Hello:

I have bought TI3 + expansion and I want to make a 5-6 players play with newbies (me too I'm newbie)

Which races I should take and which rules I may use???

Should I use all the cards of the expansion, only Imperial II or what???

Thanks in advanced.

My suggestion; play the basic game without the expansion and with the original Imperial.

Why? Because the Imperial will act as a clock, your first game will probably take for ever to finish otherwise. Newbies tend to build huge fleets and buy a lot of tech instead of trying to score VP:s

And after you play with the expansion you will never want to go back to the “old” version so if you want to play the original version, do it now or you will never do so. It is also easier to play without the expansion in the beginning (less things to keep track off)

But Imperial with 2 points or home rule 1 point???

Use the Two Point version. I still play with the 2-point version regularly, and even in games where all the players have played at least a couple of times the games still take about 6 to 8 hours. The biggest purpose of Imperial is preventing the game from lasting a week.

I agree that you should start with just the base game. Exclude leaders. Distant suns could be excluded, but they make the game really fun and give everyone practice on invasion combat in opening rounds. Races that should be avoided by new players (in my opinion) are the Xxcha, Yssaril, Emirates of Hacan, and Jol Nar. Once you've played some games those races will be really fun to use, but they can be an extra challenge for new players. You could also try using the one of the preset maps to save time setting up the game (you can just approximate a map using the base game's hexes to keep it simple.)

Hope that helps!

Wow, ok sorry guys but this is just terrible advice.

If time is your main issue, using the Imperial Strategy Card is without question the worse possible way to speed things up. This card has nothing good about it at all and you can just as easily simply give a player 2 points (in round robin order) every round and have the same effect without all the terrible drawbacks of the Imperial Strategy card, and more importantly without all the broken and negative effects the card has on the game as a whole.

My suggestion for first timers looking to get through their first game is to

1. Play with all public objectives open (this will speed the game up a lot).

2. Don't play with Distun Suns, Leaders or any of the other 'extras' if using the expansion.

3. Don't play with secret objectives.

4. Play till 7 points.

Even if you have never played you'll finish a game under 6 hours. Never schedule a game session unless you have at least 6 hours and over time slowly add elements of the game you think can make it more interesting. Eventually you will be able to play with the entire set and still finishing in 6-7 hours.

Time is no problem

pedrotronic said:

If time is not an issue bud, then there is even less reason to use the Imperial Strategy card, especially if you have the expansion. The game is without question (I think most will agree with me here) 1000% better using the expansion cards rather then the original.

The Ideal Game in my eyes would be setup like this.

1. Leaders

2. Using Expansion SC's and swapping out Warfare I for Warefare II.

3. Draw 2 pick 1 Secret Objectives (this is done after the galaxy is built).

4. Political Cards cannot be traded in for Trade Goods (but can be traded in for votes).

5. Simulated Early Turns

6. First two public objectives up, the rest down (Imperium Rex removed from the deck).

7. Mecatol Guardians

8. 1 extra PDF for Xxcha. Allow Clan of Saar to recieve its extra trade goods in the Simulated Early Turns rounds when they claim planets.

9. Play to 10 points or play to 14 points with Artifact Planets

Optionally I might suggest some race card changes for certain races, but its not a nescessity.

With this setup on a 6 player game your facing at least 7 hours of play (possibly 8), however in my personal experiance it makes for the most interesting game. No distunt suns, no faucilities or colonies. No Mines or Shock Troops (although some might appear do to cards or special planets, we usually don't bother removing them).

NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!

Do NOT use Simulated Early Turns EVER!

It hurts some races and helps others far too much. You lose half the early game strategy too.

Race Changes:

Xxcha: +2 GF

Norr: +1 TG or 1 resource worth of units

Mentak: Steal immediately after Trade is completed.

Game Rules:

1) Play to 9 VP as stated

2) Use the expansion Strategy Cards (optional switching in the Warfare I card)

3) Artifacts (some modification to make duds worthwhile is good)

4) Guardians of MR

5) PCs cannot be traded in for TGs

6) Leaders (optional depending on your groups opinion)

7) 2 SOs, pick 1 or modify some of the SOs to make them equal

8) Draw 2 random races and pick one

9) Objectives as written

Do NOT use:

1) Voice of the Council

2) Distant Suns

3) Simulated Early Turns

This should give a relatively balanced (in terms of not being random) game and is easily finished in 6 hours or less.

Beren_Erchamion said:

I couldn't disagree more. Simulated Early Turns (SET), effecitvly eliminates the early round player elimination (at least eliminations from contention) which in my experiance is a very good thing. The impact on racial start positions is severly overstated here, its actually barely even noticable and the result of SET on strategy is that it gives everyone (regardless of race) a fair starting position from which to build a successful strategy.

Before my group and I started playing with SET it never failed that one or two players were taken out of contention in the early rounds resulting in the 'angry play' effect in which players aren't trying to win, but are out to 'get someone' for screwing them in the early rounds. This usually leads to straight up king making and makes for a pretty negative gaming experiance.

SET basicaly levels the playing field and while I agree to some extent some races get screwed, its a pretty minor screw and most of the races negativly effected are from the stronger pool of races (like Ysarril Tribes for example) which in the broader scope of the game is not that big of a deal.

Just my opinion but my suggestion is to try both, I think you are more likely to settle on playing with SET as this creates a far more balanced game then trying to play out those early rounds,.

Beren_Erchamion said:

Unless you want to speed up the game, then go ahead and use them.

I also like them because it gives some of the less warlike races a better foothold on the galaxy. Keeping players from getting wiped out in the first few turns by more warlike neighbors.

Our group uses them every game and it works out just fine.

I agree with Beren about SET, but not for the same reasons. I just the beginning of the game should be more exciting and my experience is that SET has about as much flavor Elmer's Glue.

Beren is correct on most else, but is HORRIBLY wrong concerning a couple of elements; 1)Distant Suns are great. As noted above my FTF group likes to have something important possibly happen even in the first round. If it's just a big galaxy with open planets, it's lame. 2) VotC can be lots of fun. Just make it mandatory whenever the #3 card is picked. If you want extra flavor, have each player split their total votes between the proposed agenda and VotC. 3)PC's as TG's. Some poo-poo this variant but I've never found anything to be wrong with it and I personally like the flexibility of it. Unless time is an option, always use Leaders because they round out each race.

Race Variants(different than already listed); Give Xxcha +2 GF & have Diplomacy Ability mirror the Jol Nar Tech ability (as in, both primary & secondary). Yssaril only have Antimass to start.

Race Selection in my group works very well by having each player (depending on the size) eliminate 1 race from the game. That way you can avoid getting the same race each time or just get rid of the mutally agreed upon crappy races.

Just wanted to add one more thing to the pot here about SET.

This is something you'll have to test out yourself, but I can guarantee you that if you take the same exact races and galaxy setup and play out the first 2 turns and take a picture of it, then clear the board and start the same game with SET, the results will be extremly similiar. Players will own the same planets, have roughly the same amount of units and be in roughly the same general position. Grant it the political situation might be different since players have 2 rounds to interact, but the disputes over territory will probobly be the same.

My point is that the first two rounds are anything but exciting. Its basicaly completetly predictable, I can take any galaxy setup and tell you exactly what planets everyone will own after round two. I mean its not magic, its just common sense.

SET basicaly starts the game in round 2 when the game starts to get exciting and things actually start happening, unless as mentioned your playing with distunt suns, but in my humble opinion distunt suns are about as exciting as car accidents. They are definitly a suprise but its basicaly nothing more then a completly random crap shoot which you can do nothing about except pray that you survive it.

BigKahuna said:

I don't know if I completely agree with this. From the games of SET I've played, I've noted that some races get a decent advantage by it, some races get a bit of a disadvantage by it.

The Muaat, for example, tend to be slow to expand the first couple rounds, due to their lack of transports. Set lets them bypas this a bit by giving them more units near the beginning of the game than they'd normally get, and be ready to go with more planets very soon.

The Hacan are a bit shafted, as during the first two round, Trade is usually played in there at least once, and the Hacan use this time to negotiate, and get some TGs on the second round.

The Saar are also shafted, as they don't get thier TG bonus for getting planets.

I think SET is good for first time players, to speed it up, but even if there's little action the first couple rounds, I think SET doesn't really accomplish what it sets out to do in a completely "balanced" way.

sigmazero13 said:

Well there is balanced and then there is equal and I think the two often get sort of mushed together and then promptly seperated depending on the situation. For example we talk about 'balancing' races often as everyone agrees that the races are not balanced, but no one attempts to make them equal, they just need to have relative balance as a whole. This is always a matter of opinion and debatable but there are some consensus in this regard, like for example most people will agree that the Xxcha are too weak in comparison to the other races.

SET simply sticks to the formula of variants which ultimatly alter the starting conditions of the game and potentialy strengthning or weakning the postions of players who happen to be playing certain races. I believe that the effect it has on the races is really not that relevant since there are many things that can in any given game give a race one race an advantage while screwing another.

I guess the point I'm making and I actually make quite often about TI3 is that you can say that its not a balanced game because their is nothing in the game that starts out 'equal and so any variant, race, card or anything in the game can easily be debated as to wether or not its balanced'. Most importantly however is that starting conditions for races are all drasticaly different and depending on the setup of the game their position might strengthen or weaken which is always arguably unbalanced. SET simply continues along that same tradition as any other variant and all it does is change the strength or weakness of the positions of certain races, in the same way playing with distunt suns, leaders or wether you do or don't play with the expansion does. Its just another 'element' of change, but I don't think it derails the game anymore or less then any other variant you use.

Certainly I agree that like any variant its easy to break it down and start house ruling it to bring the balance tighter but personaly in my experiance most 'adjustments' of rules that we house rule as a group inadvertantly create some other counter 'weakening' or 'strengthening' of another races/players starting conditions. It's kind of enevitable with so many variables all inner mixing with each other. At some point you just have to say... screw it lets just play already, because otherwise we could debate the balance of everything until we are blue in the face and there will never be a consensus in that regard.

SET as a whole does a good job of speeding up the game and getting the players through what is usually (perhaps not always) a boring stage of the game. Does it effect the races? of course it does, but keep in mind there is nothing you can add or remove from the game that will NOT effect the races because everything effects the races in one way or another.

Personaly I think SET is one of the few variants who's impact is pretty minimal. I would suggest house ruling the Clan of Saar, as this is probobly the race which is most affected by SET. After all the key advantage of the Clan of Saar is that everytime they claim a planet they get trade goods. This can amount to 6-10 trade goods in the openning rounds and that is quite a significant impact. There are many suggestions on the forum in the the case of the Saar and SET but in my group we actually forgot to adjust them one time and in that particular game the player won with the Saar hence the debate about their SET related starting condition kind of died right then and there. Proving once again that this games complexity of this game extends beyond any concivable way to predict anything beyond the first couple of rounds.

Well, again, I can only speak from my experience, but I've found the impact to be far from "minimal" in terms of shifting the gameplay balance. I agree some races, like the Xxcha and N'orr get boosted a bit to make their opening game a bit more usable with SET. But the Muaat, for instance, an already powerful race, get an even BETTER start with SET. The Yssaril, already very fast to start, get even better with SET as they can get even closer to their goals right off the bat.

I don't think SET is an equalizer or balancer at all. Yes, it speeds up the game, but I don't think the cost is worth it. My group has all come to the agreement that we'll never use SET again unless we are REALLY pressed for time - it's left that much of a sour taste in our mouths.

BigKahuna said:

Please do so with this map as soon as everyone has their starting location chosen....

http://ti3wiki.org/index.php?title=The_Five_PBeM

Beren_Erchamion said:

Given that you are not following the normal game set up rules (actually not following most of the setup rules) on this one, the openning sequence will be equally none standard. Obviously when I said the game was predictable in the openning rounds I was refering to a standard Twilight Imperium game. I can only assume that if your not following the setup rules you are probobly changing other rules as well which would probobly make it even less possible to predict. Good Luck with that one.

pedrotronic said:

My suggestions are as follows. The simpler the better for your first game or it may take you 12 hours.

Do NOT use Naalu, Saar or Muaat. Naalu and Saar tend to confuse first time players with thei racial abilities. Muaat is just plain hard to play until you ahve a handle on the game.

Good races for beginners: Sol, Norr, Letnev, L1z1x, Hacan, Mentak, Winnu (remember Winnu's racial abilities, they are easily forgotten)

The other races are alright, but a tad bit tougher to play.

RULES

Expansion Strategy Cards (Bureaucracy is generally better, but Imperial II can be fun)

Expansion Objectives (Gives more warfare related objectives so there is less "turtling")

Wormhole Nexus (You may forget it's there, but this is a key addition to the game and should be included. Note that it is NOT needed for the Keeper of Gates SO)

Artifacts (Adds more VPs which makes for a quicker game)

Voice of the Council (Optional, I don't like it personally, but it is a good addition to the game.)

Sabotage Runs (Just because they're cool. I never see anyone actually do one.)

Racial Techs (These balance a lot of the races that were underdogs in the original version.)

NO NOs

Whatever you do your first time playing, do NOT use Simulated Early Turns. You may find you have a liking for it later and that's all fine and good, but the more playing you do the first game the more you will learn.

Good luck and have fun!

BigKahuna said:

And this is exactly why I don't use SET. You should try out the Star by Star Variant to set up some time. It makes for a far more interesting game than the out of the box set up.

Indeed, I can vouch for that. I'm largely opposed to major game variants, because I like the game as written, but two variants that I do kind of like are:

1) Dreadnoughts roll 2 dice in battle when undamaged. They count as 2 units for production purposes. War suns take 3 hits to kill, roll one die per hit they have left, and count as 3 units for production purposes. This variant makes Dreadnoughts more worthwhile, but still balances their added power (both with the non-constant dice, and the extra "production"). War Suns become better than they are because they take one extra hit, but they also lose power as they are hurt, and take up quite a bit of production to build. I just like this one.

2) Star-by-Star. This one I like, but don't "need" to make things fun, but I like how something so simple as more control over home system placement can add a LOT of interesting twists to the game without drastically altering the balance. In a way, it can actually ENSURE more balance as no player is "stuck" in a bad starting position just because of having a bad hand - anyone can end up pretty much anywhere in the galaxy.

I just don't like SET because although the first few rounds may be "repetitive", they often set the tempo for the rest of the game.

Lots of interesting opinions here. My 2 cents:

-For heaven's sake, don't use the original Imperial Strategy Card so you can play without it later! That's like eating a spoonful of mud before you have a scoop of ice cream, just to make the ice cream taste better. Leave the ISC where it belongs... under your table leg to keep it from wobbling.

-Once you know the rules, leaders don't really lengthen the game, with the exception that Diplomats can stall the invasion of a planet (and a few dice rolls when somebody gets killed or captured). I'm kind of apathetic about whether they add that much to the game though. I usually don't play with them because others in my group request not to. Play without them the first couple of times for simplicity; once you've got the basics down, try them out to see how you like them.

-Distant Suns... I'm not going to debate them here. In my opinion they aren't worth the cardboard they're printed on. Some people, the poor souls, love 'em. If you wanna play Russian Roulette, TI3-style, knock yourself out.

-I disagree that SET has a minimal impact on the start of the game. It has tremendous impact... sometimes for the better, but often for the worse, depending on who you are playing. One screwed race I don't think anyone has brought up yet: Yin only gets 2 resources from their planet as they cannot flip it. Besides, if you are learning the game, the first few turns are the most educational for new players. Hell, I would even suggest that instead of playing 1 beginner game, you play THREE incomplete games, each lasting 2-3 turns, just to get the basics down. Once you are experienced, try SET. If the glaring impacts on the beginning game don't bother you (or you even like them), then use 'em if they float your boat.

Personally, I don't like SET. I like to watch the first turns unfold. There are some early moves one can pull (especially with the extra movement afforded by early XRD/Stasis, or one of the Warfare cards) that you can't do using SET. Unlike some people here, I like seeing early-game aggression. In my experience it rarely leads to early player elimination if you have good players. And frankly, I find games where everyone gets their fair share of the pie to be mind-numbingly boring.

-I will second that Dreadnought/War Sun rules, and Preset Maps/Star-by-Star are great variants. Play by the book a few times, then try these to spice things up. You may prefer the original way... maybe? Personally, I won't go back.

And Mike just put what I was trying to say about SET perfectly.

Mike_Evans said:

Mike is making some sense here, in particular about some of the arguments against using SET. I have to admit that I have never considered the impact on the Yinn, which after some consideration I have to agree is nearly as bad as the Saar. Still I will say one thing about SET which, I think I have pointed out before but its worth consideration when you are watching the effects of SET on your games.

In essence, everything has an impact on the starting conditions of your races, in fact, I would say that your starting conditions as a player are impacted considerably more by the layout of the galaxy, or what objectives come up then say what race you play. This is a point worth considering because while SET certainly has some wacky effects on certain races, so does any other variant or condition of the game. Everything in the game impacts how you will see the game from your chair and while we can argue what is a 'balanced' variant and what is not, again more often then not the experiance of the player will dictate his opinion.

I often use my groups experiance with the Saar and SET. It was agreed upon by my group that the Saar where getting screwed considerably by SET and that they needed an adjustment to make them worth picking. However one night as we played one of the newbies (new to TI3 but certainly no stranger to strategy games) picked the Saar and we started the game and forget to implement the change to the Saar, hence they played as they are. Not only did the Saar win, but they basicaly dominated the game. Their racial abilities where used to perfection and to this day I have never seen anyone play so thoroughly successful as the Saar where. The very next time the Saar where chosen while they didnt win, where certainly a top contender for the game (also a SET game).

Anywya the result was that my groups dynamic despite the initiatly intention to change the race resulted such that the Saar are now seen as a pretty good race to pick, as the tactics and strategy displayed by the player who won with them really showed the rest of us how good they can be. So today my group makes no adjustments to the Saar, but more importantly more often then not fears the player controling them, because their win vs. loss and rank ratio is quite good in our group. If you used our groups win loss record as a basis for picking races the Saar would be in the top 3.

My point with all this is to simply point out that starting condition while probobly the most debated, disputed and the very reason why so many variants and house rules exist are actualy not particularly critical to the game. In the hands of a good player and the right table conditions (galaxy setup, public objective draws, action card draw, diplomatic atmosphere and many others) every race has a good shot at winning.

I would also point out that among experianced players it is usually considered wise to look at someone in a good starting condition with suspicion and caution. I mean when I sit down to play a game of TI3 and I find that my neighbhoor is running Hacan or Yassiril, I can promise you that he is my enemy before the game starts and Im out to screw him right out of the gate, as I think most players are in my experiance. This I think is a far bigger disadvantage to a player with a strong race (good starting conditions) and certainly supercedes the potential mechanical advantage. I mean a Yassiril player can very easily find himself in round one facing 5 people who see him as the biggest threat at the board. Considering that, I rather be in the shoes of a mediocare race any day. In fact more often then not when I choose a race, I consider this very perspective.

Just for a reference the Yassiril has one of the worse records in my group having one only won once in the history of the group. I mean the Xxcha (un changed) has a better record then that. I'm not saying here that they aren't the best race, they most definitly are, however there is absolutly no question in my mind that at my groups table when I draw 2 races and have to pick one and I happen to draw the Yassril, I'm going to be seriously considering picking the other race cause statisticaly whatever it is I have better odds of winning.

Just something to chew on.

I started to write a small reply, and it morphed into a ginormous post. The first part is general, the second part is specific. Good luck to those with long attention spans!

What you're talking about is groupthink. I have read stories where a guy complains that because he is considered the best player in his group, yet he almost never wins because the everybody gangs up on him all the time. I feel sorry for these guys. When they're suffering through yet another game where they are getting gangbanged, it's not really much consolation to know that it's only because everybody else respects them so much. They just happen to be getting the wrong end of the groupthink stick.

Groupthink dynamics can be interesting... if new "revelations" are had by the group, the gameplay can change significantly. But if the groupthink doesn't change much, it becomes stagnant. You'll see people become bored or frustrated with a game because they feel it has been "solved," when in reality they simply haven't found any new strategies in a while. The key there is to constantly experiment. Starcraft strategy is a perfect example of large-scale groupthink in action. Some tactics that were commonplace several years ago are now obsolete as players have figured out how to counter them, and the new strategies will eventually be beaten by something else. Now, if a game is good, it will be sufficiently deep that you can play it many different ways and keep it fresh. If the game is shallow, you really will run out of viable strategies pretty quickly. But if multiple groups notice a trend, then I think it's worth looking into some kind of rebalancing effort. After all, Blizzard was still rebalancing Starcraft with patches YEARS AND YEARS after its original release.

Now, when should a variant or house rule be introduced to change the balance? That's a tricky question. Unless the balance problem is obvious, one lone group will have a hard time definitively proclaiming what is or isn't balanced. But enough different groups playing enough different games can certainly point out trends that are harder to argue with. For example, somebody did the homework and found that Yssaril was winning an obscenely high percentage of the PBEMs. And of course there's common sense. I'm sorry to anyone who may disagree, but on paper, it's blindingly obvious that Mentak (pre-expansion) ain't got nothin ' on Yssaril. It is equally obvious that the original ISC is a broken card, and why should be obvious as well.

When you discuss strategy with other people, there's a lot of subjective stuff or just plain bull mixed in with the truth. How do you tell which is which? The key is debate . By comparing opinions, you can get to the bottom of a lot of it. (This is a lot easier, emotionally, if you are watching the debate from the sidelines rather than participating in it!) You can either point out bad/incomplete ideas with a little critical thinking, or you can compare war stories and see what is the same and what is different between groups. This is why I'm such a fan of PsiComa's Shattered Ascension variant package. Psi took his experiences and those of his game group over years of play, and he took the anecdotes of others online. Then he used that information to refine the game in terms of balance and "feel." He succeeded beautifully, in my opinion. Granted, I have similar tastes as Psi in terms of what style of game I want to play, but I will also say that few people who have tried Shattered Ascension have been dissatisfied. If people don't like Psi's variant, they don't have to play it. But if they are of a like mind, they can enjoy it, and they do. Immensely.

Incidentally, as most of us are painfully away, the "debating" part is where tempers flare. I have seen it many times... a guy comes to the forums, he has played a a grand total of once, and has all sorts of issues with the game. He insists that he's right when his real problem is he doesn't have enough experience yet to know what he's talking about. (not to derail this thread as it's been pretty productive, but almost without exception, most of the fights between the veterans and the newbies happen because of situations like this). This is more likely to happen the longer a game has been established.

------

To change gears to the specific: I agree wholeheartedly that many variants can favor or penalize races. For example, I feel that Mines favor the Yin in combat. If if a mine hits and damages a sustain-damage ship, there's no choice in the matter of selecting casualties. If Yin survives to the 2nd round of combat and has a destroyer sitting around, that's a guaranteed dead Dreadnought, or worse, a War Sun, and there's nothing to be done about it. Another obvious example of a variant penalizing a race is Sabotage Runs. Is it fair if Muatt does some early-game aggression against a virtually defenseless opponent, and yet the one or two fighters they had in the system as defense takes out your one and only starting ship? Hardly.

Sure, you can win as Saar playing SET without any modifications. Hell, you can do that and even win with a crappy starting position on top of that, even playing in a game where Yssaril, L1z1x, Jol Nar, Hacan, and Winnu (pre-nerf) are the other contenders. As BigKahuna has said, there are a lot of factors that go into winning a game, and some aren't even tied to the stats, tiles, or races. Manipulating the other players is the MOST important factor in winning this game. And it helps to have good "technique." But I would also say that given equal player skill , Saar is going to have a lot less of a chance in general. The amount less is of course up for debate, but in my opinion it's substantial.

I think most people can agree that Saar should have a harder time, comparatively speaking, when SET is used. Now, if only the strong races were screwed by SET and the weak ones were boosted, then I'd hail it as a great balancing tool. But this just isn't true in my opinion, which is why I'm not a big SET fan. I'm not inclined to give up the idea of SET entirely though! I just haven't gotten around to tweaking it yet.

(Side note: As a playtester, some of the game options included in the expansion were introduced very late in development/testing, kind of "tacked on." Frankly, some things simply weren't thought through enough, in my opinion. Some parts couldn't be adequately playtested because the testing phase was over too soon after the new options were introduced. So I do not have a lot of faith in the balance-worthiness of some game aspects, SET included. I see SET as a great idea, that was not properly implemented. This is not anybody's fault... a game needs to be released eventually otherwise FFG will go bankrupt!)

Back to generalizing again: Time and again I see people who are against "balancing" state that the race balance is self-policing... the weaker races should gang up on the stronger ones and the game should balance itself, right? Well, that is true. But if the Yssaril is SO GOOD that they will win most of the time unless they are attacked on all sides, then other players have fewer strategic options, right? That sounds like a shallow game to me. That is why I wholeheartedly support ripping over/underpowered races, units, and other game mechanics to shreds and experimenting with ways to make it so that ideally, in a COMPETITIVE TI3 tournament, every race would have roughly an equal statistical chance to win, given a statistically relevant number of players and number of games. We will never get there of course, but I think it's worth trying for. Especially since trying is a lot of fun!

I should probably start by saying I'm new to the forum and I've only played TI3 a total of three times. I read the previous post and I can only agree with the points about opinions and lack of experience. In fact, after the last game I played, a friend was a little disheartened with his first experience. We started to talk about the game and ways to play it, and he told me that overall he really enjoyed it but there are things he would change. He even asked me straight up, "You can't think of one thing you would change about this game?" I basically told him that no, I don't know what I would change simply because I don't have a full understanding of how everything interacts. Moreover, if I were to change something I'd have no idea of its full impact. The sheer depth of play in TI3 is something that struck me immediately after a couple of turns in my first play. Despite the fact that I knew so little about actually playing the game, I still knew it was "the game for me" and bought it shortly afterwards.

After the last game I was reading the racial guide on the wiki and read through the strategies. My friend was playing the N'orr, and played totally contrary to the recommendations of the guide. Now, the guide may not be the absolute authority on how to play, but it certainly offers some great advice. My friend understood the N'orr as a 'combat race' and played them accordingly. Only, there was no explicit difference in his mind (or mine for that matter at the time) between early and late game military power. The N'orr are slow... period. But he played a quick game, while believing that his "combativeness" would hold him up. It didn't.

I guess the point of this story is to say that a bad experience with a rule or trait doesn't make it a bad. Moreover, just because you think you understand something doesn't mean you do. It will certainly take some time to get used to the depth of this game and to have some idea as to whether you're making ideal decisions or not.