Designed by Christian T Petersen

Twilight Imperium is a space 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) that is considered by many gamers to be the quintessential epic. Players are leaders of great alien civilizations, fighting to wrest control of the galaxy and, in particular, the ancient throne world of Mecatal Rex which sits in the center.

This game is a laundry list of game features. Players start by choosing a strategy (similar to role selection in other games), which determines turn order and grants them some unique benefits. After this, they can build their armies, research new technologies, form diplomatic relations, deploy their fleets and so on.

I don’t play Twilight Imperium often – usually no more than once every other year – because frankly life is too short to play too many 8 hour board games. But every time I play, I leave going “wow, that was an incredibly epic experience” before collapsing in exhaustion. Twilight Imperium recently put out a 4th edition, which is supposedly faster and is getting good reviews. That, however, I cannot comment on.

Key Mechanic: Claimed Objectives. I’ll admit, I don’t find too much about Twilight Imperium all that innovative – it’s really a game that rests on the breadth of the possibility space more than any one feature. That being said, I do like how most scoring in the game comes from Objective cards, most of which are visible to everyone. Most are worth only 1 or 2 points, and claiming it will result in it being replaced by a new card. However, this frequently sets up competing players in races to complete objectives, which can frequently result in one player left overextended for a goal they can no longer claim.

(Photo Credit: Board Game Geek)