Let me preface all this by saying I love a long game. I personally have the intestinal fortitude for as many hours as it takes. If that means pausing the table and coming back another day... I've done that.

But!

You can probably understand my problem when my friend who hasn't played yet says, "Wait, could this really take 8 hours?"

I count the players (8) and the newbies vs experienced players (5 vs 3) and I have to admit that yes it really "could".

So I thought about whats make the game take longer or shorter. Distant suns is immediately not an option for a quick game. Artifacts might speed things up but I'm not a fan. I don't really like simulated early turns either.

Then it occurred to me that I was missing the obvious. Just lower the points required to win and you speed up everything. We play Bureacracy instead of Imperial, so there wouldn't necessarily be a huge difference between 9 pts and 8 or even 7.

So here are my questions.

1 - How many points can you shave from the win condition without completely messing with game balance?

My thought is that you can go as low as 6 and still be basically playing TI.

2 - Which races get hurt by shortening the game? Does anyone get unduly helped? (Lizix and Hacan come to mind)

3 - would you take cards out of the objective deck?

4 - How much time am I really saving by lowering the point goal? (I think 8pts would be basically not noticeable, 6 might chop off 2 hours)

5 - Is lowering the pt goal an advantage to experienced players or did a newbie ever really stand a change?

One other point occurs to me. We could institute a time trigger. If someone doesn't win in 5 hours we lower the point goal.

Or maybe at the end of each status phase after 5 hours pt goal goes down by one.

I want my newbies to have a good time and not think of TI as that one game that they tried and never finished.

Thanks!

I think 6 points would still make for a good game, maybe even 5.

Another way to make the game faster would be to take out objectives that people aren't likely to go for. I'd actually start by chucking the secret objectives entirely. They're lots of fun and in an average game I'd even say they're an important part of the dynamic, but if you're just tyring to get people interested int he game and not have it take forever, they're expendable. Those objectives are deliberately long-term thing. Take and hold Mecatol, conquer enemy homeworlds, control all the wormholes, etc. If you're trying to play quick and dirty these objectives will be largely ignored anyway, unless someone gets unusually lucky with map setup and SO draw.

Give each player a stage 2 public objective to keep secret if you want to retain the "feel" of SOs while reducing the long-term planning aspect. Just make sure you take out Imperium Rex before dealing. =P

I'd also knock out those two stage 2's that win the game right away (I forget what they're called, Conqueror and something else?)

Basically grease the wheels of how players earn VP to keep the difficult ones out. If everyone can reliably claim a public objective every turn, and the cap is 6 VP, then the game will probably not run longer than 6 turns. Playing with Age of Empire so everyone can see all the objectives and think about them in advance would also help, I imagine.

The only problem I foresee with that plan is that if you make it too easy, you might end up in a situation where everyone is tied for VP all the way up the scoreboard.

Steve-O lists some great suggestions, but I would think about making more objectives available than is listed in RAW. Providing more opportunities for players to score points and only playing until 6-8 points should make it go faster.

Along with Age of Empires, so all Stage two objectives are available for scoring after game round three, try adding two extra stage one's and one extra stage two. Then, during secret objective draw, try letting everyone draw three secret objectives and keep two of their liking.

Imperial II is good for allowing multiple objectives to be scored in a single status phase, although I understand your group likes Bureaucracy.

You could also play with Voice of the Council for another victory point being made available to all players.

Finally, to put even more weight on secret objectives, you could make them worth three victory points instead of two. There's a political card in the deck to this effect as well. Steve-O is right that it often takes a while to pull these off, but you'll have a real exciting 4th and 5th game round as people start claiming some of the easier secret objectives for a higher score.

These are some very good points.

I have always considered knowledge of the possible objectives one of the key advantages of an experienced Player. It never occurred to me that Age of empires is good for new players exactly because it eliminates that advantage. I like adding a few more objectives. It increases the educational aspect of the play style and makes it so that most strategies a new player tries will be able to get them points.

Also, removing the secret objectives makes sense. Definitely doing that. Let's not distract them with options that probably aren't achievable in a shorter game.

This actually raises a good point. I wonder if it would be worthwhile at all to design a tutorial variant intended to get the TI hooks into new players. Perhaps a preset map, with objectives, races and variants chosen to show off the various aspects of the game, but also be extra approachable. It might take a different format if designed for All new players vs a mix of mostly new players with a few veterans.

Thanks again!