We’ve been keeping stats on our TI3 games. We call it our “Leader Board”. To date, Dusty is our winning-est player. Last year Dusty played in the Twilight Imperium tournament at GenCon and won. I knew he would do the Muskegon Area Gamers proud again this year. Take a few minutes to read his session report. This will undoubtedly whet your appetites for our upcoming game in August!

The Twilight Imperium 3 tournament is the highlight of my Gen Con trip each year. This year there was even more anticipation because I am the defending champion.

The format was updated this year. There were six qualifying games with the winner of each game being invited to the final table. I will save the story for how I won the qualifying round and skip right to my recap of the finals.

Races are chosen without any knowledge about objectives, map tiles, or seating. However, seating and speaker are determined entirely randomly.

I had a choice of the Nekro Virus or Arborec. I chose the Nekro because I did not want to end up being a non-militaristic race adjacent to a militaristic race.

Here is a photo of the board after setup:

Going clockwise, starting with me:

Nekro (me)

Mentak

Saar

Yin

Sol

Naalu

I was disappointed to have two wormholes adjacent to me and no other wormholes on the board. My setup wasn’t great, but not terrible.

It was Age of Empires so we knew the objectives from the start [with the caveat that players cannot score Stage II objectives until Round 4]. Here is a pic:

My preliminary objective was: Antagonist – I control a planet in a system adjacent to an enemy player’s Home System.

The strategy cards were: Leadership, Diplomacy II, Assembly, Production, Trade II, Warfare II, Technology II, Imperial II.

Turn 1

Naalu is the speaker and took Tech.

Nekro(me) took Production

Mentak took Trade

I don’t recall precisely what everyone else took.

In retrospect, I believe taking production was a mistake. I should have taken leadership or warfare. Leadership would have allowed me to accumulate counters in preparation for the stage 2 objective to spend command counters on turn 4. Warfare would have given me an option to attack Mentak on turn 1 scoring the invade objective and my preliminary.

Anyhow, I popped production immediately on my turn because I realized I wasn’t going to be able to use it to take more resources turn 1 due to positioning and slow carriers. The only person to truly benefit from this was the Saar because they were the only player to take a tactical action before my first turn.

Trade went off, Mentak made some good trades getting a couple of 2s, and let a few others around the table trade. I was allowed to trade one of my agreements with Sol.

If I recall correctly, noone scored any points on turn 1.

Turn 2

I took warfare. Not sure what everyone else took.

Mentak bought mirror computing this turn. There was a law that came up to break all of someone’s trade agreements and forbid them from making trades this round or next. Mentak got some votes, but the Saar player had the most influence and voted for me, resulting in my trade agreement being broken.

This was a big problem for me, not because of the trade goods I would lose, but rather because Mentak’s trade engine was left unfettered. Each time he took the trade strategy card he received 7 trade goods, with mirror computing that is worth 14 resources to him.

I waited until the end of the turn and attacked Mentak at Abyz/Fria. It was a lopsided space battle, he did kill a couple of my fighters. One of the invasions I had a ground force and a mech vs a GF. The other was 1 on 1. I won both invasions.

As Nekro, winning these battles allowed me to pick up cybernetics and stasis capsules, bringing me to 4 green technologies counting the Nekro starting techs. The third tech was a difficult choice. I considered getting mirror computing, but ultimately took Sarween tools since my ability to get trade goods was severely hampered due to the vote earlier this round.

I built earlier in the turn and without considering that I might have access to stasis capsules; rookie mistake. If I had built GF instead of mech units I could have taken more planets using cruisers.

One interesting development of note was that the Mentak built a space dock adjacent to their home system in my direction.

This was a good turn. During the status phase I was able to score the invasion combat and my preliminary objective. I drew as my secret objective: Threatening – I control systems adjacent to 2 different player’s Home Systems.

Turn 3

I would have loved to take assembly in order to setup for a Turn 4 Imperial II when stage 2 objectives can be scored, but it was gone by the time it got to me. I can’t recall what was available other than that assembly was gone – I took production.

I was in a bit of a pickle this round. The Mentak had built 4 PDS adjacent to Abyz/Fria and would assuredly get deep space cannons this turn (or already did, I can’t recall). Although I took many of his resources, with his trade income and mirror computing, I was not going to win a war of attrition. Interestingly, if he had not built the space dock, I think I could have justified taking his home world because his TGs just wouldn’t be able to be converted into ships then, but because he had built that dock last round, there was no realistic way for me to blockade him effectively.

With the above in mind, I decided to strike a deal with him and leave Abyz/Fria for a TG, a promise not to shoot me with PDS, and a promise to let me spend them before he took them back. He agreed. This may have been unwise because it was giving up half of my Threatening objective, but I just don’t think I could have kept control of Abyz/Fria

During this turn, I used the force from Abyz/Fria to attack a Saar system that had an artifact and a weak Saar fleet with 3 ships. I lost another fighter, but won the space combat and the invasion. I was now defending the victory point with 2 GF and 1 mech. Unfortunately, Saar did not have a green tech for me to get to 5.

This was an okay move because it let me score a public objective, however it may have been better to move into place in an empty sector for threatening.

I took the planet in front of Mecatol in my slice of the galaxy and also moved 3 cruisers + 3 GF to the empty space in front of the B wormhole on the Naalu side. I was trying to give myself options for scoring threatening next turn because I had flank speed.

I also built my flagship in my home system to give me some protection.

Turn 4

Strategy selection is a blur. I was surprised Imperial II was available when the cards came to me. I took it without hesitation.

Saar attacked my fleet in their space. The bulk of their force was about 9 fighters. (To be honest I can’t recall if this happened at the end of turn 3 or during turn 4). I had 1 cruiser 2 fighters and a carrier. I knew the fight was a lost cause. I tried to negotiate with the Saar telling him I would retreat if he brought less force. He wasn’t having it. I decided it wasn’t worth the command counter retreating even though it would be perfect for Threatening. I would have survived with a single ship if I had retreated (damnit!). He did not attempt an invasion because he didn’t have enough ground forces to win. I destroyed a ship and got a tech.

Naalu approached me wanting to take 2 planets from me so he could score “I have 10 planets”. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but I didn’t have the plastic to fight him so I negotiated that in exchange he would let me take the system and planets adjacent his home world next turn (after he scored 10 planets) and he told me he would leave a gf on each planet of mine he took for me to get tech. I really didn’t have much negotiating power and did not care about leftover gf at all.

Later in the round an opportunity arose. Naalu had 11 planets outside his home system, but only needed 10. I struck a deal with him that I would vacate the planet in front of Mecatol for him and take the two next to his home system this turn. Naalu was nervous that the planet he had taken with diplomacy near the Mentak home world would be taken by Mentak. I brokered a deal where Naalu gave 2 TG to Mentak to not take that planet (worth 4 resources to Mentak due to mirror computing). That worked!

I now had 5 planets, my home world, the two adjacent the Naalu, the one in Saar space, and one of the Reigel planets right in front of my home world. I mistakenly did not realize that was only 4 planets outside my home world, not 5.

We were getting to the end of the turn. I had flipped Imperial II so that I could score multiple public objectives this turn. I had 4 VP (Preliminary, 3 ships, invaded, artifact

After thinking long and hard about it, I decided to backstab Naalu because it would catapult me to 9 points if things went as planned. I had negotiated with Naalu all turn to set them up to score the 10 planets objective, but secretly I saw an opportunity. The plan was to attack the Naalu home system with 4 cruisers, each carrying a GF, and a destroyer. I played flank speed to get the destroyer and one of the cruisers to the system. IIRC, the Naalu home system had 4 fighters, a carrier, and a PDS. There were no ground forces, so if I won the space battle all I had to do was survive against the PDS. If things went according to plan I would have scored the following:

5 green techs by getting neural computing from Naalu, the last green tech I needed(2 points)

Destroying Naalu space dock in their home system (2 points)

Taking the Naalu home world, the fifth planet I needed for the 5 planets outside my home system (1 point)

This would mean the next turn I would have a shot at winning with my first action by taking the Naalu artifact planet.

I took the fight to the Naalu. It was complete mutual destruction. PDS fire took down the destroyer. The first round of the battle I had 3 hits and he had 2. In the second round of battle his remaining 2 fighters both hit and both my cruisers hit, meaning everything was gone and I scored 2 victory points instead of 5.

Turn 5

I tried to salvage what I could, but there was little I could do. The Naalu signal jammed my fleet adjacent to their home system (not all bad since I still could potentially score Threatening). That left me with my flagship and 1 destroyer.

The Yin had first pick of strategy card and took leadership. I think I took production again (looking at the final state I should have taken warfare for the 3 bonus counters and the mobility to score threatening or diplomacy to score early before Saar). The Saar took diplomacy.

I had drawn another flank speed and formulated my plan. I moved my command counter configuration so I only had 2 in fleet supply and about 5 in command. I planned to try and stall as much as I could and then strike the Mentak late in the round to take over a system adjacent to their home world with a space dock. That would allow me to score Threatening and destroy a space dock giving me 10 points.

Near the end of the round, the Mentak and I were the only ones left. I had stalled as much as I could by placing counters in empty space in the neutral zone between the Naalu and myself.

The Mentak had built voluminous ground forces on the system adjacent their home world (that was within 2 spaces), which meant even if I used flank speed to attack with my flagship, I didn’t have a way to win the ground battle. My flagship couldn’t reach the other space docks even with flank speed, so there was no way to bring my lone mech unit.

Finally, I negotiated with the Mentak in a futile attempt to take the empty space adjacent his home world. I attacked Naalu with a small strike force to get type IV drive, which I needed to reach the empty sector. I paid Mentak 2 trade goods not to fire his PDS (I should have waited to pay him until afterwards = ( ). He agreed and as soon as I made the move official he shot his 4 PDS and destroyed all 3 of my ships.

In the status phase, the Naalu scored the 5 tech advance to tie me in VP, the Yin scored 6 command counters bringing them to 7 points (a jump of 3 this turn bc they took over an artifact too), and then Saar scored 6 command counters and his secret objective diversified to end the game.

Even if I carried out my plan perfectly, it wouldn’t have mattered because I scored after Saar.

Here are pics of the board state and VPs at the end:

It was a fun game. As is always the case with Twilight Imperium 3, there were many areas on which I could improve. It is difficult to develop a coherent strategy on the fly while also trying to understand what everyone is trying to do. The moderators apply a lot of pressure to move the game along, which is good, but makes a tough game even tougher!

I wrote up this session report from memory, so it’s possible that I misremembered some things. Thanks for reading!