After owning the game since it came out, I am finally going to get my first game of TI3 in.

I'll post up here later (or more likely tomorrow) when it's all over

Prepare for friends acting bored, and a lot of mistakes. XD

Yep, I can remember my first game. Rule problems, misinterpretations, after a time boring, etc. The game has a little down in the middle, but the end compensates for it (the run for the last VP)

One suggestion... I would recommend not sitting down everybody and just telling them all the rules in one go... they won't retain anything (information overload!) and they'll get fidgety REAL fast. Instead, I'd suggest that you just start playing right away starting with galaxy setup or Strategy Card selection. Reassure people that even though they don't know all the rules (and therefore can't make the "best" decisions with their actions) it'll be ok since it's their first game anyway. Briefly explain the rules as you go.

For example: "Left number of the planet cards is resources, what you use to make stuff. Right number is influence, lets you buy tokens and vote. Generally more resources is better than more influence, at least early on. Try to put good stuff next to yourself and bad next to them."

Answer any questions, like "what are those colored things next to the planets?" (tech discounts) with brief explanations that aren't too complicated. As the game progresses, it will be fun to watch people's faces light up as they figure out good ideas for strategy for themselves. And you can guide them a little through each of their first activations (like making sure nobody activates their home system as their first action and paralyzes their colonization efforts).

Well, 81/2 hours later, we finished the game which everyone said that they had enjoyed and were willing to play again. I did throw them into the deep end a bit by adding Distant Suns AND Leaders into our first game. As far as we are all aware, the ONLY rule we got wrong was that when you got new command counters, you could put them anywhere on your sheet, not just in the command pool (a rule we got wrong because warfare was played before logistics, and the warfare card says to put back into the command pool).

6 turns into the game saw the first (and only) major conflict over a system next to Mecatol Rex, and despite the Jol-Nar having a WarSun and other support vessels, their -1 in combat showed how much the NEED the techs, especially as they were fighting against the Barony of Letnev who had a few trade goods to burn...

I was playing the Xxcha, and have come to realise that when the opponents give you lots of blank hexes near your homeworld, your first target tech is XRD Transports. Pity I didn't realise this until way too late.

Letnev took Mecatol Rex on turn 3 and kept it all game, and were the only people to complete their secret objective. (and won)
Xxcha and Jol-Nar came joint secondon 8 points, and Hacan came last on 7.

No-one was bored, but Hacan did start to fade near the end (He had already done a day's work).
Next time, we start earlier in the day (and maybe with the expansion).

Wow congratulations on finishing the game! We haven't been able to go that long yet.

Yeh good work on getting a full game done, for me this happens rarely or with a small group (largest 4)

I remember my first game that was over 4 players, 6 with the expansion, I won 10 points second place was tied with 2, third with 1 rest 0....oh yes...the enthuziasm of my friends....they where mostly flying around doing random stuff, except for one lad who seemd more inteded at building an armada to take down my defences on macatol.

Also in my own experiance use the expansion strategy cards, my players enjoy those a lot more, and warfare makes a lot more sense to me.

Next game we play will still be with the Distant Suns option, I did say "maybe we should play without the planet counters next time", they all said "NO". Vote carried. Distant suns is here to stay.

We did forget to move our leaders around and most of them stayed on the homeworlds, however, we did finally realise the power of a Scientist holding Mecatol Rex with a PDF and a bucket full of troops (we never saw the Biological weapon in play!)

We did have a bit of a moment in the game, regarding whether you can trade action cards, and it didn't say you could in the rules (just trade goods) so we didn't. I found out later (by reading the Hacan race card), that the Hacan can trade a card in the status phase, which by default means no-one else can, so we played it correctly .

I am definately getting the expansion, something I was holding off until playing at least ONE game

You are lucky!

Except for two PBeM and one Vassal game, I have played only half F2F game. Truth be told my game group was a fledging one, just discovering Settlers. They are now far more expirienced players with games like Nexus Ops, Intrigue, Citadels, Memoir 44 under hteir belts. Still not too complicated but...

We are going to play Puerto Rico on this weekend. I think they will like the game. And after that:

MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!

I will once more try to play TI3 with them. I think I'll have more succes this time.

Our real problem is not so much the complexity of the game but it's lenght. So I have some ideas:

Fix set up. (6 players) I will also give each of them randomly two races with a brief description to chose. Then I will randomly select starting places. I will set up before. Thus I think this will save us at least one hour. I also think I'll make a deck with the planet cards that exist in the game and put the rest in the box.

I'll use ISC II and the Age of the Empire

Diplomacy II as well. I think it speeds up the game by faster conquest of the galaxy and more resources on the first few rounds

Artifacts. More VP are allways good. Also more fighting will be done, also a good thing.

I am thinking maybe giving them the pdf rules or the tutorial adress ( http://www.preeminent.org/steve/games/ti3/ti3demo/3-player/home/index.shtml ) to study before. But that may scare them... I don't know.

Any ideas from more expirienced players? They would sure be wellcome

When playing with new players, I would recommend having a short 2 hourish fake game (after or before something different, if you want). Use a very small map, like 2 rings only around Mecatol Rex, play with revealed objectives, and up to something ridiculous like 4/5 VPs (only to have a goal, I understand that race balance might be broken).

Small map= more aggression, less resources (thus less time taken to decide how to spend all that prod points), and overall, an easier way to get the grasp of the rules than being lectured, or have to sit for 8 hours knowing that mistake at turn 1 will prevent you to do anything. Afaik, it's quite hard to understand a game from the rules alone if you're not a trained gamer.

Once all players know the rules, you can go for a real game.

Haslo's stop motio nTI3 game is also helpful for the more visual learner than the read the rules and go learner.

My method to teach was...

Set up 3 systems in a triangle (all with planets) one has red ships, PDS and ground forces, the other 2 hexes have yellow ships, 1 cruiser, 1 destroyer, 2 transports, one full fighters, one full of ground forces. On one of the yellow controlled hexes, I put astarbase.

Activate the red system, then move ships in from both yellow hexes, show PDS Fire, Space combat and Invasion combat.

Activate the Yellow system with the space dock, explain building limits, then build using resource points from all planets in the original yellow controlled systems, and place new units.

Brief description of the benefit of each strategy card, showing some of the objective cards when Imperial card was shown, and some political cards when Politics was shown (our players had played Peurto Rico before)

Showed them the Tech Tree.

Told them that combat was a means to an end, this is not aspace combat game (despite the nice ships!)

All told, it took about an hour. the rest we sorted out during turn 1.

Happy Gaming.

My first game was a bit of a disaster. 6 people I was the only one who knew the rules.

Some non gamers were invited and as 3am approached after starting at 7pm people were getting annoyed.

About 10 or 12 games later however I still can't wait for the next game. (which happens to be tomorrow) There will be 5 of us only 1 has played only one game before the rest have at least 4 games each under their belts.

We will be using Psicoma's Shattered Ascension rule set and will report how it goes.

I'm really looking forward to the star by star variant.