Being a Pleasant Habitual Murderer: A Twilight Imperium Guide to Eliminating Players
by Susan
Why do we play Twilight Imperium?
The answer is different for every person. To hang out with friends having a 10 hour party. To create an engaging narrative experience between varied actors. To master negotiation skills and test economic theories in a live environment. To crush your opponents utterly and turn their bones to dust, removing them from the galaxy and erasing any mention of them from history. All these are good and valid answers, but often, extermination play has had a negative connotation to it and has been discouraged. People will say that fighting is wasteful. That it is mean. That it isn’t in the design or spirit of the game.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Playing explicitly to eliminate opponents from a TI4 game is a taboo subject that has not been studied to the extent it deserves. This guide will attempt to start filling in that gap, by exploring the hows, the whys, and the benefits, the pitfalls, and a myriad other points of this controversial topic. This guide will give advice but is by no means comprehensive, and I hope that this sparks conversation amongst the TI Player Base to bring new richness into the topic of utter annihilation. This is also an evolving guide, and with luck will integrate the insights and changing tactics seen in this competitive game.
This guide will not be as comprehensive as a Faction guide, as Player Elimination is Faction agnostic and there are millions of table scenarios to consider. It will instead be a collection of basic principles and methodologies, a suggestion of a method to look at the boardstate with new eyes for new goals. As you sit down to read, keep an open heart and an open mind, and keep in mind two very important questions: “Am I the kind of player who believes in and is prepared to wipe out opponents?” and “...Are my neighbors?”
While I am as big an advocate for wiping players as anyone, I will also readily admit that it is not a strategy for everyone, and not a strategy for every game. Know thyself, know thy group, know thy setting.
The first thing to analyze is yourself. Does this playstyle at all appeal to you? Are you the type of player who likes to fight and win and keep fighting? There is nothing, *absolutely nothing* wrong if the answer is yes. Or, if the answer is no. Because this really isn’t for all players. There will be points when you use this tactic that the targeted player will get really sad or disappointed or upset that they are being wiped out. It’s understandable and human, and yet another reason to make all eliminations as fast and clean as possible (we will delve into this later). And while their feelings matter, and it is important to be kind to your fellow person, to do this right you need to be the type of player who won’t stop and will keep going forward with the kill. Any lessening of the tempo would just lead to a result that is sloppy, that is dangerous, and that is more painful for you and them than it needs to be. So really, really think about this, and whether or not you can see it working for you.
Also think about the game group that you’re playing with and the setting that you’re playing in. Are you teaching the game to 5 newer boardgame players? Probably not a great idea to board wipe one on turn 2 while the other 4 sit in stunned silence. Is this game more of an excuse to hang out with 5 friends than to play hyper competitive wargaming? Might be best that everyone lives (unless you need someone to do a pizza run, then someone needs to die before everyone gets hungry). There is an often unspoken social contract when people play games, especially long form semi-antagonistic-semi-cooperative games like Twilight Imperium, and not every setting is right for player wipes. Then again, if you’re in a tournament, all gloves are off.
Another critical point to consider if you are going to venture into player elimination is that other people will start to think you’re a psychopath. It’s unfair, but it’s there. Kill a few players, and that’s all that other players will talk about when you’re in the same community. This reputation has some downsides. …And also upsides, but we’ll get to those parts later. Just know that the killings will follow you, and if you instead want to be known as a ‘nice dealmaker player’, well, that’s incompatible with this type of playstyle.
In the end, the decision is yours. Ask yourself if this is for you. Be open and honest with the answer. And if you are ready to dive into player elimination, read on.
Now that we have determined we are capable of aiming for player kills, let us discuss why we would even want to. While the gaming community at large has sung the praises of ‘Boat Floating’, there are a multitude of reasons to play for fast striking player elimination in games of Twilight Imperium.
Player Elimination is covered in detail in the rules, in the FAQs, in the erratas for this game. It is a designed, intended part of the game that has fallen out of favor due to social pressure of the community and the desire to not seem like a psychopath, and also because far too many players who play aggressively do so poorly and inefficiently and meanly for little to no gain. But it can be done, it can be done well, and the game is better and more vibrant when it is on the table.
How often do you win a TI4 game? 1 out of 6 is the average, 16.7%, and many excellent players are below that average because statistics are cruel. So, odds are, when you sit down to play Twilight Imperium, you are doomed. This is actually freeing. Because if you go in acknowledging that you’re likely to lose, it means you are incentivised to take risks to alter those odds in your favor. And then if the risk doesn’t pay off, you’re back where you were before: favored to lose. But if it goes well…
One of the biggest complaints about playing punchy is that it hurts your chances to win. This is true, if it is done poorly. And many people play punchy poorly. But there are correct ways to play aggressive. Ways that not only gain you resources instead of costing them, but that shore up your borders, expand scoring options, gain positional tempo, gain allies, and radically increase your odds above that starting 16.7%. At a baseline, if a player is wiped from the game, your odds are now 20% and at worst you will come in 5th.
On the subject of tempo, the current TI4 Meta has it down to a science. Experienced players can take a look at objectives and secrets and seat positions, know when to score what Stage 1’s, when to grab Politics for a Speaker bid, and plan out the game from Round 1 to maximize their chances of sneaking to 10 points and survive the Round 5 Winslaying Carousel.
But what happens to those plans when the Round 5 Winslaying Carousel starts in Round 2 and never stops? To quote one of history’s great tacticians, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And this is as true in TI4 as it is in all parts of life.
Attackers have initiative, and nothing screws up an established gameplan than a strong early attack on an unprepared player. For that player specifically, but also the rest of the table, as everyone will need to account for the change in the boardstate and the lack of a trading partner. Not just a trading partner, but the lack of a sixth Support the Throne. The move unbalances the game, and unbalances the other players. There are excellent Twilight Imperium players who will mentally bluescreen in the face of a chaotic boardstate. They will make desperation plays, they will abandon half finished plans for half considered plans, and they will descend into anarchy. And as the conductor of this chaos, you can use it to rise to the top of the ladder.
Turns out that wiping out players involves taking over their planets. And turns out that having extra planets means you have extra resources, and influence, and tech skips, and forward dock systems. Think about every Objective, both secret and public in the game, and ask yourself how many of those become harder if you have a ton of planets and spare resources. I'll give you the answer: none of them. Even the one Secret Objective that involves losing a planet (Become a Martyr) is easier, as it doesn't specify losing *your* home system, your neighbor's works just fine. The resource disparity works best early game and compounds over time; an extra 4r in Round 2 turns into a cruiser and mech, which helps you capture another planet to give you more resources and push back the front line further. Early grabs lead to late game advantages.
The dirty secret that Boat Float meta advocates don't like to talk about is that not all factions do well at it. If the game is on Round 5, and an Xxcha player, a Saar player, and a Sardaak player are all at 9 points with equal scoring avenues, I can’t say for sure who will win but I can say it probably won't be the Sardaak player. Because they're not designed around trading and negotiating and late game maneuvering, and the other two are.
Some factions are designed intentionally as Early Game factions, and some are Late Game factions. Late Game factions can start slow, but through Tech researches, and Commander/Hero unlocks, and TG accumulations, become nigh unstoppable juggernauts. These are typically the trade-friendly or resource-generating factions that do well in current events; Empyrean, Xxcha, Mentak, JolNar, etc. All very good at the trade economy, all of which have super potent unlocking late game talents, all of which can be nightmares to stop in the final round. Which is why you need to stop them *before* the final round. They are *balanced* around needing to be punched to be controlled.
On the flipside, the Early Game factions are designed around needing early expansion grabs in order to stay viable late. Factions like Argent, like Cabal, like Muaat, all start with heavily advantaged fighting forces, but can run out of steam as the rest of the table catches up on tech and plastic, and they lack inherent economic and soft influential powers to make big plays against late game bunkers. These Factions are designed to be aggressive out the gate, expand into neighboring slices and keep the late game Factions in check through direct violence.
While this is absolutely a two-edged sword, it's easy to overlook the benefits of a bloodthirsty reputation. Or rather, a specific type of reputation, as brutal, effective, and fair. Players who know you in the game will have to play around you, which will lead them into suboptimal plays. People may grab for defensive SCs, may build up Home System fleets and just sit there, may give you heavily advantaged trades, may shirk away from equidistant hexes without even thinking about it. And, if everyone is turtling out of fear, then it turns out you get to play a largely unobstructed game of TI4 where other players subconsciously remove barriers to your success. You can prepare to exploit weakness and peace at the same time.
If you’re going to cost a player their game, you might as well also give them 6 hours back. There is nothing wrong in playing to win, there is nothing wrong in playing hard, but if you’re going to do so it’s just polite to complete the job on any player that gets knocked down early. A strong early strike can void any chance of winning for a player, and you know it, they know it, the table knows it. So set them free. Finish them, out of kindness.
Turns out rolling dice is fun. Taking gambles, sending fleets to crash into other fleets and watching them burn is fun. Watching a galaxy move and evolve and change in wild unpredictable ways is fun. We get to reenact the finale of ‘Rogue One’ a dozen times in a game, and it never gets old. You know what does get old? Having 6 players with 9 points all trying to get the Speaker token on the last turn. If I can avoid ever playing a game where bidding for the Imperial Card in Round 5 is what decides a game, I’ll be a happy man.
A note, an absolutely critical note, about playing aggressively aiming towards Player Elimination: You are doing this to help you win the game, *YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO BE A JERK*.
Playing aggressive can feel very mean from the other end, and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, do think about the other party for a moment. They came here expecting to play for 6-8 hours and have a shot at winning, and you’re taking that away from them. Be kind. Be overly kind, and polite, and sympathetic. Bring snacks for the table. Offer people rides. Be ready to explain that you are doing this to advantage your board position, not as an attack against the player. They may not accept that, they may not agree with that, and that’s their right, but regardless you do *NOT* have the right to be rude to the target no matter what they say. Your actions are fair, but so are their emotions, and that is to be respected.
Something else that is also fair is that this playstyle may knock you out of certain playgroups. Some players just don’t play this way. And that’s fine! And it’s fine if they choose not to have you as their group! There’s a lot of Twilight Imperium players out there, you will find your community, you will find your home, you will find the place where style meets fun meets people, just do not try to force it and never, repeat, *NEVER* be a jerk about it.
We've talked about how eliminating players is a good thing, let's take a moment to discuss precisely what it looks like in basic principles.
A player is considered 'Eliminated' when three conditions are met: that player controls no planets, that player possesses no units with 'Production', and that player has no Ground Forces on the game board. It is rare but possible for a player to have zero planets, but still be in the game because a hidden carrier has a load of infantry. It is rare but possible for a player to have zero plastic on the board but still control planets and still be in the game. There are situations and Factions that make both these circumstances difficult to overcome when targeting for elimination; Saar for example has an early Tech that lets th hide in Asteroid fields with near impunity and build Ground Forces there (note, I said 'near' impunity), and the DMZ Cultural Attachment means a planet cannot be captured through invasion even while it is defenseless. While game states such as these make Elimination extremely hard, it's not impossible to overcome them with luck and other Faction abilities (Muaat's Supernova to destroy the DMZ, or Mahact sending in a death fleet at Saar without an activation), so keep an open mind and really explore your full toolkit at all times.
When a player is eliminated, several things happen immediately (the full detailed version, including faction specific exceptions, can and should be referenced here: https://twilight-imperium.fandom.com/wiki/Elimination ). All of their remaining plastic, their promissory notes, their faction tokens are removed from the game. Their Strategy Card is returned to the reserves, whether played or unplayed. Elected laws for that player are wiped, Secret Objectives reshuffled into the deck. Huge shifts in the boardstate with immediate major consequences.
Also consider the secondary subtler consequences. Argent Flight loses 2 votes in the Agenda phase. Yssaril's and Naalu's heroes both draw one fewer card. Someone probably lost a Support partner and/or a Commander partner. One fewer Strat card is getting picked for the rest of the game, meaning more incentive Trade Goods get dropped. All of this is immediate, and if the change isn't planned for, players may get lost in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture.
If you have made the decision to try for a Player Elimination, the Game Draft is where your first critical choices will be made. While this guide will assume the Milty style of draft (a snaking style selection process, with choice of a Faction, a starting slice, and a Speaker-led seating order), these principles can apply to most draft styles that aren't purely random.
As a general rule, your draft priority should be as follows:
Faction > Seat > Slice
There are many reasons for this, and just as many exceptions. We will deal with each in turn.
Faction pick has by far the biggest impact on a Twilight Imperium game experience of any of the draft choices. Factions are simply better at different things, and coming in with a playstyle goal leads to selecting certain Factions over others. The Factions fall into three primary categories: Alpha Strikers, Brawlers, and Nope.
Alpha Strikers - Argent, Cabal, Ghosts, Naalu, NRA, Saar, Sol, Titans
These are the stars of Player Elimination. They have access to speed and movement tricks very early game, and can utilize those tricks to get into opponent slices Rounds 1 and 2 to take soft targets and set up home system decapitations. If any of these are available, they are to be considered a priority.
Brawlers - Barony, Hacan, L1Z1X, Mentak, Muaat, Nekro, Sardaak, Yin
These are Factions that may not have the early tricks that the Alpha Strikers do, but can reliably bring significant force into an opposing slice by Round 2. Some factions, like the Yssaril, may luck into early speed buffs or other tricks to assist with these attacks, whereas some like L1 and Hacan are just solid and can bring weight of dice with waves of assaults. These are perfectly respectable choices when angling for Player Elimination, and if they fit your style more than the Alpha Strikers then by all means choose them. Just know that the fight may be longer and bloodier than if a faster faction were picked.
Nope - Arborec, Empyrean, JolNar, Keleres, Mahact, Nomad, Xxcha, Winnu, Yssaril
These Factions aren't necessarily bad, they're just bad at wiping other Players. They bring no combat tricks, aren't favored in early fights, or have some serious downsides that make eradications harder than necessary. It's not impossible to Player Eliminate with one of these, but it tends to be brutal or unreliable or both.
While Faction choice is clearly most important, there's an obvious situation in which it drops in importance: if there are multiple Factions up for picking that you like and are good Alpha Strikers/Brawlers. In that case, time to focus on…
I am very deliberately saying Seat Selection as opposed to Strat Card selection order. While an early Strat Card pick is nice and gives you more options… it's a lot less important than you'd think when it comes to Player Elimination. You can make any SC work for you in Round 1, and unless you're 5th or 6th seat Politics is always right there to make you Speaker next round and guarantee a Warfare or Tech or Leadership SC grab (depending on your needs). But choosing where you sit is absolutely critical, because it means you are setting up your target.
Many people in Milty Drafts will prioritize Slice picks followed by Seat picks. Great, encourage them. That lets you know how the board will form, lets you visualize the movement avenues, the bottlenecks, and most importantly the attack openings. Say there's a player that picked a slice with an empty hex to the side of their Home System. Well that's an open invitation, so long as you can position your slice on the appropriate approach vector. Even better than an empty hex is an Asteroid Field, so long as you have Antimass Deflectors. But you were smart and picked an Alpha Strike faction with Antimass, right? Good. Goooood…
Your starting slice. Who cares what's there? You're not staying.
Ok, ok, that's dismissive. Of course better slices are better. High resources, influence, targeted tech skips, legendaries that spawn troops, sure, if you can get that then do, I don't need to explain why. But your slice isn't your castle. It is your backstop, it is your launching pad, and should be picked as that. Look for movement routes. Look for safety features. An adjacent Supernova can be a gift, as it protects one side of your Home System if you intend to explode outward, or again an Asteroid Field amongst players with no Antimass.
Worth mentioning, especially among Milty, is that you must visualize the complete board with your potential slice picks and combo it with Seat Selection. Take careful note of Wormholes and the options those give. Create a table that benefits your movement, build an unstoppable launch pad, and then explode out of it.
Never murder alone.
A critical, absolutely critical piece of the Player Elimination puzzle is your partner. Because you are attacking, you will leave yourself vulnerable and exposed, even for a moment, so you need a Partner at the table to have your back. I am not describing a temporary alliance here, this is your capital 'P' Partner here. Your Work Spouse. Your Brother From Another Mother/Sister From Another Mister. Your Ride or Die, in a very, very literal sense.
This is a person at the table whom you will not betray, not work against. You will trade favorably with them, and they you. You will exchange Supports and probably Alliances, which you have helped each other unlock. You assist with scoring your various secrets and play as though you have a single hand of Action Cards. And, end of the day, you play so one of you wins, and half the time that means you and half the time that means them, but dangit a 50% average sure as shit beats a 16.7% win average and you are genuinely grateful when your buddy pulls it out.
Also, you boardwipe Players together and split the resources. And then maybe go for seconds.
Wooing a Ride or Die can be a tricky process, so feel out the table as you are setting up. Find the playstyles that match your own, the similar mindsets. I won't say to coordinate pre-game, that may be outside the scope of the game, but if you are in a group or situation where pregame planning is accepted, well, then, go for it and draft together as a murder squad. As a rule though, pre-coordination is a big no-no, grounds for Tournament Disqualification for many events, so if in any doubt don’t get anywhere near it. But once you find your Ride or Die, lock that up fast. Long engagements are the worst, skip straight to the wedding and the good parts.
On the subject of drafts, consider the seating position for your Ride or Die. Some say the best choice for optimal seating is to start adjacent neighbors with your RoD for the security and ease of trading it allows, but this is actually the *second* most optimal choice. The very best seat for your RoD to have is to be two slices away to the right or left (doesn't matter/board dependant). Because in this situation, you get to sandwich a player to death and strike from both directions. The advantages for a two prong attack are obvious: twice the number of offensive actions, twice the fleets, and with backups for anything that goes off track or if an attack gets repelled. The Sandwiched player can go from healthy to wiped in two passes in the second round, and winning this faster is better for you, better for your partner, and better for your target as they get to leave and go watch a full season of a show on Netflix and shout spoilers back at the table.
While the Faction of your RoD matters much less than the player, and any Faction can work as a game partner, some do of course come with certain advantages and perks that are specific to them. Specifically, Agents, Commanders, and Promissory Notes that can swing things hard in the two of your favors. And this of course goes both ways, as ideally you would be trading PNs and abilities wildly back and forth throughout the quick assault. I won't go through the full list of standouts for each category, but will take a moment to highlight which factions have standouts in each category that can secure a Player Elimination.
Best Agents: Arborec, Barony, Mahact, Naalu, Nomad, Saar, Sardaak, Sol, Titans, Yin, Yssaril
Best Commanders: Argent, Empyrean, JolNar, L1Z1X, Sardaak, Winnu
Best PNs: Argent, Barony, JolNar, Nomad, Sardaak, Sol, Yin
There are of course other people at the table than you, your RoD, and the target. And this is a game about trading and dealmaking. So do so. Play straight with the rest of the table, and don't make extra enemies. A tag team fight against one is much different than a tag team fight against four. You are not obliged to buoy up anyone at the table who is not your RoD, but ideally you want the three other players to be sniping amongst themselves and leaving your murder dogpile alone. This is another reason you can't let the Elimination drag out, as fortifying outer borders is a high concern for later rounds, and the faster you are done the faster you can reposition and pick a new target. On the subject of targets…
You have your mission, you have your target. Now, whom do you kill? This is an important question to answer, every target will require a different plan and a different strategy. Broadly speaking, targets for Player Elimination fall into three categories, each with their own plusses and minuses to go after. The three categories of target are: the Strong, the Weak, and the Volunteers. Which you choose depends largely on your playstyle, on the preferences of your RoD, and the makeup of the board, but it is important to choose early and to stick with that choice and see it through to the completion of the kill.
A Strong Player is one with a lot of advantages going into the game. They may have an excellent late game faction (ie, Saar, JolNar, Xxcha, Winnu, etc), they may have favorable Objective flips going into the first round, they may have a strong starting plastic advantage or defensive emplacements, they may be a known experienced Tournament contender, etc. They are a player that is to be feared, especially once the game truly starts moving and economic engines come online. They are not an obvious choice to go after for wiping, as they may be a much harder choice than many other players in the field. But prison rules do apply to a certain extent in TI, and beating up the biggest person in the yard makes for a heck of an opening statement. The primary reason to go after a Strong player for elimination is, well, to eliminate a Strong player from the game. I shouldn’t need to say this, but if a late game faction survives to the late game, then they’re in an advantaged position to win. So don’t let them survive to the late game. Don’t let economies turn on, don’t let plastic get produced en masse for 5th Round gambits, smother your primary threat in the crib while they are newborn babes.
Now we’re talking. If your goal is to pick a player and wipe them from the galaxy, why not target someone who won’t be able to put up much of a fight from you, much less you and your RoD? Many factions begin the game plastic- and resource-light, or their starting slice is spread out and they have no speed buffs so they’ll have to burn a round just to move and capture their territory. Take advantage of their weakness and destroy them before they know what hit them. Certain starting objectives or SC picks can exacerbate this situation for your opponents. Suppose there’s someone targeting a Resource Spending objective on Round 1; they are likely to pick an economic focused Strat Card (Trade, or Leadership) and then not spend any of their starting resources on building a fleet. Great! Encourage them to focus on this; offer to wash Commodities from Trade so they get just enough to score a VP and do nothing else, let them stretch out to an equidistant hex to get 4 of a type while leaving their Home System empty. It doesn’t matter if your target is wiped when they have 0vp on the board or 9vp on the board, a wipe is a wipe and if they wasted time scoring points instead of staying alive it was all for naught.
Players volunteer to be targets in two primary ways. The first way is to sit between you and your Ride or Die. The second way is to be an asshole. Assholes take precedence for Elimination before any other consideration; if there is one at the table, even if they're in an awkward table position. Often you will be able to recruit support from the table at large when eliminating an asshole; take whatever is offered, be grateful, the game is improved substantially for all parties as soon as they no longer are extant. As for volunteers that sit between you and your RoD, well, remember that sometimes mercy means keeping a sharp edge on your daggers. Go in fast and brutal and free them by the second round.
You have your goal, you have your partner, you have your target. How and when do you attack them? That answer at least is easy: Immediately.
Early fights are better than late fights. They are controllable, they are predictable, they can be organized into blowouts where your opponent's only possible hope of salvation is RNGesus the Lord of Improbable Dice Rolls. Twilight Imperium is a complex game, and its complexity increases exponentially every round. Commanders and Heroes come online. Faction Technologies and Unit Upgrades are unlocked. Players get hands full of action cards and ships in weird patterns spread across the board. The earlier you can hit, the more of this you mitigate. If you attach Turn 1, your opponent likely has zero cards in hand, zero pertinent technologies, zero ships unlocked ready for counterpunching. They may have made the critical error of looking at scoring VP instead of saving their necks, and they don’t have the depth of powers and resources to save them from a proper alpha strike. So what does that look like?
The first punch that gets thrown in a war of Elimination is the most critical one; it is the moment that the Attacker has the most control of tempo and boardstate, it is an unmistakable announcement of intention, and it is a gambit that cannot be undone that will linger for the rest of the game. So it must be a true crippling strike. Attacking for Elimination is different than attacking for resources, it will feel very different. When one attacks for resources, then they are looking at rich planets to capture, they are looking for easy fights to not spend much plastic in overcoming. Attacking for Elimination means punching in ways to keep your opponent from being able to punch back, regardless of any immediate resource gains. It means selecting attacks not for your gain, but for the target’s loss.
Your first attack has to be utterly crippling. The gold standard, absolute best first blow in an Alpha Strike is to take out a Space Dock in a target’s Home System. This achieves several things simultaneously; it stops a major if not the only source of reinforcements by removing a dock, it takes away a large resource planet preventing spending on counterattack materiel, it places a serious threat in the center of an opponent’s slice, it prevents scoring public objectives to unlock hero abilities, and it makes the target panic and hyperfocus on their rear lines to the detriment of their focus on the rest of the game. Killing a Home System dock is, of course, quite difficult most of the time, and without proper speed and fleet makeup and board arrangement can be impossible. If that is impossible as a first blow, look for other opportunities to cripple your opponent’s war effort. Look for things like:
First strikes can and should feel mean, because they kind of are. They are attacks with the aim of preventing another player from participating in the game. If the target can play the game then they can defend themselves and they can fight back; don’t let that happen. You have to be mean and efficient to be kind and free them from being doomed.
Your RoD should of course be consulted for this attack and you should both hit at the same time; one after the other before the target can respond. And this attack should be set up from the very first game action, so both your fleets are in optimal attack position. You don’t have to know when you are pulling the trigger, but by the end of Round 1 both you and your RoD’s primary fleets should be on the border with the Target, or on a Wormhole/etc so long as they can strike out as soon as the moment presents itself.
Round 1 attacks, while possible, aren’t necessarily the right move. Unless you can guarantee a Home System Strike and utterly decap instantly, it’s oft best to wait for Round 2 for the flexibility of movement and angles, plus any additional plastic you build Round 1 to support the hit. Builds in R1 should be focused specifically on ships that are fast enough to read the target; Cruisers and Destroyers are critical and give the extra dice and hit points to enable the attack.
Let’s talk a bit more about some of the nitty gritty specifics for component valuation in a game of TI4 going into the early rounds for a Player Elimination. This will specifically focus on Round 1 & 2, as that is when you go into your neighbor and by the end of R2 things should pretty much be decided if you did it right.
High Tier: Leadership (R1/R2), Politics (R1), Trade (R1), Warfare (R1/R2), Tech (R1/R2)
Middle Tier: Diplo (R1/R2), Politics (R2), Construction (R1/R2), Trade (R2)
Don’t: Imperial (R1/R2)
You will be using your SC pick for 2 specific reasons. First, to get a fleet in the proper position, and second, to gather resources in order to purchase additional plastic and fighting technologies. Warfare is an absolute gem of a pick in Round 2, probably the best in class, as it gets to live up to its name. Leadership and Tech are close behind however, both for the resources both provide, and the attack timing that Leadership allows. If you or your RoD are able to snag Leadership on R2, the other should strongly consider grabbing Diplo, for a one-two punch that can end a war before it begins. Also it blocks the target from taking Diplo, which is a bonus if they realize the danger they’re in.
It feels dismissive to say ‘just go Blue’, but… kind of…
Of course it’s more nuanced than that. There are plenty of non-Blue techs that enable Player Eliminations, but let’s be honest here, Blue techs give mobility, they give tactical flexibility, and they give variable attack angles. Antimass gets you through blocking Asteroid fields, Grav Drives let you jump an upgraded Carrier from your Home System to your neighbor’s Home System, Sling Relay lets you pop out an unlocked Dread right on the front lines, Fleet Logistics lets you hit 2 hexes before an opponent can respond, and Lightwave Deflectors… You get the idea.
Conversely, Red Tech, especially early Red Tech, has one great pick that you’ll want: AI Development for the various Unit Upgrades. Dip in there, with some Blue, and you’ve got pretty much every option you can want for early attacks. Don’t get Green or Yellow tech for early attacks, they don’t help enough in the short term. Units are mostly to flavor, there really isn’t a bad choice there, even Infantry 2 can be invaluable to flood an opponent’s Home System with relentless troop bricks. But really, if Gravity Drives isn’t your first or second grab, what are you even doing here?
Specific Faction Techs of course change this math. If you’re playing Titans, then getting Cruiser 2 is essential. Same for Argent and Destroyer 2, Sol and Carrier 2, Muaat and Warsuns, etc. If your Faction is designed to use specific tools to shine, do not deprive yourself of them.
Such a double edged sword for Rounds 1 & 2. I won’t say that Action Cards aren’t valuable in attacks, clearly they are. The question you need to ask yourself is if you can afford to gamble and spend tokens on drawing them. You are just as likely to draw a Sabo, Flank Speed, and Rout as you are a Bribery, Diplomatic Pressure, and Assassinate Representative. So clearly the option for explosive benefit is present, but the cost of tokens is so large that it might not be worth it. If you have the spare Command Counter, say if you got Leadership in Round 1 or find one on a Hazardous Planet, then yes use that chance to gamble on cards, they can absolutely make the difference in the assault. But if you can’t then don’t sweat it, it’s a lottery with low to middling average payout.
The painful one: sometimes, Objectives are going to flop in Rounds 1 and 2 and you’re just not going to be able to go for them if you’re going for a Player Elimination. Some will go hand in hand with aggressive play (‘Own 6 Planets/4 of a Type/More Than Your Neighbor’) and some will be neutral to helpful (‘Own 2 Unit Technologies/Have 4 Structures’), but if a spendy flips, an objective that asks you to spend 8 Resources/Influence, or 3 Tokens… those must not be scored until the war is done. It is painful, but it is worth getting behind on early tempo in order to secure a wipe. If anything, these objectives are helpful to flop early, as they will encourage suboptimal defensive play for your target and late game you should be able to easily score them with your additional resources gained from controlling 1.5-2 slices. But war requires sacrifice, and sometimes that means sacrificing on chances to score in Rounds 1 and 2.
Selecting Secret Objectives can be likewise painful, but at the same time should be quite straightforward. Pick your starting Secret that combos well with capturing planets. Or, at worst, pick one that can be a late game builder Secret that doesn’t get in the way of your attacks, like owning Faction techs or having 3 Docks.
So you’ve done it. You partnered with your RoD and you murdered another player. Well done. The table fears and respects you, and you have a ton of extra resources now. So now all you have to do is get to 10 points before anyone else, while they have a head start of it from not focusing on fighting for the first two rounds. Easy, right?
I mean… it can be. If your battles have gone well, you have so much flexibility in plastic and sheer economy, you have a rocksolid partner with a protected flank, and you have the tempo to strike out. So that’s what you have to do. Yes, TI is a game of evolving negotiations, but if you need to catch up against an opponent then just wipe out their Home System and don’t feel bad about it. Do it with the plastic that’s now free and available from the conquered hexes, go in fast with no mercy, you achieved your first goal now the second is to win and you aren’t about to let a silly thing like table politics stand in the way of that ‘cause that’s now how the game was meant to be played.
I’ve said that before, ‘meant to be played’, and I mean it but I’m also being facetious. The game is really meant to be played like this: how you want to. And if you’re feeling murdered out… well, make peace with the galaxy and dive into politics. Just don’t feel bad about leveraging that little bit of edge of the extra plastic you have, carrot in the one hand Warsun in the other and all that. You have earned the breathing room through early conquest to make whatever plays you desire through the rest of the game. So stay alert, keep your RoD’s back safe as they do for you, and enjoy the next 4-5 hours as the messy unpredictable endgame unfolds.
Good luck. Happy murdering.