Over on the “Wishlists dreams” thread I listed TI4, Dune and forgot to put Inis but it’s certainly on there, so this favourites thread is REALLY making my bank balance look nervous right now.
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Ours was 9 hours, not including setup 
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Is TI4 pbfable?
I’ll talk to the game group post lockdown but that is a big time commitment. My problem is that I’m bad at games, especially for the first 2-3 plays. It’s a long, long time to know you’re losing.
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I got Dune played this summer and it was pretty excellent. It didn’t set all of my players’ worlds on fire though, so we ended the day with fewer interested parties. An unfortunate partial-success. Seriously though I was practically high after we played.
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The major factor that I’ve noticed is not the number of bits (a deck of cards is just a file, however you’re comfortable keeping track of it, and the size of the file doesn’t really matter) – it’s how many round-trips you need to do for a turn. Flamme Rouge is basically a loop of “wait for everyone’s cards, do a deterministic thing, send out the new positions and cards”, while Robo Rally needs me to keep track of every point where someone might want to say “hang on, I want to use my special power now”, pause the game and wait for their response.
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Here’s one thing that I’ve always wondered about with TI4. Do you get the situation where 4 hours into a 6 hour game it’s impossible for someone to win? Maybe through their own fault, maybe not?
And if so, does it really matter? Does the operaness (definitely a word) mean that even as a loser you can still direct the story and outcome enough to keep someone invested and having fun?
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I love the books, I’ve watched several hours of these guys playing it, I just know that I don’t have a friends group who would be okay with the high level of backstabbing needed!
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I’ve watched a bunch of their Dune videos! Really entertaining group and their tutorials were a godsend ahead of the teach.
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Tricky.
Let’s start with the basics: there is the possibility of a Total Player Elimination. It’s rare… rare enough that in 4 editions and probably a hundred total playthroughs across all those editions I have seen it once (my partner, Andy, eliminated a player whom both of us dislike IRL who happens to be married to one of my oldest friends… as a result of the elimination, Andy won the game, the first and only time she’s ever played). But there have been a couple games where somebody could’ve eliminated another player and chose not to, either because there was sufficient groveling or because the almost-eliminated player posed no reward or threat.
I’ve been that almost-eliminated player a few times.
So, let’s say one out of five games has an almost-eliminated player. Usually that player can still exert influence throughout the game, sometimes overtly through king-making, but usually in more subtle ways (providing a critical vote or two, maybe playing some key cards at key moments).
I have once been pushed back to my homeworlds (a binary system in this case), had my entire fleet obliterated save one destroyer (the smallest capital ship in the game), and seized victory. It’s rare, but if you keep your eyes on what you need to do, it can happen.
It’s much more common for the mid-game point somebody who is trailing by a few points to jump into the lead and win. I think the most extreme case was a 6-point swing in a single turn (knowing that 10 is victory) that saw a player jump from last to first in a single massive turn… but again, those tend to be rare.
Now, all that aside: yes. It does happen. Most of the time it’s mental as opposed to actual… people can convince themselves they’re out of the game because they’re not winning (or not in the Top 3). And it’s not really in anyone else’s best interests to convince them that they aren’t actually out. But, again, it does happen that you will be completely incapable of winning relatively early into the game. I’d say… one player every ten games or so?
I once played the Embers of Muaat (an admittedly weaker race unless you’re a complete jerk and bully everyone else), and by Hour 2 knew I was out of the running completely due to a grudge I foolishly pursued past the point of rationality (a loose-ally denied me a very powerful turn and I swore I’d raze his homeworlds… sadly, he was playing the Naalu, who shrunk my fleet size every time I invaded, so by the time I got to his homeworld he still had the vast majority of his slippery fleet and I was down to a single Warsun with fighter escorts… I did, in fact, raze his homeworld, but in the process lost my entire fleet and all my colonies and he recaptured his planets on the same turn).
But I think the key measure here isn’t whether it happens or not, but rather that it’s almost always within control when it happens. I chose to pursue that grudge instead of focusing on winning. Players can decide to go heavy into military production only to see all the victory points skew towards science (or vice versa). If you dig in your heels, the game can be unforgiving.
All that aside, there is one massive weakness to TI4, and that’s the absolute inability to have a player drop. You just can’t do it. Having a player walk away from the table shifts the power dynamics in such a sudden, massive way it’s basically impossible to account for. I don’t think I’ve ever had a game with a player who definitely wanted to drop, but I have had games with a few players who mentally check-out of a game midway through, and that can be really hard. Rare, thankfully, and I have curated my TI4 group to minimize those kinds of players, but it still happens occasionally. Say, one out of eight games somebody’s attention is lost after a few hours and as a result one of the two players sitting next to that player end up winning due to inattention.
I hope that helps? It’s a really hard question to answer given the massive number of variables. The safest response is to say that when it happens, it’s almost always psychological rather than gameplay (although there can be very swingy dice) and as long as the player can adjust their strategy they’re almost always in the running.
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I love threads like this, because they let me see how much I would enjoy a game like this with the right people.
TI4, Inis, Kemet, Dune, are games that I know I would love to play given the time and the right game adversaries, and I thank you for giving me more hope to keep saving money to buy them and finding the people to play them.
I definitely had TI4 in a pedestal already, but now I know that it will be worthy acquiring it in December (either for Christmas or my birthday). At least with the game in the sack, there is one less problem to actually playing it.
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TI:4 needs the right people, but when you have them, there’s nothing like it.
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Marx has a very in-depth and good answer, my short answer is it depends on the group. My group doesn’t take it super seriously, so we mess around and have fun, so this really isn’t an issue even though it definitely happens.
Though, TI is so swingy that you’re rarely completely out.
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Yeah, this is my concern. A few friends play regularly, and I’d love to give it a go, but there are a few people who I don’t enjoy the company of. Think 6 hours would tip me over the edge into saying something I would regret!
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I can enjoy online chess with strangers on the Internet, because it’s all about the game and there’s no social engagement. But an all-afternoon war game? Unless you’re into some sort of competitive league, I’d say it’s all about the company.
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What better way to upgrade these people to nemesis status than a game of TI4? 
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Is there a way to play TI4 using the things you get from TI3? I know there’s some differences, but how much editing is there?
Or is it kind of so much that it’s not worth it?
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Is there any talk/ chance of a TI5? Just seen that this edition has been out for a long time.
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TI 1e - 1997
TI 2e - 2000
TI 3e - 2005
[Tumbleweed]
TI 4e - 2017
You might be waiting a while!
Also Christian Petersen left FFG in 2018, so TI 5e (whenever it comes out) is bound to upset some purists out there. I doubt FFG are in a hurry to rush out another edition. From the SUSD documentary, it looks like they took 4e as a way to fine-tune some bits a game that will last a long while. I don’t think they intend it to be constantly updated.
We’re bound to see at least a few 4e expansions before any dream of 5e. Because it’s FFG.
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Ah. Thanks. I read it that TI4 had been out since 1997
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This is going to be my typical response apparently, but: tricky.
It could be done, of course. There are several artistic changes (the models, et al) that are totally irrelevant although nice (the new ship models are higher quality plastic and better sculpts). The big thing is going to be the Action Cards and Law Cards: a lot of them are changed in small, subtle ways that reflect the changes to Strategy Cards and phases of the game, all of which have been tweaked to make the game play faster. Oh, and the tech tree… that will be tricky, but probably could be done.
Is it worth it? Mmmmmm… I mean, I’m biased, but I would say if you can afford the new edition, buy the new edition and never look back. If you can’t, then obviously the option exists and I’m 93% sure that somebody on BGG has done exactly that with painstaking steps to ensure it’s done correctly.
But it’s not trivial. If it were me, I would incorporate the new Strategy Cards alone, and then deal with everything else on a case-by-case basis if needed. There are even newer Strategy cards and some tech cards they released recently: they’re better, use them.