Hey all. 2 weeks ago I purchased this game and read the entire rules, even the optional rules from the expansion (yes, I got the expansion with the core game). Thing is...I can't seem to find players to play...I have 1 friend who I play weekly with the the other 4-5 aren't always available.

A question crossed my mind after reading the thread about Solitaire TI: Could 2 players play with 2 races each? Could be like a 4 player game. We would follow the rules as normal, like the order of play, etc.

Sure some aspect of the game wouldn't be as immersive as with 4-5 different players but when you HAVE to play TI, would this variant work?

Mechanically? Sure, it should work.

This is one of the recommended ways to play 2-player. I've done it several times and found it had most of the goodness.

My favorite two-player variation is a blend of my own gaming group's house rules and this variant:

boardgamegeek.com/thread/119002/another-2-player-variant

Seren said:

Thanks for the link, look really cool!

As I understand it, it's either a player plays 2 races or we use this variant and play 1 race each.

I really love the Political idea, picking tokens and secretly voting. Looks great!

My buddy and I play a 4 player game, where we control 2 races each.

-The races must be placed across the board from one another.
-They can never occupy the same tile at the same time. (You can have one of your races in space, and the other on a planet, but never both in space or on a planet together)
-Your other race can never qualify you for a VP (such as blockading a space dock)
-Write down 2 different VP totals required for a 'win' and keep it hidden, write down a race for each number. (We choose, 8 and 12.) So the other player is never sure which race is close to victory, as soon as one race hits it's VP total, the game is over.
-On political, pull 3 agenda's, tally up total votes. Write down (hidden) what your votes are for each agenda, then reveal. Ties go to the Speaker, agenda's with no votes are discarded. (We remove one political card... I think it's called public execution, where elected race loses all action cards, exhausts all planets, and is -1 on all combat for the whole round.)
-If your playing with Assembly, no one team can be speaker twice in a row. (This prevents one team picking first over and over)

Other than these rule adjustments, we just run a regular game.

n3ctaris said:

Nice variant n3taris! I love the idea of hidden and separate VPs for each races!