Twilight Imperium: The Game, the Rounds and the Expansions

What Twilight Imperium is

Twilight Imperium is a big strategy game from Fantasy Flight Games. Each player runs one alien civilization. The galaxy is built from hexagon system tiles at the start of every game, so no two maps are the same. From there you expand, research technology, trade, make and break deals, vote on laws, and fight when the deals stop working.

The Fourth Edition is the one on Amazon US now. Fantasy Flight's product page sums it up as building an empire through trade, research, conquest and politics. The goal is plain: be the first to 10 victory points.

Box facts, from the listings:

• Players: 3 to 6 (base game); 3 to 8 on both expansion listings
• Age: 14+
• Play time: 240 to 480 minutes
• Kind of game: competitive, with negotiation built in
• Expansions: two listed, both need the Fourth Edition base game

Fantasy Flight's page lists more than 354 plastic units, 450 cards and 700 tokens in the base box. Clear the table. Then clear the table next to it.

How Twilight Imperium plays

This section follows Fantasy Flight's Learn to Play booklet for the Fourth Edition, the 2020 printing on its website. The booklet itself says to read it all before the first game, and to use the separate Rules Reference when questions come up. I'm giving you the shape of a game in my own words. The booklet is where the details live, and there are a lot of details.

Setup in one paragraph

One player is picked at random to be the speaker, who goes first. The speaker deals each player a faction. Players build the galaxy from system tiles around Mecatol Rex, the planet in the center. Each faction starts with its own home system, units, technologies and a command sheet with 16 command tokens. A random speaker is the fairest thing that happens all day. After that, it's politics.

A game round has four phases

Every round runs through the same phases, in order:

1. Strategy phase. Starting with the speaker, each player picks one of eight strategy cards. Each card gives a strong ability and a number from 1 to 8. The number sets turn order for the round, lowest first.
2. Action phase. Players take turns doing one action at a time, going around again and again, until everyone has passed.
3. Status phase. Cleanup: score objectives, reveal a new public objective, draw action cards, pull command tokens off the board, gain new ones, ready exhausted cards, repair units and return strategy cards.
4. Agenda phase. Players vote on two agendas, laws that change the game. This phase only joins the round after someone takes Mecatol Rex.

After the speaker picks are done, any strategy card nobody chose gets a trade good placed on it. Next round, whoever takes that card collects the pile. Unpopular cards come with a tip jar. I find that very fair.

The eight strategy cards, in plain words

The booklet gives a short reason to pick each card. My summary:

• 1 Leadership: more command tokens, so more actions this round
• 2 Diplomacy: keep other players from attacking one of your systems
• 3 Politics: draw action cards and hand the speaker token to someone else
• 4 Construction: build defenses and space docks on your planets
• 5 Trade: gain trade goods to spend or to trade away
• 6 Warfare: move some ships twice, or build a unit and move it the same round
• 7 Technology: research new technology
• 8 Imperial: draw another secret objective; Fantasy Flight's page adds a point for holding Mecatol Rex

Each card also has a secondary ability. When one player uses their card, everyone else may use its secondary ability, so even the cards you didn't pick do something for you. Low numbers go first, which matters more than it sounds.

The three kinds of action

On your turn in the action phase you do one action:

• Tactical action: put a command token on a system to activate it, move ships in, fight a space battle if rivals are there, land ground forces on planets, then build units if you have a space dock there. This is the action you'll take most.
• Strategic action: use the main ability of your strategy card. You must do this once before you're allowed to pass.
• Component action: an action printed on a card or a faction sheet.

Command tokens are the budget that holds it all together. Every tactical action spends one, and you only get 2 new ones each status phase. Ships are cheap compared to tokens. That's the lesson most new players learn around hour three.

Mecatol Rex and the custodians

Mecatol Rex starts with a custodians token on it. You can fly ships into that system, but you can't land ground forces there until someone spends six influence to remove the token. Whoever does it gains 1 victory point. From that round on, every round ends with an agenda phase. So the first player to Mecatol Rex also decides when the galaxy starts voting.

Scoring and the end

Most points come from objectives. Public objectives are revealed one at a time in the status phase, and everyone can race for them. Each player also has secret objectives. The Learn to Play booklet says you can score only one public and one secret objective in each status phase and each step of the action phase, so you can't cash in everything at once.

The first player to 10 victory points wins. If the speaker would reveal a new objective and there are none left, the game ends right there and the most points wins. A tie goes to whichever tied player is earliest in initiative order.

With 3 or 4 players

The booklet adds three rules for small tables. Each player takes a second strategy card in the strategy phase. Your lower-numbered card sets your turn order. And you can't pass until both your strategy cards are used. With fewer people, each one does more. Nobody goes home early.

Twilight Imperium editions on Amazon US

The product table on this page lists all three Twilight Imperium listings we track, all under Asmodee.

Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition (base game)

The listing says 3 to 6 players, 14+, 240 to 480 minutes, and 17 civilizations. Its listed mechanic is trading and negotiation. Fantasy Flight's page also lists 17 factions and a play time of 240 to 360 minutes. This is the box you need before anything else on this page.

Prophecy of Kings (expansion)

The listing says it needs Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition, lists 3 to 8 players and 14+, and includes 7 factions plus 40 system and hyperlane tiles. Fantasy Flight's rulebook for the expansion says it adds seven new factions, leaders for each faction, mechs (big ground units), exploration of planets and relics.

Thunder's Edge (expansion)

The listing says it needs Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition, lists 3 to 8 players and 14+, and includes 6 factions, 43 planets and 500+ components. The Thunder's Edge rulebook calls it the second expansion for the Fourth Edition. It adds six factions, faction breakthroughs, a new area of the map called the Fracture, and a separate game mode called Twilight's Fall. The rulebook explains how to set it up with or without Prophecy of Kings, so you don't need the first expansion to use the second.

Buy the base game first

My one opinion for this page: get the base game to the table a few times before you buy an expansion. Two of the three Twilight Imperium listings are expansions, and both say they need the Fourth Edition. The base box already lists 17 civilizations. Each expansion adds factions plus new rules on top of a game that takes hours to learn. If your group hasn't finished a full game yet, more rules won't help.

There's one exception worth naming. If your group is 7 or 8 people, the base box tops out at 6, and the two expansion listings go to 8. Even then, I'd learn the base game with 6 or fewer first.

Planning a Twilight Imperium day

Here's the table version, for the person who said yes to hosting:

1. Pick a date, not an evening. The box says 4 to 8 hours.
2. Read the Learn to Play booklet before game day. Fantasy Flight posts it as a free PDF.
3. Ask one person to own the Rules Reference. Questions go to them, not to the whole table.
4. Set up the galaxy the night before if the table can stay set up.
5. Plan food that doesn't need a plate. Cards and sauce don't mix.
6. Agree on a stop time. If it comes, the most points wins. That's a house rule, not Fantasy Flight's.

That last one matters. The official rules already end the game if objectives run out. A stop time just makes the deadline a clock instead of a card. Write it down before anyone gets ahead.

Who should skip Twilight Imperium

Skip it if your group wants a game night that ends by bedtime. Even the shorter publisher estimate is 4 to 6 hours.

Skip it if your group doesn't enjoy making deals. The base game's listed mechanic is trading and negotiation, and once Mecatol Rex falls, every round ends in a vote. Some tables love the deal-making. Some tables stop talking at dinner.

Skip it if anyone at the table is under 14. That's what every listing says.

And skip it if you have fewer than 3 players. No edition in our data plays with 2.

Check the age label on the listing. Toys with small parts are a choking hazard for children under 3, and this box is full of small plastic ships and tokens.

If you like Twilight Imperium, look at these

Pages picked by what they share with Twilight Imperium in our data: long strategy games, area control, and tables of 3 or more.

• Axis & Allies: a world map, plastic units and hours of play
• Dune: Imperium: alliances, conflict and a race for victory points
• Eldritch Horror: another long game, played together against the box
• Strategy board games: the wider shelf of planning games

Pick a day first. Then pick a faction.