Space Cats Peace Turtles

CW: Discrimination This is not your regularly scheduled episode of SCPT. Some events took place over the weekend regarding Tabletop Simulator and it's developer, Berserk Games. We felt it was necessary to catch everyone up to speed and to make our intents and desires clear. This conversation deals with topics of discrimination in the board gaming community. We hope everyone will listen closely and...

IT'S A NEW YEAR which means it's time for a new Faction Tier list. This is our annual tradition around here to redefine how we perceive the meta going into the new tournament. Last year's list was a bit of a goof considering how much we knew we didn't know about the game. But we've learned a lot since then, so we can definitely say this one is DEFINITIVE. You're welcome to disagree with our tiers,...

Here's a quick one for your Holiday and New Year ears. We talk about the attempted goofy game we played with our friends and what went wrong. We hope to do it again though, so this was just the preview for how good Survivor: Twilight Imperium can be. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com   To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, a...

It's almost holiday time, but we have a Galactic Council episode to attend to first! This month, the Sidereal Confluence coalition was betrayed and we instead saw Round One Negotiations rise to the top, which is a perfect opportunity to return to the basics of how to get all the things you want round one, and determining what those wants even are! If only the galactic council was better at negotia...

The Lazax Empire, as it appears on the faction sheet in Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. Written by Christian T. Petersen Narrated by Phoenix "Absol197" Gruber Dama-May - Primal Drive by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200086 Artist: http://...

Well normally I would think an episode like this isn't gonna attract that many listeners, but SO MANY OF YOU signed up for next year's tournament that this announcement episode became a pretty important thing. In it we detail how we will get through the 2022 Patreon Tournament, with an emphasis on the Qualifiers, as well as some discussion on the structure and rules that will be in place in the ga...

The theme of this week's Preliminary Guide is "The Big Stick." We've got two factions who can pack a big punch, but don't always have the point acquisition to make a successful game. Neither are "bad" factions, but there are tricks to both, and it can be hard to navigate their toolsets to find a victory. The best part of all: we don't talk about blue tech very much! So come listen just for that! R...

As promised, a narration of the short story included with Fantasy Flight Games' Rex: Final Days of an Empire. Written by Christian T. Petersen Narrated by Matt Martens Music: Dreaming in 432Hz - Unicorn Heads Satya Yuga - Jesse Gallagher

The galactic council worked together this month to give us a real treat! It's lore time and we're kicking it off with some lore that's slightly harder to get a hold of: the board game Rex: Final Days of an Empire. We're taking a look at the little clues into factions thousands of years before the setting of Twilight Imperium and during the fall of the Lazax Empire. It's a fun little ride with Matt...

There's gonna be a lot of chatter about ground forces today. We're looking at two sides of the really tough infantry coin in Federation of Sol (Good) and Sardakk N'orr (Bad). (Yin is the Ugly) Some say Sol doesn't even need a guide, so we made an attempt to make that half of the episode for especially new players looking for a good beginner faction. Sardakk is a considerably more difficult nut to...

Hunter is out this week, and we took the opportunity to bring on noted lore aficionado, Absol! She and Matt both read the second Twilight Imperium novel by Tim Pratt, The Necropolis Empire. So here is our review, overview, as well as some lore implications of this especially good adventure sci-fi story! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To lear...

Well we've teased this idea for many weeks now and finally were able to gather a panel to discuss winmaking. Our thoughts were outlined in depth in episode 203, but this topic bring about different feelings for everyone. So we decided to sit with three prominent players with many different takes on what constitutes winmaking and whether or not we should care. teddysjamforyou is the champion of thi...

IT'S BACK! Over 100 episodes have gone by since our last iteration of This Imperium Life, the show written by all of YOU. We stopped doing it when we felt like the base game well had run a bit dry, but with Prophecy of Kings having been out essentially an entire year, we've been collecting lots of your stories of your best moments in TI! Here are just SOME of our favorites.   Music provided by Ben...

Despite the hype of the ongoing Invitational Tournament, we're still out here working on your preliminary faction guides. Up this week are two polar opposites: the infinite variable that is the Emirates of Hacan next to the fairly understood and simple L1Z1X Mindnet. The Hacan side of things is wildly open-ended, so be nice. You've got some concrete L1 advice, so count your blessings! Music provid...

Can the Galactic Council ever be appeased? Likely not, but we're here to do our civic duty and provide them with the second of the two tied options from last month. Here is EVERY SINGLE TECH, tiered and feared. No contradicting opinions necessary. We nailed it. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com   To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreo...

Our special event, the Invitational Tournament, is upon us and before the games begin we wanted to go over the draft structure we'll be using. We're taking an existing community draft procedure called Miltydraft and making some slight modifications. So before we talk about our version, it's important to set the stage by going over the basics of why Miltydraft is so popular! Music provided by Ben P...

What a world we're in. This time last year, if we'd packaged the Winnu and Clan of Saar into an episode together, it would have been to showcase the two polar opposites of Twilight Imperium. But now, the two sing some similar songs and often times feel like sides of the same coin. Winnu has risen to be quite the powerhouse, and Clan of Saar has kept up the pace just fine. So, how do these two fact...

War were declared. For the second month in a row, the Galactic Council has gone rogue and tied our two poll options. So, for this month, we're just doing one of them and I guess we'll do the other later or something. So for now, here's Matt and Hunter improvising a scenario mode for Twilight Imperium, a la Alliance mode or the Shard of the Throne scenario from TI3. Is it chaotic? Yes. Is it playab...

Hunter is moving back to Portland this week, which meant something fun to squeeze in while he's gone. What better than returning to everyone's favorite interview series Fireside Chats with Root (Alec). This one gets extra confusing because Root sat down with a major member of the Root board game community, Bott Bott, to pick his brain about all things Twilight Imperium, Root, and Oath (and also Pa...

Here lies a wonderful example of our new project! We're so excited to announce the launch of our new show, The Old Gamer's Almanac, the definitive ranking of all video games ever, one week at a time. We're throwing this one your way so you get a feel for how we hope the rest of the show plays out, but don't hesitate to pause this and head over to the Old Gamer's Almanac podcast feed and listen to...

Oh Look! A new podcast has been spotted! As we teased recently, we are starting another show! Old Gamer's Almanac is the definitive ranking of all video games ever, one week at a time. We know how much this audience likes lists, and we've made the lifelong commitment to playing every video game that exists in order to accurately rank them. If the video game industry would just stop for a bit while...

Hunter is about to move away, and we wanted to take the time to reminisce on the ongoing game of Oath we've been able to play while in the same region. We break down our thoughts about the strategy and our game's specific evolving story. Before that is some errata for our episode on Agendas, as well as a very special announcement regarding a new show we've been working on! Stick around next week f...

It feels like ages since we’ve had a proper episode in which we just sit and read every card. Our original Agendas episode was among our longest episodes, and was one of our first component focused episodes. But a lot has been learned and a lot has changed since then, so we figured it was time to revisit the topic of Agendas.   Additionally, we get to announce our next big project! We’re going to...

This week, we're tearing through a couple more factions as we try to lay some framework to better understand how the base game factions have changed since Prophecy of Kings released. How far have the Yin fallen? How high have the Nekro risen? Whose ground forces are best? Hint: it's not the faction that it SHOULD be...   0:00 - Yin Brotherhood 52:59 - Nekro Virus   Music provided by Ben Prunty. Fi...

We're finally able to dive into the future of Faction Guides, and this is what we have to start with. This won't be exhaustive, but it's a first pass to see where the base game factions are falling in the grander scheme of PoK. Consider these opening ideas that lay the framework for future, more thorough guides about specific strategies within each faction. Up first, the underrated Barony of Letne...