Space Cats Peace Turtles

One project we wanted to tackle this year on the show was doing more to explore the history of this game we know and love. So to start that journey, we wanted to learn to properly play Twilight Imperium: First Edition from way back in 1997. It's the game that launched this franchise as well as Fantasy Flight Games as a company and we were curious how many elements are central parts of the TI DNA....

Listen, y'all. I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes you've got questions and we've got answers. Sometimes we ask questions because we secretly have answers we think are clever. And sometimes Matt asks a question thinking he'll find an answer along the way and that answer never really turn up. The concept of "the midgame" is referred to in a lot of our commentary and faction guides, but it's ha...

Prepare to KNEEL! It's been two years since we last approached the topic of Mahact, and so much about our understanding of Prophecy of Kings has changed. So it's time to set the record straight, especially as we've seen Mahact's win-rate skyrocket in the last year or so. What makes this faction so complicated and how can you best control the reins? 0:00 - Mahact Component Introduction 40:53 - Prob...

It's our first strategic foray into Spirit Island, but we're still rookies over here. But we've got a good grasp on how the game is played now and we'd like to relay our experience of learning the game to you. Hopefully we can provide some tips to getting started but mostly we want you to not be intimidated by the many many words that Spirit Island is going to throw at you. But stick around if Spi...

There's no codex or expansion or rules FAQ. Sometimes we just want to talk to our friend Dane and learn more about him and force him to be our friend. And we figured you all would want to be his friend to, so you get to listen in as we chat about his roots in board game designing, his love of Final Fantasy, and we also force him to answer a whole slew of strange TI design questions! It's a fun epi...

We've taught you how to learn this game and how to teach this game, but we've never taught you the proper way to set it up! So today is a treat for relatively new players or players looking to change up their faction drafting and map building as well as different tools to help enhance the Twilight Imperium experience. We've got tips, tricks, and herbal supplements to get you feeling 150%!! 0:00 -...

It's a new year! Our custom 'round these parts is to use this time to take stock of how the last year of episode and Patron bonuses went and what we can do going forward. This year is very little change in how things operate on the Patreon, but some big changes coming your way for the show. And part of those changes was our desire to hash out the next slew of episodes with you in the room and then...

We played a game on Dec 27 2022. There were 7 of us. That game should be on Youtube. It was a good game! You should go watch it. This episode is what we recorded right after that game, when we were all quite tired. Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, we love you, see you in Tournament 5! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com   To learn more about our D...

And you all thought we'd learned to listen to you. HA! Don't forget who steers this ship. There are only two opinions that matter and they are ours and they are absolute. You are just lucky enough that we grace you with our guidance and thoughts! Our yearly faction ranking is here and it has never been more correct than this... Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benpr...

December had two Galactic Council polls, the latter of which was for us to feature ANOTHER non-Twilight Imperium board game. They chose the space negotiation game Sidereal Confluence. It's a wild, non-violent game about slinging cubes and makin' deals as fast as you can before there's no deals left to make. But the bigger question is how would SCPT cover a game with so much math and interpersonal...

The first of your two December Galactic Council episodes is another opportunity for us to make a list of demands for Dane before the holidays. The dust from Codex 3 is beginning to settle, and rather than be happy with what we've got, it's time to beg for more delicious board game content. So we sat down and thought through what we'd most like to see in another Codex if Dane were ever to make anot...

THERE'S IMPORTANT BUSINESS TO TEND TO. The Tournament 5 Signups email is going out December 10 at 20:00 UTC. This is to all members of our Patreon who were active during the months of October and November. We also detail our hopeful schedule for this year's tournament and what everyone can expect. Then it's time to have fun. The Galactic Council wanted us to play Spirit Island, and I bet only a fe...

Matt's been playing games with the Homebrewer's Guild this year and he had a very specific project in mind. Today's episode is a sort of Abstract of the findings of that project. We were after a sort of "Tournament Mode" or some set of rules that could shake up that conventional Tempo of a game of Twilight Imperium without too much rules overhead. Was any of it successful? Well here's your report....

This is a major part of almost every faction guide, but it feels like a very long time since we last checked up on and took stock of how we feel about Technology. What's good? How much should you expect to get per game? What are some of the trends we see in competitive play? The answer to all of these questions is of course "Blue Tech." Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com...

Hunter's got the week off while Matt and Absol talk about the third and final novel in Tim Pratt's Twilight Imperium series! All of the main characters from our first book are back in this spy adventure and this might be the best book of the whole set! Save for some Arborec nits Absol desperately needs to pick, this book has a lot of fun in it and feels more political than any of the previous entr...

The Galactic Council decided it wanted us to spend some time this month playing and researching Alliance Mode, the variant provided in Codex 2. It's a silly variant that isn't even fully play-tested, so expect hiccups and a lack of rules clarity. But if you're willing to allow your Twilight Imperium to be fun, instead of a serious no-fun cage match, it's probably worth checking out! Although it's...

With this episode, we put a sort of wrap on Codex 3 required update episodes! A few factions drastically changed, and none more than the Naalu Collective. Naalu's "ranking" amongst the factions has been quite a roller coaster, but with these recent additions the snakes are back on top. So, how do you wield the raw power of such a strong faction? How much gas is too much?? Similar to our recent Win...

It is a wild one this week. Matt has been away on vacation and so Hunter has been left to his own devices! So obviously, it's beach episode time. Hunter brought his buddies on to just talk about various board games we like as if this is some normal boring regular cool podcast.   Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord,...

This is us revisiting a classic SCPT topic. When we first asked "How does one win from ahead?" I don't think we even fully knew what being "ahead" truly meant. Not only that, but an expansion and multiple codices have released since then, so it seemed an important time to make another attempt at an answer. More important, winning from ahead seems harder than ever and it's time to get to the bottom...

Oh my dear, another year is upon us. It is officially sign-up season for the next SCPT Patreon Twilight Imperium Tournament. The first half of this episode is most of the things you need to know about the upcoming sign-ups as well as new Patreon Goals, followed by a discussion of our experience with the Asynchronous TI Discord server ( https://discord.gg/vY3nBkegkn ) Async TI begins at 42:47 Music...

We've been taking some time recently to revisit old topics deserving of an update. One of those is surprisingly recent: Exploration. We've only had this mechanic since Prophecy of Kings was released, but we've learned a lot since we first introduced it, and it's about time we cleaned up our thoughts a bit. So, here we'll read the exploration cards for every deck, including Frontier and Relic, and...

We're big time important kids and our opinions matter. That's why we were sent a copy of Twilight Inscription to give our unbiased, unfiltered, uncompromised, objective review. You came here for hard hitting journalism and boy howdy I tell ya that's what we're here to deliver. Game Journalism matters A LOT, and we take our roles very seriously. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntym...

We're making our way back through all of the factions, starting with those that got recent updates in Codex 3. Xxcha only received a new hero, but it seems that simple change was enough to make us reconsider everything about this faction. It's now an economic powerhouse if you play it right and it's time to explore how to do that and what it means for the faction!  Music provided by Ben Prunty. Fi...

It's been so long since we've tuned into Root, and there's been a new expansion out for a while now! This isn't a strategy guide, but we do intend to do some down the road. Instead, this is an overview of all of the things that came with the Marauder Expansion, as well as what Root even looks like these days. There's more than just these big box expansions and it can all be a bit hard to follow, s...

August's Galactic Council Episode is the season wrap on GC episodes that fit this kind of vibe. For a while now we've been doing GC episodes off the cuff, and for the next batch we want to put in a bit more time on each episode. But for this "Improv Finale," we've saved the best for last. It's time for the Definitive Hero Tier List. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or...