Twilight Imperium the original version

 

So, I left the room for a few minutes and when I returned this game was sitting on the table. But I decided to call the bluff and agreed to play the game. Now to be fair have has decided to try and select games that we have not played before, or at very least that we have not played for quite some time. I think this is the first edition and includes 3 expansions. 

This game has not been played for many years and I really should have gotten rid of it some time ago, but nostalgia has kept it on the shelf. I have owned one of the geek crushing versions of the game, so much plastic, that game I got rid of but not this. I apparently liked it so much that I made extra copies of the rules for all the other players, but then filed it all away on the shelf of obscurity. 

My situation after a few turns

The core rules are pretty lightweight and were quick to go through and we planned to just use the core rules, so we were playing pretty quickly after a cursory review. We did run into a few issues as we started drawing action cards and realized that some of the cards were from some of the expansions. But we liked some of the extra rules so we added them to the mix in an adhoc way. 

My opponents situation

A lot of randomness in this version (not certain how that compares to the modern version) which made it difficult to have a solid plan. For instance on turn one my opponent drew an action card that allowed him to build an elite carrier & fighter. This gave him a significant advantage while settling systems. But then I also took over a planet that allowed me to buy a space dock at 1/3 the cost and on that turn (or maybe the next turn) another planet that I took over gave me a windfall of 25 credits when my income was still in single digits. It is why you see me with a dreadnought and a lot of carriers.

Both of us focused on ship building and conquest, not so focused on tech development. 

I actually had fun playing this old game. It seems to move along at a pretty good pace. I suspect that unlike the modern version this game would not take 8 hours to play. 😏 Sadly my gaming partner did not share my enthusiasm so I fear this game may start gathering dust again.