"David Damerell" wrote in message news:... John Lagerquist wrote: >What are the differences between Twilight Imperium first edition and second >edition? Here we go again; I've recently obtained Twilight Imperium Second Edition; hence, I've written this account of changes between the 2 editions, and some suggestions on how to use features from the first edition in the second. This will all make very little sense unless you've played at least one edition of Twilight Imperium (henceforth referred to as Twiglet, for obscure reasons); if you only have the second edition, I hope that some of the material in here will prove useful in terms of using the better features of the first. Twiglet 2 changes quite a lot of the game. The tech tree is changed; most races have been tweaked; and there's a new set of Political and Action cards. I'm inclined to think that the newer set has been better thought out, so will probably be using those in future games - also, because races no longer have 'skills', many Action cards from Twiglet 1 will no longer be meaningful. (You could consider races to have the skills they had in Twiglet 1, but to be honest I never was a great fan of the way that an Action card could be useless to you except as a bargaining chip.) The rules themselves are largely unchanged. I'm still not happy with the galaxy creation procedure, but there are now new smaller layouts for 2 and 3 player games, so that everyone doesn't become enormously rich - and everyone has a house rule for galaxy creation anyway, right? The new map tiles look nicer, but the resources and influence values are not as clearly printed. However, the new tiles are very definitely not the same; many planets have higher resource or influence values (there are no 1-1 dead losses in Twiglet 2), and the planets are differently arranged - the 3-planet tile is gone, and many planets have moved, especially those that were or are on wormhole tiles. However, the set of planet names is much the same as in an unexpanded Twiglet 1; a few names have been modified a bit (Sacul G -> Saculag, for example), but it's recognisably the same set of planets (implying that the 'random planet' chart in Distant Suns will continue to work.) If you have an Outer Rim set and want to continue to play 7-8 player games, two approaches spring to mind. Using the old Twiglet tiles is possible, but suboptimal; various planets in Twiglet 2 give technology cost bonuses to the owner, and this information is lost if you use the old tiles. The other possibility is to remove the old tiles which correspond to the Twiglet 2 tiles, and use the remaining old tiles in conjunction with the tiles in Twiglet 2. Since the new tiles are distinctive and slightly thinner, you're unlikely to get your sets mixed up. The old tiles to remove would be; 1 Supernova; 2 Asteroids; 6 empty space; Zobatt; Sacul G - Lazar Alpha wormhole - Quann; Lodor; Tar'mann; Mellon - Mehar Xull; Tequ'ran Thibah; Riescue; Vefut II; Beta wormhole; Alpha wormhole - Torkan; Saudor Qucen'n - Rarron; New Albion - Starpoint; Lort IV - Bereg - Wellon Centauri - Gral; Fria - Abyz; Lor - Arnor Meer - Arinam; Dal Bootha - Xxehan; Beta wormhole - Coorneeq There are various other factors that might make 7-8 player games awkward (like the fact that there are only 6 sets of technology chits for the new tree), but I think it's possible. Various races now start with some units in addition to the normal ground forces and spacedock, which makes the first turn less of a no-op; however, this gives an advantage to the races who start with a decent planet-conquering infrastructure - everyone but the Jol-Nar start with at least one carrier & spare ground force, which means the Jol-Nar are screwed, as usual. PDS have changed a little, although the change is largely cosmetic. Instead of firing at enemy units entering the hex, you now fire after your opponent's movement segment. This has the disadvantage that PDS cannot now irritate units en route to another hex, but means that if your opponent remains in the hex you can tweak his nose twice a turn instead of once as in 1st Edition. Disappointingly, PDS have become no more powerful for their high price, but the new tech tree makes Deep Space Cannon much more accessible, so they at least have a chance to be useful. You can continue to hold a planet without a ground force there, although you need one to capture it. I think this change is for the better; it allows races with small incomes (or small production capabilities; although the Hacan now have a 3 resources planet, Industrial Efficiency is gone, so they are just as hard-off in terms of new unit creation as ever) to expand at the same rate as richer ones, but at the cost of leaving themselves exposed; enemy races or the new 'insurgence checks' can easily punish a strategy that skimps on ground forces. Carriers have a capacity of only 5 now, which is a good change; it might actually be necessary to use more than one in a given place at a given time. Dreadnoughts are unchanged, although the ability to hold a planet without a ground force means that an extra bombardment is needed, effectively weakening this option. The turn sequence has changed, but most of the changes are cosmetic; moving Progression from the start of the turn to the end makes no difference at all, and the rolling of trade income into the normal income phase is an obvious but good simplification. The Market phase has been rolled into the Political phase, and the Economy phase now subsumes all of Action cards, income, and purchasing units, but essentially the sequence is unchanged. One significant change, which I think is a great mistake, is that individual turns now must be taken in descending order of influence. The tactical advantage granted a high-influence player by the old system was a considerable advantage, which effectively rewarded influence even when everyone was fighting like crazy and resources were the thing. For people who only own Twiglet 2, the old system was that players were offered individual turns in descending order of influence, but could decline them and force lower influence players to go first; depending on the tactical situation, this can be valuable (going first helps if you know who you want to attack and their forces are ill-arranged, or if your forces are ill-arranged and you anticipate an attack; but going last is useful if you don't know who might attack you, and want to be able to mount a counterattack.) For instance, Alice (influence 17), Bob (influence 14) and Charlie (influence 10) are playing. Alice doesn't know what Bob is up to, so declines the first individual turn; it's offered to Bob. Bob wants to get the jump on Charlie, and so takes it. After Bob has moved, the second turn is now offered to Alice; she can take it or force Charlie to move second and go third herself. I'd strongly suggest using the old scheme for ordering individual turns. The tech tree has changed a lot. The cost of technology is sometimes reduced by special planets, which makes technology more accessible; however, the technologies now consist of 5 advances in each of four areas, but the prerequisites are more complex (and may include tech from other areas). Wexcon Barges are gone (and the rules are distinctly unclear on whether carriers can invade one or two planets); so are Fluxar Cargo Bays and the X-Lite Mass Drive (but there's now a nifty advance letting fighters act as ground forces). Some new advances round out the set; in general, I'm much more impressed with the new tech tree. There is a new advance that allows dreadnoughts and cruisers to carry a ground force each; I'm rather ambivalent about this, since carefully chosen strikes at expensive carriers would let a cunning player forestall an invasion by a militarily superior but tactically less shrewd player - carriers cost so much that you only have a few, and having them taken out necessarily delays operations by a turn while you build some new ones, no matter how much cash you have. The new Progression chart is quite different, with six positions. In general, it's better, in that each position represents a small incremental increase; but the winner now requires 30 resources, 9 planets outside home system, 30 influence and 9 tech advances. This prevents the possibility of a militarily weak player holding Mecatol Rex and a smattering of other planets and winning, which I think should be allowed if a player can pull it off; but on balance I think the new chart is better. There's a military victory rule (hold all homesystems or those of at least 3 other players in large games) which I think is a mistake; such a rule should address the situation where a player has effectively won and the others lack the sportsmanship to concede, not the situation where the spatial jump has been used for a sneak attack. -- David Damerell flcl?