Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition

Firstly, the box. It's epic! When the courier arrived and presented me with this monster of a parcel I felt like I was 8 years old on Christmas morning again (I'm 32, it felt great!).

Secondly, the contents of said epic box. There's a ton of stuff in it. Ships, counters, tiles etc and all of it is of a decent standard. The tiles are thick and robust, the spaceship models are detailed and varied, everything comes across as high quality.

Thirdly, the actual game. If you are reading this because you are thinking of getting the game and aren't too sure whether or not to get it (like I was) press the add to basket button now. It's is immense fun. It does take some time to play, especally at first and it does need a decent sized area to setup and play in. I've seen a lot of places on the internet that suggest about an hour and a half per player for new players and from my experience this is about right.
The options you have in game for steering things in the direction you want them to go are numerous and varied and the arguments and bribery that comes into play as laws hit the tabel is great fun. I'd suggest you need at least 4 players to make it fun and iteresting though it is still fun with 3, it's not quite as interesting.
I'd recommend the expansion as well, it adds some nice touches and helps the game evolve nicely as well as adding pieces for up to 8 players (if you have a day to spare with 7 of your mates that is).

Twilight Imperium is certainly the best purchase I've made in a long time, now it could well be yours.

As comic book guy would say "Best Board game... ever!"

If you looking at this game are probably interested in Star Trek, Star Wars and other such Sci-fi series. This game takes a lot of inspiration from such programmes, and mixes it all up, adds a little flavor and the result is a really gripping board game.

This game plays best with 5+ players. All need to be heavily into board games as this is an EPIC game! Yes it has hundreds of well made components and yes the box and hexes are massive compared to earlier incarnations of Twilight Imperium... it’s well worth the money! But the reason I coin it epic is because most games we play last over 8 hours! Not the 2-3 advertised on the box!

But this isn't a bad thing at all... that time just flies by as the game is so well balanced between diplomacy, science research, trade, politics and war! Each race has different abilities and the board is pseudo randomly generated meaning no two games are the same. One mechanic I like is the addition of politics in the game. During a round players may have to vote on certain "Laws" which can alter significantly the rules of the game. Add to that technological development of races (that invest) as the game progress' which alter your ship movement speed, weapon power, etc, makes for a unique dynamic in this wonderful game.

Battles are simple rolls of a dice and so keep the pace of the game high if players are experienced enough. There are no alliances and you can see players getting twitchy with one another as a large fleet arrives close to their occupied systems. The intrigue and rivalry produced between players really helps make this game work. Winning the game is done by achieving a set number of VP. Various avenues present themselves to get VP, especially with some of the additions to the game introduced by the expansion.

In Summary: A fantastic board game...

You should click "add to cart" ASAP. Oh and while you're at it add the expansion (shattered empire) too. It makes a great game... brilliant! Well worth the money!