Hi, all. Do any of you have (or know of) a good briefing or condensed set of instructions to give completely unfamiliar players the gist of the rules?

I've tried to explain the game at a high level a couple of times, to provide a conceptual framework that new people can build on as they learn the details. I haven't really been successful with that, though -- I'm having trouble explaining things abstractly in a way that is both useful and doesn't require concrete details to understand.

Thanks in advance for any help.

There's a tutorial online:

www.preeminent.org/steve/games/ti3/ti3demo/3-player/home/index.shtml

That might help.

I think this game is impossible to teach without concrete examples. When I've gotten newbies in our group, I've encouraged them to read the rules beforehand, check out the tutorial, and if at all possible, we've played a test game for 2 rounds. Even then, it's impossible for a newbie to be competitive against experienced players.

The most important things for a rookie to learn are:

1. The Tactical Action
2. The Strategy Cards
3. Rules for Space Docks

Everything else (Technologies, Politics, Action Cards etc.) IMO can more easily be learned on the fly. A new player will most likely spend their first game building in their Home System and managing their resources, so a lot of the time they can spend on reading through the Technologies, race sheets, etc.

I made a 1-page player turn list that players can follow when it's their turn. It seemed easier than going through the ambiguous rules, trying to find that one exact answer to something. The one pager is just for stock rules. No house rules, obviously. See link in my sig below.