for it's similar hugeness and phased turn sequence; Cosmic Encounter for it's social politics and negotiation; Puerto Rico for it's task picking (aka Strategy cards). Players who knew these other games had a peek at the mechanics or situations found in TI and felt more at home with them. Playing some of the other games is also a good way to introduce a mechanic in a less complicated setting with a smaller time investment.

3. If you plan to always use the expansion SC's with warfare I; I would suggest using them instead of the vanilla set for their first game so that when they come back to the game they can try a different approach with the same SC's instead of having to learn a different set of SC's on the second playthrough. If I had the expansion SC's I would have started learining the game with them on the first game being that they are a central mechanic and the community here is so positive about how good they are in copmarison to the originals.

4. I'd recommend taking out extras that add complexity to the game. If an add-on mod can't be explained in a paragraph or so I'd suggest leaving it as an opportunity to enhance game #2 for a new player. That way they can learn the game without being overloaded with too many extras. There is a lot in the expansion that I would not want to incorporate right off the bat just because there is so much to remember. Of course this depends on your players and their confort with big games like this.

5. Keeping the game at 4 players I think is a good idea. It keeps the overall length down and is more accessible. I would imagine that as long as the number of players is even for a balanced board, then more would be ok.

Overall, I'd say that the most useful thing I did (more by acident) was point them all in the direction of the rulebook. My non-boardgaming friend is pretty excited to play TI again and is even eyeballing my Tide of Iron game and wants to get into that.

I hope this helps!

Thanks Nargnarfer, that's a really useful post.

The first pair I'll be teaching the game to are a couple and one of them has already volunteered without me prompting, to read the rulebook beforehand so I'll take that as a good sign Unfortunately neither of them have much board game experience that I know of, but I'll think we'll probably cope with the limited variants I'm thinking.

We'll definitely be using the Variant Strategy cards just with warfare I subbed in I imagine. In my first game we intentionally used the entire vanilla set, but only because we were all new. In this case we'll be introducing the new players to the variant strategy cards because those are the cards we'll probably always use now and the more experienced players can help them through understanding them if need be.

The only variant I've suggested that I'm thinking of taking out is Artifacts. The reason is despite being very simple in concept, they had a lot of strategic implication in the game I first used them which was great, and a lot of political bargaining was made over the right to those systems and exploring them etc. However, in the first game the new players are going to be more worried about learning the mechanics than figuring out any subtle strategies. It'll probably be better for them to see what the objectives are to begin with (Age of Empire) and work towards them whilst learning the mechanics. I'll probably also use Imperial II instead of bureaucracy in that case to help speed the game up a little (more so than bureaucracy would with new players anyhow) and help emphasise the importance of Mecatol Rex...

What do you reckon?

Cheers,

El

I think the artifacts in the expansion was a very cool idea. To me it makes a game better when you get VPs for controlling a key location as opposed to getting points for just taking a strategy (i.e. Imperial I). Imperial II is better of course but the VPs still feel a bit arbitrary to me. In essence, if you control mecatol rex the main impulse would be to try to milk the spot for as many VPs as possible before you got punted.

But in regards to your plan to use Imperial II and no artifacts: I think it's a good idea. It maintains a balance where you remove one avenue of gaining VPs and substitute in another. It keeps the game board simple and your new players won't have to worry about who's about to take a key location on the board and gain a VP advantage.

On the other hand, I think that artifacts are so easy to include that having artifacts & the bureaucracy SC would'nt be a bad idea either. Using artifacts would keep the game focused like your use of the AoE variant. It would also give your new players more chances to take and hold VPs as opposed to everyone vying for mecatol rex.

It depends on what kind of take and hold game you want to play on the board. Would you prefer a "King of the Hill" style play at mecatol rex, or a "Control Point" style with the artifacts, and what would be more fun for your new players? I think both approaches are solid choices and the tiebreaker would be what makes for the better experience. Personally I would go for the Artifacts/Bureaucracy combo because I would enjoy it more and I believe it fits best with the people I play with.

I see what you're saying and I agree, normally I'd always choose Bureaucracy and Artifacts however, I think the Imperial II/no Artififact idea might be better for the first game with new players...

I'm still 50/50 on this idea, I might actually just go with Bureaucracy and Artifacts...