Hey, I’m an expert in something! I mean, other than screwing up… lordy, am I an expert in that…
ANYway! Yes, TI4. Over a dozen games of it so far (was well on my way to 20 plays before this pandemic hit… I think I’m at 17 or 18 total).
The thing I am least excited about is the increased player count. TI3 was 1.5 hours per player (8 players = 12 hour game, not including breaks, snacks, lunch, and dinner). TI4 has gotten that down to a svelt 0.75 hours per player (6 players = 4-5 hours), and if that manages to hold for 8 players you’re looking at a 6-7 hour game. Which is reasonable for an “event” game, which TI3 was, but one of the greatest joys of TI4 is that it wasn’t an event. I could work a full day, get home at 6pm, and play a 6 player game while still being in bed by midnight. I don’t think I’m ready to surrender that yet. That stated, love the new colours as options.
What I am most excited about is the new Public and Secret Objective cards. There are too few in the base game for the amount of variety that should be in the game, and the new ones we’ve seen seem to be more interesting and better balanced. Additionally, more system tiles is freakin’ fantastic.
The new diplomatic elements (promissory notes) seem extremely interesting in that they add teeth to negotiations. As it stands, most of the time it’s honour system for sticking to an agreement: the game seems to be making it explicit in there being consequences to breaking treaties. Which I like.
The hopeful heart in me is excited about the new races (I suspect that the balance is going to be whack with a few of them, but that’s okay!) and the mechs. The Action cards will probably be fine, and I think the Commanders are going to be a bit of a pain to include, so I may not bother. Oh, and the exploration decks… I’m not convinced they will really add much to the game that’s not enormously fiddly. “Attaching” cards to planets is already a pain, and it sounds like that will become even more common. Not a good step, from what I can tell.
My fear, of course, is that the game will creep back up in length. An hour per player is feasible (for 6 players), but more than that and we’re moving back into TI3 territory (which I loved, but player 2-3 times at most every year for its entire life).
Also, Pink. All the way.
Oh! Oh! I don’t know if you watched the livestream the devs did, but a lot of the commentary specifically focused on the Winnu. Which is good, because the Winnu suck. And the fact the designers can recognize that is a very good sign for the health of the game. I’m definitely getting it the second I can… I don’t think it’s an auto-include by the way they’re describing it (despite them insisting), but I after the phenomenal job they did with the TI3 -> TI4 transition, I think it’s a very safe bet.
For the sake of discussion, I will point out that I didn’t use 50% of the expansions in TI3 because most of the time they were very fiddly and solved problems nobody really seemed to have (make Cruisers more attractive by dropping mines, for example, or punish early exploration). But that’s okay, because the other 50% were great, and I didn’t play TI3 enough to need more. TI4 hits my table often enough that more sounds like a great thing.
Edit: System TILES, not system TITLES.
