From: dja1@iscp.bellcore.com (Dave Arlington)
Subject: Review: Distant Suns expansion for Twilight Imperium

Twilight Imperium has been a hot game around here lately. Usually
I have to scrape to get people to play games, lately, my friends
are calling me, asking me when we are playing Twilight IMperium
again. So we were looking forward to see what the new Distant Suns
expansion would add to the game.

Basically, the new expansion covers two areas:

1) Improvements to the existing game
and
2) New additions to the game.

I'll cover both separately.

IMPROVEMENTS:
Even with the first expansion, Borderlands, Twilight Imperium has
been short on pieces and ways to keep records. The first time people
play with my set, they usually get a chuckle that we use Risk pieces
for ground forces and Avalon Hill play money to track credits (cause
we were using the credit pieces that come with the game to track
Influence).

Distant Suns adds more Ground Forces (might actually have enough to
play with now, but now we're used to using Risk pieces! :)) and
Dreadnoughts as well as a very handy chart to track Resources, 
Influence and Trade Income. Our first game with the new chart we found
it VERY useful to give an instant graphical update of where your
opponents stand.

Distant Suns also takes care of another common player complaint that
games can take too long and some of the Action and Political cards
are unbalancing by adding Empire's End tournament rules set (and a
new Progression chart to track it on). Although these rules were
intended mostly to shorten the game, all our players agree that it
improves the game as well. The new victory and starting conditions
DO make the game shorter to play, but it also makes the game more
balanced and even. And not just by removing powerful Action cards.
Now the different races get variable starting forces that balance
their powers. For example, the Jol-Nar start with lots of tech
advances and the ability to buy new ones cheaply, but they don't
start with any Ground Forces so their expansions are delayed at
least a turn at the start of the game now. Whereas the Hacan start
with hardly any advances and a fairly weak starting power, they
get a couple Carriers and Ground Forces to start.

The Distant Suns expansion also has a full FAQ and errata for the
existing game.

Now it's true that you could get by without paying for any of this.
You could make your own record keeping chart, use Risk pieces or
pull the new tourney rules and FAQ and errata off the web site, but
it's still nice to use the actual REAL equipment for the game you're
playing. :)

NEW ADDITIONS:
There are new Action and Political cards, some of which are only of
use with new rules or optional rules from this expansion, but some
cards can be used with the Basic game. The best of these new cards
are Event cards which go into the Political deck and when they come
up cause random events to happen throughout the Imperium. We felt
they added fun and spice to the game but I can see where some people
might not like the luck aspect of it. But then isn't drawing Action
cards a form of luck anyway? :)

The Winaran Custodians are new neutral guardians of Mercatol Rex, the
high Influence planet in the middle of the Imperium. No more rushing
in with one Carrier and a Ground Force to take the big planet. Now
you have to think about your assault on the Big Guy. Especially since
the Custodians regenerate if you can't wipe them out in one turn.

Distant Suns, from which the expansion is named, is the rule covering
new tokens which cover all the neutral planets at the start of the
game. These are random beneficial and detrimental effects of the
inhabiting populations of these neutral planets. You can Probe them
to discover their secrets but you can't invade them the same turn.
You can invade them without probing, but that could backfire on you.
Lastly, you can just Raze the indigenous race at the possible cost
of a permanent loss of Influence. Like the Events, these seem to add
a nice flavor to the game without affecting the overall schemes of
Galactic power mongers.

Some of the neutral planets have actual civilizations and a new rule
is put in called Propoganda to have these neutral planet's civilizations
swing between Neutral, Content, Dissatisfied, and Rebellion. (This
reminded me a lot of Freedom in the Galaxy.) While this new rule
sounds interesting, the actual practice of putting it in play is
awkward and unwieldy. It involves taking turns passing little slips
of written notes around and more negotitating. It seems kind of
counter productive in an expansion designed to speed up play and
simplify record keeping, to include a new rule which just slows
play back down and adds more awkward record keeping! We didn't use
this rule and don't forsee using it though we might play with
different ways to implement it.

There are also some other new optional rules for things like
playing with two boards (for more than 6 players), different
trading rules and more. Most of these fall into the same category
as the Declaration of War and Peace rules from the Borderlands
expansion. Chances are you won't find what they marginally add to
the game worth the cost of including them. Or they change the
'feel' of the game. But at least they're there for you to play
around with and try. You can customize the game with all the
optional rules to fit your play group and the things they like in
a game.

Overall, while being somewhat disappointed in the new Propoganda
rules (and then more in their implementation than intent), I have
to say that if you enjoy Twilight Imperium, you will want to make
this expansion part of your collection. The extra counters, charts,
rules and new rules that make game play even more interesting and
exciting make this a good buy.

Dave

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Dave Arlington
Bell Communications Research
ISCP AIN Development
RRC 4A-365 732-699-4941
dja1@iscp.bellcore.com
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