Question about capturing planets

By staks, in Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

Hey guys,

I've been playing TI for a little while now, and loving the game but I have a few questions which always get brought up each time we play.

Are you allowed to activate a system containing a planet to deploy a ground force, and then the following turn activate the neighbouring system and move out with both the carrier and ground force which was deployed on the planet, or must the system be activated a second time in order to move the ground forces off the planet and back onto the carrier? What about if you activate a system which has two planets, but your only carrying 1 ground force. Can you deploy a ground force on one planet, pick it up and place it on the second planet in the one activation to take ownership of both?

And just one last question for all the veterans out there, i've only been playing the standard TI rules since owning the game. Tomorrow night we are going to try out the new 8 strategy cards but we were also considering trying out some of the optional rules. Which optional rules would people highly recommend to improve the gaming experience?

Many thanks,

Staks.

You are not allowed to move units out of an already activated system. Does this answer your question?

Wow, I wasn't aware of this either. Does this mean a "fleet" of ships which are moving together can only move once per turn?

A fleet cannot move out of a system that has been previously activated by the active player. This means that only 1 movement per fleet per turn, unless Warfare or Unexpected Action AC is played.

You should revise the rules regarding movement and tactical actions. The example on p.13 of the rulebook is a good one.

A tactical action is a step-by-step maneuver. The steps are printed on the race sheets. Movement is performed in the step 2) of a tactical action. Ground units are picked up during the movement step. Landings on planets take place in step 5). Therefore you are not allowed to take control of 2 planets in 1 activation with just 1 Ground Force.

I agree with the above answers.

I think it's worth pointing out that "previously activated by the player" basically means "there is a Command Counter for that player in the system". Usually this is through a Tactical or Transfer action, but some other effects may cause a CC to go into a system, which would block those ships from moving out.

However, in answer to your question about pulling GFs off of planets, no, you don't need to activate the system the GFs are in to move them to a carrier (and thus having to wait until NEXT round to move them to a new system). When a ship is moving, it can pick up GFs up from any planet on the way, as long as the system they are picking up from was not activated prior to the current activation (IE, didn't have a CC in it before your move). Thus, if you have ships in System A with GFs on a planet there, and wanted to invade System B, when you activate System B, the ships in System A can pick up the GFs on the planets in System A on their way to attack System B; it doesn't require a separate activation.

As for variants to try in your new game, the ones I'd recommend are:

- Racial Technologies (if you have the Shattered Empires set; if not, you may need to skip this one)

- Wormhole Nexus (a fun addition to the game)

- Artifacts (increases combat by having planets that everyone is fighting over)

- Tactical Retreats (VERY nice rule addition to allow defenders to retreat, especially at the beginning of a round when they may not have had a chance to even plan for a retreat yet).

Thanks guys, I understand now. As I was the only one from our gaming group who owned the game, it was difficult to learn and explain the rules to them at the same time. I still can't believe we allowed a fleet of ships to move multiple times per round if you had the command counters available, that would have made a massive difference to the dynamics of the game.

Cheers,

Staks :)

Don't worry about it staks - my group used to play so that you could take more than one tactical action at once until we realised you could only do one at a time (unless you had Fleet Logistics). You can imagine that changing the dynamics as well... gran_risa.gif

Smileys on this board are disgusting, by the way. And scary.

magicoctopus said:

Smileys on this board are disgusting, by the way. And scary.

This whole board (IE, the forum software) is lame, so the smileys are the LEAST of my issues with it lengua.gif

sigmazero13 said:

magicoctopus said:

Smileys on this board are disgusting, by the way. And scary.

This whole board (IE, the forum software) is lame, so the smileys are the LEAST of my issues with it lengua.gif

I haven't complained about this forum software yet, and I thought I'd complain about something lengua.gif

It's frustrating that there has to be two forums now. I'm glad the wiki community is very active though.

magicoctopus said:

I haven't complained about this forum software yet, and I thought I'd complain about something lengua.gif

Me neither. Oh, wait......