TI4 Gameplay update

 On the beach with my nephews and we just wrapped up a game with the fan expansion Discordant Stars. While my nephews had great abilities with their species (some a little too powerful in my opinion) I was dealt a bogus race that got to vote last on agenda's and skip on tech symbol each time they researched.

Lame. The Hero's ability was even worse in that you discard him to gain ONE tech upgrade that another player has. (so.....just like the Necro Virus but limited to a once in the game ability) 

Really terrible race. 

Good news is, this game also carried a lot of "firsts" for me. 

One was that I got War Sun technology for the first time since I've bought the fourth edition of the game! I didn't use it, but at least I had it thanks to my pathetic "Hero" action.

I also got to play "Kingmaker" in the final round when it came down to 2 people for the win (not me) I gave it to one of my nephews with the promise of "Support to the Throne" in a future game when my race had no chance of winning. 

I don't mind losing with a pathetic race, since it's a random draw, in fact, I WANT the worst races in this expansion to see if I can find any path to victory. But when other races have the following abilities:

1) Discard an action card to ready any planet

2) Explore every planet (at least twice, sometimes more) in the game

You really don't stand a chance. Those 2 races had the led the entire game. I was second with 6 points and I was pulling out all the stops. I owned just about all the galaxy and the only way to defeat me in the Agenda Phase was for everyone else to pull together all their planets (which totaled 48 to my 47 influence points) to stop me. 

Oh, and by far that was the most planets I've ever captured in a game and I'm thinking it's got to be some type of record. Unprecedented.  But remember, I was in SECOND (or third at the end) the entire second half of the game. 

There was just no stopping those overpowered races. 

But I'm glad I got to see a few more factions from the expansion in action. You can read these abilities but it doesn't give you the full perspective of what they can do until you see them in play. 

Anyway, next game is scheduled for tomorrow, so I may give another update later this week.