Has anyone else experienced this in their games? I love the board game, but this very facet of it is what is really making me want to make it a pretty shelf item more than actually play it.

I put many hours trying to shorten the game up--but keep it without any house rules--because most of the players I play with are new. This leads to me pouring through each of the manuals carefully, the race sheets, the FAQ, everything. I am not rewarded for my efforts with 'thanks' by the players, rather more of a 'he knows everything about this game, let's get him!' attitude.

I place in second or third most games, but never first. There is no way for me to win a game as everyone else in the game sees me as target number 1, just because I'm hosting the thing. This leads to a lack of fun for me, as I usually get three scenarios:

1. Players who know the game--and each other--who form a little alliance and place me in the sights

2. New players, who don't do anything really during the course of the game (which is fine, as they are new) who I am pretty much playing for, in order to teach them the ropes

3. Players who do nothing but 'troll', that is they just want to fight space battles and have no interesting in winning (seemingly)

I really do love when a good game comes together, and those times do happen, but sadly are few. During the other times, I try to soften the blow by letting everyone pick their races (which is a bit of a house rule I guess, but I digress), and I usually try to go with a stronger race in order to survive the impending 2 v 1. This has backfired a bit the last time, as it ended up being 3 v 1 (4-player game)...because I picked Yssiril...and well I'm sure those here know what that means.

So I guess the point of my rant is, any suggestions on how to make these 'team up' games more fun? I'm tempted to be very aggressive and try to wipe one off the board almost immediately, but I really hate doing that. I just want things to be fun, and not have someone sitting their watching the rest of the game (or leaving) because I had to basically be merciless in order to win.

Play in a low resource galaxy.

High resource galaxies encourage alot of senseless fighting because you can replace your losses easily.

Then play a race that has alot of resources like Hacan, L1Z1x or Barony so they cannot overwhelm you militarily.

You will also need to buy all your pds and some space mines. Deep Space cannons, Graviton negators and Automated Defense turrets are a must in 2 on 1 fights.

Then you can pass when their main fleets are locked down and not have to stall. Minor attacks would be suicide for them.

Maybe make a house rule that everyone must have a planet around Mecatol Rex so artifacts get put on them. That will encourage players to just go after artifacts.

I would like to second the low resource galaxy setup when only playing 3 or 4 players, it makes everything better in my experience. Although in my games we are usually 5 so that changes the dynamics a bit from the every-player-gets-two-strategy-cards, which in my mind is way too powerful and confusing for new players. It might help you against the ganging up part*.

furthermore I have had some similar experiences but not to the same extend as what you describe. But two new players ganging up on me for being the "teacher" is not something I mind too much. seeing it from their perspective I can understand that they might get a bit afraid of me on the get go, because I have so much experience and therefore know a lot about how the games is payed.

Remember that to them they are sort of running around blindly and dont really know the power of certain strategy cards until turn three or four when they have seen them in action a few times. And although I do my best to try and tell them what and how the cards work it just can't beat getting to learn them through experience. Especially the power of production, diplomacy 2 and warfare 2 on turn one is something that, in my experience, is something they have to see in action.

But then again in my group we dont have too many new players at our sessions and it basically boils down to me doing a quick rundown of the rules, and explaining the core mechanics and how the strategy cards work. When the game starts the two of us who are most experienced usually share the teaching part and try to explain the game as it progresses.

So my advice would be to get one of your regulars who knows the rules well to assist in guiding the new players when you start. But NOT when explaining the rules before the game, this usually gets more confusing than helpful. In that way you can sort of share being a target. Ofcoarse not knowing your group I dont know if it this will be helpful but it makes everything easier in my group.

*we use a trimmed set of strategy cards which I may or may not have found somewhere on the net(I can't remember but credit goes to anyone who may have made it) which originally was for a 3-4 player setup but works very well in 5 player games. Diplomacy 2, Assembly, Logistics, Trade 2, Warfare 2, Technology 2 and Imperial 2. In that set you keep all the dynamics of the standard 8 strategy cards but eliminate the 2 strategy cards for everyone.

I feel your pain… but in a different game. I will never win another Settlers of Catan game, because I got too good. I once had a win streak of 25 games and another of over 30. Everyone is always against me, and that includes new players that have never played with me, but they hear what other people say and the team up as well. I can’t get trades during the game. Different players will take starting places that I obviously need, even when it actually ruins their chance to win. I have several friends with the main goal of making sure I lose. Lol

Back to TI3… I like the suggestion of a lower resource galaxy. If you make the center of the galaxy a very desirable location, then others might fight over that instead of coming at your HS. I understand your thought process in choosing a stronger team, but in my games that almost always assures that others will gang you, because you’re a tough team. You might try going completely random for races. This way others can’t pick teams specifically to harass you. Also, the simple fact that you are picking a race, regardless of who they are, might make the less experienced players feel like you have some tricky plan with them. Or, maybe even let the other players pick your race? They will pick whoever they think is not a threat, so they might leave you alone?

Are you getting out in the lead with VP’s? That’s almost a surefire way to get ganged, especially if players already perceive you as a threat. Try not to do your Secret Objective too early. In every way possible try to appear as though you are not a threat.

I’m trying to think of what I do… I’m the most experienced at our games. (I own it, know all the rules best, have a chance to read the cards and anything else, and I almost always win. And I play more than anyone, cause every time it’s played, obviously I’m playing) However, I’ve been wondering why no one does team up on me? It seems like they should, but they don’t. In-fact, I’m going to start balancing myself by starting at a -1 vp. Here’s what I do, and maybe some part is why they don’t gang me? When we choose races either just choosing, or draw three and choose one, I always go last. In the game I never stretch myself too thin. Would I rather have five systems I can guard and keep, or ten systems that get invaded and now I’m back to five systems anyway and I lost my spread out fleet? If I have a good trade agreement, I give it to one neighbor that I don’t want to fight. This works best if you give a 3 and only get a 1 in return. Don’t be greedy to get trade goods. This is a bribe, to pay off a neighbor. Obviously, they can back stab you, but usually you see it coming. Don’t just use action cards randomly that piss people off. Only use it if it gets you vp’s or helps you in a significant way. If you just kill someone’s space dock for fun, sometimes they will give up the game and only fight you.

I’ve never played it, but maybe use “the larger galaxy setup”? Most people keep it normal so there is more conflict, so I guess if you want less conflict, then make it bigger? Each person has their own piece of the galaxy and can stay there.

Have you asked why they team up? Do they say, “cause you always win.” If so, type up a score board or something with each person’s name, number of wins and how many vp’s they have each game. If you find that you’re pretty high up, then throw it away. Lol If you see you’re middle of the pack, then maybe they’ll realize they don’t need to beat you up?

Sorry so long. You said you might give up on the game, so I wanted to give it my best shot.

One last thing. I posted a topic called: “Playing Team Twilight- Comment on rules”. Go look it up. It’s my idea for playing a 6 player game as 2v2v2. It would guarantee that one flank is covered by your buddy. You would always have someone on your side and even if the game ridiculously goes 4v2 against your team, 4v2 is better than 2v1.

GLHF

i had the same problem in my Twilight Impirium group, once even four out of six players decided to **** me over from the beginning. I don't know about you but i'ts my bet that the best solution is to simply play it until most players are experienced enough not to be needlessly threatened. although the low recource game and playing a high recource race may help, i'ts only a temporary solution in my opinion.

Thanks for the input guys. The low resource thing seems pretty interesting, do you just do that by taking out most (or all) of the two and three planet systems, then creating the galaxy like normal?

I think my solution for now is just picking a less threatening race. The other players that I play with most likely will back down then, especially if the races abilities don't seem that useful / aren't that obvious.

You take out the very high resource double planet systems and have lots of 1/2 or 1/0 regular systems.

The triple systems are not that big in resources.

The idea is to have all the players have just enough resources to buy a tech or ships but not both.

There is a big difference in having 8 resources vs 15 resources in the game especially if some of the planets you could tap for counters.

It forces alot of strategic thinking, but generally, only expert players like playing in a low resource galaxy because it requires alot of skill to play a race well then.

A large resource galaxy makes mistakes less costly.

That is why my main goal in a game is 15 resources and 6 influence planets. Plenty of resources to build ships and buy a tech and 6 influence to buy all my counters.

If I lose a fleet, I really do not care, because I can replace most of lost ships in 1 or 2 turns.

Political players are happy with 9 resources and 12 influence to do the politics. They prefer to attack with small fleets and mess with players with Political cards. Because they attack with smaller fleets, they despise pds and Space mines, since it affects them more.

Because ships are hard to replace in a low resource game, if you kill a major fleet of a player, you hurt him real bad.

So if 2 or 3 players gang up on you, you can destroy the game for 1 of them. So none of these allies wants to be the first to engage you and every turn they argue on who is going to go first is another turn you can ready your defenses.

See in twilight if you cannot win, you can play King maker. That is the main defense agaisn't getting ganged up on.

They will say it is unfair of you to suicide your fleet at just one player to play kingmaker, but that nuclear option is all you have to deter a ganging up.

In low resource galaxy, taking out a major fleet represents 3 to 4 turns of resources. In a 6 to 7 round game, you cannot afford to lose a fleet like that unless it is trying to win the game. Senseless battles are just too expensive to do.

Very interesting, Shadow. I wish our groups got together more often to play (sometimes it is literal years before I can gather people up again who are willing to take the time), so I end up trying to do a few 'mock' games myself to figure out all the different rules and such. This of course doesn't lend well to actually figuring out strategy, since the other three 'players' aren't actually thinking for themselves so to speak.

My problem when playing is expanding too much. This leaves me open to other players, who expand equally as much...but towards me. I try to explain I'm still no expert on the game to them, but...alas.

In any case, I'm going to take some of these tips into the next game I host. If for some reason I start losing again to being ganged up on, I'm going to help the person who isn't doing it to me, even if it means me losing. Still a lot of satisfaction that way.

I have good experiences playing a little less "high profile". Just conquer one system less, don't try to get the upper hand in trade and politics and suddenly, the player who does well on all those area's becomes target number one.

Take a less expansion-minded race (Sardak'norr, barony) and let others do the fighting for you in the first turns of the game.

Vince1248 said:

It really depends on wether the issue has any logical reasoning behind it or if he is simply being selected as a target for personal (hey he is the best player lets get him) kind of reason. I mean I find certain players always end up being target numero uno, but in our games its always because they have a tendancy to run ahead of the pact in points and people start to see his victory on the board. If thats the case, than ya, this advice will work and is actually good advice for any player with any race. You don't want to appear the obvious leader in a game of TI3 early in the game because that will very naturally put you on everyones radar. In my experiance early point leaders never win the game however, in the end for just that reason, so it pays to throttle back a bit and kind of play the wounded dog as you scheme a way for you to pull out the points you need to win.

I think at a table of newbies it might be tougher since they will perceive certain things as doing well that really don't nescessarily really mean that someone is. Like owning lots of planets for example, common mistake for people to think that having a lot of planets is some kind of advantage, in reality its a terrible disadvatange, its far better to have fewer, stronger planets than a bunch of weak ones. Or the perception that someone with a big army is some kind of major threat or in position to win, where the truth is that having a big army simply means you might have a shot at being a king maker or stopping someone from winning but not nescessarly any hope of winning the game since having a big army doesn't earn you any points and the expensive of building it usually comes at the cost of meeting other victory conditions. Big army usually means less points.

Its a game about points and thats how you win, so the point leader is always the biggest threat regardless of his situation on the game board. Big armies, strong economies... it might mean something down the line, but its hardly the sign that someone is winning but it does put them on the radar which often means someone will try to prematurely stop them. I see it all the time even among experianced players... They attack a guy with a big army even though he has two points and no hope of getting any more on the board as some kind of pre strike to prevent them from maybe at some point getting points, while their are players with 5-6 points on the board already. Situations vary but as a general rule and something you should teach new players is that "Its a game about points".. say it over and over and over again until it sinks in. Anyone who plays TI3 with anything else but points on their mind will always loose because it is in fact the only way to win.

Yeah, our table loves to basically attack the one with the most experience with the game, regardless of where they are on the scoreboard. I do agree about the smaller amounts of planets though, as that has been my main problem for a while. I over-expand and end up hurting for it. I still have a few I have to train not to rush to Mecatol for no reason. I mean yeah, it's in the center of the board...and you can get a VP by using Imperial with it, but it isn't worth making yourself a target if none of your objectives really have anything to do with it.

The newbie gangin up is very common.

This is mainly involves an experianced player waiting for someone that has no choice but to score a hard to do Secret Objective early like 4 of same tech planets or all 4 wormholes, ect. He then persuade the newbies to gang up on the VP leader. This experianced player can get the newbies to sacrifice their entire fleets for him and score his bubble victory with ease.

Races like Barony, L1Z1x and Saar can overexpand and still win the game......if you play the race properly!

Saar usually overexpands extremely quickly and then collapses just as fast. But a welled played Saar race will score lots of of VPs doing this. Because Saar can move his spacedocks, Saar gets stronger defensively as his territory shrinks.

But, generally, if you overexpand, you tempt other players to gang up on you.

An overexpanded player has most of his fleet concentrated in the overexpanded offensive fleet and if it gets smashed, he has nothing left for defense.

Ya I agree with Shadow here. Over expansion makes you appear as the aggressor and its easy to label you bad guy, while simultanously makes you vulnerable because in Twilight their is no real effective way to cover a lot of ground and maintain a sufficient defense in all areas. You will end up with several weak spots and at some point you can expect them to get exposed.

The rule of thumb for me is "take what I need" and whatever I don't negotiate with my neighboors as if I want it, but willing to give it to them for some sort of diplomatic compromise. This often works to my advantage in the long term as their is the presence of "hey buddy we are at peace", while simultanously I don't give up anything I think I'll need and I'm working on my end game strategy (aka the final big move in an attempt to win).

It depends on the race your playing but with certain races over expansion is kind of nescessary, in particular with the Saar, but this is kind of a special circumstance because you do it not because you intend to hold anything but rather just to get those all important trade goods and score early points so that when your empire starts to get trimmed back (and I agree with Shadow that with the Saar it almost always certainly does) you stick to the golden rule of only defending what you actually think you need and the rest you kind of give up.

I think too since your playing with the imperial card as well things change a bit. Your games probobly have fewer dramatic scoring and so you kind of have to focus on scoring each round, round after round. In a game with Beuracracy with peliminary objectives, secret objectives, public objectives and artifact planets for example you can have some big points go up on a single turn and this is usually how we play both because its exciting and it really trims the game times down a great deal. In this way scoring every round is not as critical so you can make strategic setups for when you make a big move. In our games its not unusual for a player to score 4-6 points in a single round. The increased tension and possibility of scoring means that when someone hits about 6 points they are already considered in a position to win. This brings the mid and end games to the table much faster, in our standard game by the time round 3 starts people are already deep into mid game strategies and evaluating how they are going to win the game. We often have round 5 victories.

So game setup makes a difference in the approach to the game as a whole. Who is in a position to win really depends on what strategy cards your using, what varients etc. How many points can actually be scored in a single round.

At some point hopefully your players will start to realize that you aren't actually winning games and because they aggressively persue you, they are not winning either as they give up too much to take you down.

You need the Shattered Empire expansion, the one that added Muaat to the game.

Those Strategy cards are better and many of the new objectives support being continuously at war.

Generally if you are at war, you do not have time to score objectives, but with these new objectives, you can actually win.

I have seen two players do a grudge match from turn 1 and they would score continously.

Like kill 3 ships, capture two planets, etc.

The rest of us fell quickly behind because we did not want to break our trade agreements.

Another tip, most newbies will move their entire fleet in to grab 1 VP and then refuse to leave because now their entire fleet is committed to that side of the board. You literally have to wipe that fleet out completely before they will give up attacking you. Sometimes it is better to make an agreement to let them have the 1 VP with a very small force, if they agree to leave right away.

Unfortunately, some newbies see this as an opportunity to stab you in the back.

The best strategy for hostile newbies is to put a Super Nova or Nebula system between you and them or just plain empty systems.

If a newbie has to work to attack you, he generally gives up.

An experianced player will plan out how he is going to move his fleet 3 moves to kick your butt, but newbies are a 1 to 2 move planner. Spending 2 or more turns on moving ships to get around an obstacle to attack you , is generally too much work for them.

We use Imperial II with our games, as I have found that it sort of acts as a balance between Imperial I and Bureaucracy. I dislike Imperial I as it makes the card the most important thing in the game, as whoever has it gains two VP's no matter what. I stay away from Bureaucracy mostly out of personal taste, it's a tad too complicated IMO, especially with newer players around.

I just came upon another realization. For some reason, I always happen to draw a secret objective that has to do with taking over someone's homeworld, or their last spacedock, etc. This makes me have to be naturally aggressive, and it leads to a chain effect where everyone gets threatened, even though I can't possibly take all of them on.

Maybe if I get a secret objective like that, I should just avoid it in favor of the Public Objectives on the table? I actually dislike those in general as it basically wipes one person out in the end...maybe tweak or remove them?

If you have to take a homeworld, researching lightwave deflectors, gives you better odds on doing that. Alot of players leaves the homeworld free of ships and with Flank speed AC, you probably could take a homeworld anytime you want.

Hint: Always, always from midgame onward, leave 1 ship in your homesystem to prevent someone with lightwave deflectors from capturing your homeworld.

As far as Secret objectives. A homebrew rule that is popular is dealing everyone 2 Secret objectives.

Deal everyone 1 Mecatol Rex secret objective and 1 non Mecatol Rex secret objective.

A player can only score 1 secret objective from these 2.

So no one knows if you are really after Mecatol Rex or their Homeworld.

If you always are using a preset map, try building the galaxy by the original rules. You can do a lot when building the map that can discourage players who tend to work together.

If they are truly out to get you, they will tend to put the garbage near you, which will cause you issues in building up early. However this can be a blessing too: there is less attraction to invading you if there isn't good territory to be gained by doing so. You can even increase this tendency by putting friction points between the other players - consider putting a very nice system directly between two players that you'd like to see rip each other apart. If a player has a choice of invading you for little gain or stabbing his buddy for some big gains, it may make them think a lot harder about the alliance. It also can spark a bit of disagreement if they are even slightly greedy.

The 'wall' of useless systems can be very effective at discouraging players from approaching you, if you can manage to load the space on one side of your home system with blanks and red-ringed, it can be an effective deterrent. Keep in mind that you'd better be ready to deal with the player on the non-'wall' side if you do this,

Wormholes can be wonderful things to place that will make players inherently distrust one another. Placing one adjacent to a player's home system, particularly if a matching one is adjacent (or close) to another player's home system is just a cruel thing to do.

The kingmaker comments are entirely vaid too. Sometimes the only thing that you have to negotiate with is deciding who you're going to take down with you. This can be a surprisingly effective negotiating tool, particularly if you start openly negotiating with both of the players involved who are ganging up on you for some sort of reason to focus your wrath on one or the other.

One other thing comes to mind:

I've noticed that how the first use of the trade card seem to set the tone for how it gets used the entire game. If the first trade master is stingy with allowing agreements, everyone else tends to do the same, leading to fewer trade goods overall. On the flip side, if the first master is willing to let everyone just have whatever agreements that they want, everyone seems to follow suit, with the resulting increase in stacks of trade goods. If you're worried about ganging up, take trade and prevent them from forming an early agreement that gets them a monetary edge over you and force them to form agreements with you or not get any benefit at all.