I also post this thread on BGG:

Hello,

I will be hosting a game of Twilight Imperium 3 in about a month.

There will be 4 players. Everyone is new in the world of Mecatol Rex. Nobody has played the game before. So we are total newbies.

I own TI3 + the 2 expansions.

My idea is to make our first game interesting and also short the game length. We are all gamers (we play currently Runewars in epic mode).

I had the idea to include some variants (but not too much because our first game) :

-Preset Map FFG for 4 players
-Custodian of Mecatol Rex
-Tactical retreat
-Artifacts
-PO from SE
-Tech from SE
-Racial Tech from SE
-Political and action cards from SE

But I'm wondering about some other things to choose:

1. Which set of SC?
I heard about the Age of Empire option (that should be cool for us and to plan strategies for the objectives) so with that option I heard about the Set II (Initiative-DiploII-Politic-Logistic-TradeII-WarfareII-TechnoII-ImperialII) is it a good one?

Or the Shattered Empire strategy cards (Leadership…Bureaucracy) without AoE? I heard it's the best set but I can't play with AoE…

I'm wondering which one may I use to have the best experience possible…Because if the other players doesn't like the game, it will be hard to give him a second try because of the length of the game.

2.Some Shards of the throne options?
Can I throw in the Flagships without the racial tech and the tech from SotT?
Can I throw in the Political and action cards from SotT with only the flagship option in our first game?

I don't want to go with the technologies from SotT because it will make the tech tree very heavy…perhaps is it to much choice for a first game or am I wrong?

Thank you for your answers,

For techs, as long as you can supply each player with a tech tree print out, it will be just fine.

If you use Age of Empires, along with Imperial II, your game can go by quickly, with secret objectives, artifacts and even the preliminary objectives your game can go by almost too fast, and that isn't a good thing with new players.

You want your players to be able to experiance all aspects of the game. From trade to politics to combat, there is alot that this game has to offer. Strategy cards help you alot in how the game will be played. With the Assembly class of the #3 SCs you force players to use a bit of diplomacy with other players when deciding who will play a political card, or even who might gain the speaker token. I actually enjoy the Leadership SC much better than Logistics as far as SCs go for gaining Command Counters, but using both isn't a bad thing, it will allow your new players to do more each round.

Using the flagships can be a bit much, I think. But the racial techs can really give each player a deeper connection to their race.

I think the biggest problem with TI is the set up time. You will save alot of time having the board set up ahead of time, and the common play area set up also. If you also set out the fleets for each player along with their matching tech decks it can also help. Another option is to select what races will be played (more basic races like the Norr, with fewer special rules that have adverse effects on the game, like the Aborec, is a good idea, that way they can focus on the core ideas of the game, than the mechanics of their race).

If your gaming group is less into the political intrigue, you can go for a more warlike version, though it will give some races a unfair advantage over others, so your selection of what races are being played will have to be done with care. You can forgo public objectives all together and award a single objective for each victory in combat that involves more than 1 ship per side (so 2+ vs 2+). For this I would use Leadership, Diplomacy 2, Assembly, Production, Warfare, Technology 2, Industry (from the scenerio in SotT). This focuses the game on war by allowing players to expand quickly and build lots of ships, and 8 will even allow a player to take a planet, build a space dock, and build forces there (via production secondary, or primary if they got both) all in one turn, and if they used the secondary because they got Warfare instead, they will be able to even use that new fleet to make an attack with, again, all in one turn. Again, be carefull what races you choose for this, Norr, Barrony, Mentak and probably L1Z1X.