Diplomacy and Planet Trading

I'm not sure I've encountered a game that elicits as strong opinions as Twilight Imperium does, and not for lack of reasons.  One thing that anyone who plays the game will tell you is that's it's long, and that's putting it mildly.  Most five-player games of TI will take as many hours, if not more.  With that sort of time investment, players want to make sure they can justify the time investment, so you're more likely to care about whether you play with a particular rules variant in TI than you would in a shorter game, like Alhambra for example.  Another reason is that the game breeds conflict.  I mean, it's not a cooperative game like Arkham Horror, so you're competing against your fellow players, but it's also a war game, so the path to victory will be paved with you getting into direct competition with the other players, as opposed to a more passive competition for limited resources in a worker placement game like Agircola (though even Agricola has attack cards).  It's this second part I want to focus on here, because I think many opinions about Twilight Imperium stem from the strong opinions people have about war games, and particularly how the "domination" strategy receives unnecessary priority in a player's overall strategy. 

Twilight Imperium is not a World Domination Game, it is a Victory Point Game.  Yes, you can win by invading two other player's home planets, though I think in the near two dozen games of TI I've played I've seen this happen exactly once.  It is often much more efficient to focus on Victory Points, and generally you want to qualify for one of those Public Objectives at the end of each turn if you can, because outside of the person who receives the Bureaucracy Strategy, you only get to qualify for one every turn.  Many of those objectives you can plan for, such as "Spending 10 Influence," or ones that you can save for a turn when you don't qualify for any other objectives, like "having technology advances in all four colors"  Others objectives tend to reward conflict with other players, such as "I won a space battle against at least 2 opposing ships" or "I successfully invaded a planet that had at least one enemy ground force on it."  Objectives like these are ones that you should always select on a turn you qualify for them over something like "having x technology," since you will almost certainly still have those tech advances next turn, though you may not invade a planet or get into a space battle, even if you intend to.

I know several players have made the mistaken assumption that because there are cards that encourage fighting that fighting is inevitable for everyone, and while this is facilely true it doesn't always require you to be in conflict with everyone on the board.  Assume you and your neighbor both have poor, one-planet systems near your borders, each with a single ground force on it.  You notice your neighbor doesn't look poised to score any other victory points at the end of this turn, so you give him the option of "trading planets," while also ensuring that you'll each leave a single ground force on them to qualify for the "I successfully invaded a planet that had at least one enemy ground force on it."   While this strategy isn't as unilaterally beneficial as simply strong-arming your neighbor and taking the planet, it offers several advantages.  

For one, you are likely to lose less units in a concession like this than you are in forcing the victory point.  Everyone knows one of the ways to get a victory point is invading an enemy planet, so smart players will either bolster their border sectors with a compliment of ships or remove ground units from weaker planets entirely to dissuade their neighbor from completing the objective.  Coming to amicable agreements where you can avoid losing ships saves you from having to build future ships, ultimately gaining you resources other players might throw away.  Think about it: if you lose 6 resources worth of ships to take over a planet with Production 2, it takes 3 turns for you to recoup your losses, and that's assuming you can hold the damn thing.

Another benefit this has is it eliminates a reason for your opponent to invade you.  If they are focused on victory points (as they should be), and you've just let them fulfill one of the more aggressive ones, you've given him one less reason to attack in general.  This is largely dependent on your neighbor, as he may be the type who views TI as a straight up world domination game, or equates a glut colored plastic pieces with a casus belli.  Such players will likely find themselves spread too thin, with several unnecessary enemies and 3-4 VP shy of the leader by the late game, and while there's no guarantee you'll be next to some people that will be willing to make these deals, you should attempt to do this at any time with players who are willing: you lose less resources in obtaining that VP, you demonstrate to your neighbor that you can enact mutually beneficial agreements with them, and you eliminate an aggressive public objective from their list.

This sort of diplomacy is something that I believe benefits players in the long run.  It should come as no surprise that production value is extremely important in TI.  Early warfare tends to set most players back from the requisite fleet they need to actually make a move on Mecatol Rex, which will likely be a point of contention for at least a few players.  Keeping good border relations and not losing ships on frivolous wars over systems you can't defend are key to the early and mid game of TI, and will generally net you as much production value as a person who got a slightly better set up planet-wise, but engaged in more needless skirmishes.
  

I had planned on making this a bit of a longer article, but had to cut it short due to study time.  After this weekend the LSAT will be behind me, and I'll be able to dedicate more time to the blog and gaming articles.  There's a large patch for Hex coming out next week, Civilization Beyond Earth is less than a month away, and I have some other board game strategy articles in the works I'm excited to share.

Until next time.