Kerrin2 said:

You don't have to, there are other ways to achieve your goals without using the Imperial card. You just have to calculate on the fly how to adapt your strategy to what you're trying to do based on what the other players are doing. Not knowing what the public objectives are from the beginning means players have to guess what they will need in order to qualify for public objectives. In the early game it allows players to score points without knowing what they have to do for public objectives. Once a few public objectives have been revealed then you can start making more rigid plans to qualify for them. Imperial is more an early game card to reveal public objectives, about mid game our group starts aiming for public objectives and relying less on Imperial to score points. In my first game I was playing Sol, I started the game with the speaker token, in the first strategy phase I chose Technology to get XRD Transporters. I didn't pick Imperial until game round 3 and 4, by then I qualified for a couple public objectives which brought me to six points, we had to end the game there because the shop was closing. In my second game which was an impromptu let's play game with only three players, by game round 6 or 7 two of us had 8 points and the third player had 7 points. We just cannot see how the Imperial card is a problem when wise players plan to use it as an integral part of their strategy. In my first game where I was Sol, at one point I had to choose if I wanted the Logistics card or another card, I was hurting for command counters so I chose Logistics. In that same game the player to my right had 5 points on round 4, and another player had 2 or 3 points. Considering it was our first game and we weren't playing 100% correctly we were doing well to wind up with a winner on game round 7 or so.

Where we're at in the discussion now is just a matter of opinions and play style. Our group prefers the way we do it, and so far everyone here doesn't like that style of play. There's little left to discuss here.

If I might...

While I kind of see what you mean, you say that you don't want the game to be rigid? To me, being forced to take imperial or initiative so that you don't fall behind makes things more rigid than anything else, it removes your choice as 2VP would be the obvious choice.

I can understand why you don't want to play with age of empire, so then what I would recommend is the buerocracy card. You don't have to play with objectives revealed, it gives more power to the person playign it because they actually get to pick which objective comes out next. Moreover, it will give them 2VP that turn if and only if they've played their cards correctly, rather than it being a guaranteed 2VP cookie just by getting lucky. The secondary also gives people more action cards and political cards to play with, which makes the game more varied.

Don't forget btw, that you can only qualify for one public per turn, and you have to have qualified for them at that exact moment that you are claiming them, I.E. the objective "I now spend 10 influence" means you have to have 10 influence available to you right then and there to spend on the objective before planets refresh, it doesn't mean that you spent a total of 10 influence during the turn.

If I read your second to last post correctly, you said that you were at 6VP by turn 4. That's nearly impossible to do as difficult as it is, as in the early turns you usually have to decide between expanding or claiming an objective. I read this turn of events to mean the following.

By turn 3 you had gotten lucky enough to qualify for either two publics, or your secret (somethign VERY difficult to do, unlikely for others to have done the same by then)

You then were allowed to gain 4VP just by picking a card twice in a row. No effort involved. This would put you ahead anyone else in the game, I"m not really sure why they'd let you do this if you already had managed to qualify for objectives that put you ahead of them.

The reason people dont' like imperial is it gives reward for no effort. In general, people expect to earn 1VP per round if that, and they only really get 2 if they qualify for their secret or for a phase 2 objective. The winner is the person who plans the best and is able to claim one every round,

Bowoodstock said:

Like I said, it has now become a discussion about opinions and preferences, leaving little to discuss. I feel that I have pointed out the fallacy of claiming that Imperial is broken, which it is not. It just requires a certain style of play that obviously the people here can't handle because it makes them think dynamically. This will be my last post in this thread as I have nothing further to add to the topic. Have fun playing the game the way you play it, me and my friends will have fun playing it the way we play it. We can actually think dynamically, changing our course mid flight to deal with surprises. I don't see this group on the forums being able to do that.

There is another consideration....

Imperial, by its nature, gives the edge to winning the game to players 1 and 2.

Players 5 and 6 are at the most disadvantage.

If everything remains even in the game, players 1 and 2 has the best chance to win because Imperial will put them over the top first.

Even if other players gang up on player 1, then the game will go to player 2.

Player 6 starts the game.................. at a -2 VP disadvantage and worst strategy card pick.

Yes the game can change things, but no one wants to start the game with such a handicap and just hope things will get better.

Bureaucracy gives no player a starting disadvantage.

The twilight 3 community does like to debate things and actually test the ideas.

Most of the conclusions posted was the results of dozens of games, not just speculation.

But in the end, everyone will run their own variant of the game that they are happy with.

And here I thought we agreed to disagree

The Imperial card is the equivilant of giving a player 2 free points in clockwise order each round, except the 1st and 2nd players will recieve 6 points before the game is done but the rest will only get 4. If thats not unbalanced than I don't know what is.

Despite me not having too many games under my belt when it comes to Twilight Imperium, I prefer the Burocracy card over Imperial card. And adam, a word of advice, not giving any compelling foresight into why your group and local retailer believes that the Imperial card doesn't 'break' the game (or at least make it a ring around the table, reducing the strategy since you plan for when you're getting it) while insulting a very large portion of the community here, of whom have played many hundreds of games combined, doesn't shine very greatly upon you.

When I bought my copy of TI3, I immediately bought SE. Just reading the rules, I could see the flaw in Imperial I. I wanted an alternative right away, without the need to introduce house rules of "It's only worth 1VP" etc.

It just seemed paradoxical to have a game with such flexibility and diversity of strategies, and then this obvious Imperial I "would you like to win the game?" card. The presence of Imperial I in any game essentially trumps ANY available strategy. A player earning VP by means of objectives simply cannot compete with an enterprising player who chooses Imperial I every round. Imperial I is in effect, the nuclear option. It is the ultimate route to total domination, and forces a very specific and methodical approach to spreading the Imperial I wealth thin.

Allowing someone to choose Imperial I every round is negligent of course. The issue is that Imperial I does not encourage "dynamic thinking" or the altering of strategies at all. You simply have to take your share of the Imperial I free VP or lose; end of line. As Imperial I reveals new public objectives to work towards, your strategy will change, of course. That is to say…your strategy will be to do whatever you can to earn VP in order to keep up with those who got Imperial I this round, and stay in the game long enough to get your hands on Imperial I yourself.

I always got bored of strategy games and RTS games on PC when nuclear weapons became available. RTS is always an arms and territory race, but when the game goes nuclear, you are locked into a formulaic tech tree route to nuclear armament and defense. Time spent on ANYTHING fun like recon, or micromanaging troop formations to baffle the enemy is time lost to the only key to victory. This is why I liken Imperial I to the nuclear option.

I fail to see evidence or logic applied here in the defense of Imperial I. As your opponents choose their Strategy Cards and you weigh your options, of course your strategy will change. As opportunities are shut off to you, you alter and adapt to do the best thing for your course to victory. That's how everyone plays TI3. The bottom line is that ANY Strategy Card will become a feature in ANY player's plan to win the game. Imperial I takes the fun out of the game because it removes theme, and the viability of choices done because they are "cool". Even if you assume a house rule where one cannot choose Imperial I twice in a row, Imperial I is still necessary to move the public objectives, and the game forward. A player who simply wants more objectives available has no way to do it without also playing the Imperial I VP race. THIS is why Imperial I "breaks" the game. The game lacks momentum without public objectives, but players need not worry about objectives at all if they can simply claim 2VP per turn while their opponents scramble for VP scraps from public objectives that are worth half as much initially.

Furthermore, if Imperial I was not an issue, it would not have been replaced twice already. SE has a full set of replacements, yet a special addition of Imperial II was made…why would that be? If a group of gamers has fun playing with Imperial I, the overall objective of the game has been achieved. That much we can all agree on. If a single round goes by where Imperial I was not chosen all all however, it becomes plainly obvious that the table has chosen to play theme over efficiency. Imperial I is THE most efficient way to victory for little to no effort. It breaks the game by making it thematically crippled, and strategically limited. There is simply NO counter for a domineering player who can claim Imperial I more than any other player. If there is a logically sound counter-argument with supporting evidence, other than stating opinion as fact, I have not seen it yet.