Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition) is a game of galactic conquest in which three to six players take on the role of one of seventeen factions vying for galactic domination through military might political maneuvering & economic bargaining Every faction offers a completely different play experience from the wormhole-hopping Ghosts of Creuss to the Emirates of Hacan masters of trade & economics These seventeen races are offered many paths to victory but only one may sit upon the throne of Mecatol Rex as the new masters of the galaxy No two games of Twilight Imperium are ever identical At the start of each galactic age the game a board is uniquely & strategically constructed using 51 galaxy tiles that feature everything from lush new planets & supernovas to asteroid fields & gravity rifts Players are dealt a hand of these tiles & take turns creating the galaxy around Mecatol Rex the capital planet seated in the center of the board An ion storm may block your race from progressing through the galaxy while a fortuitously placed gravity rift may protect you from your closest foes The galaxy is yours to both craft & dominate A round of Twilight Imperium begins with players selecting one of eight strategy cards that both determine player order & give their owner a unique strategic action for that round These may do anything from providing additional command tokens to allowing a player to control trade throughout the galaxy After these roles are selected players take turns moving their fleets from system to system claiming new planets for their empire & engaging in warfare & trade with other factions At the end of a turn players gather in a grand council to pass new laws & agendas shaking up the game in unpredictable ways After every player has passed their turn players move up the victory track by checking to see whether they have completed any objectives throughout the turn & scoring them Objectives are determined by setting up ten public objective cards at the start of each game then gradually revealing them with every round Every player also chooses between two random secret objectives at the start of the game providing victory points achievable only by the holder of that objective These objectives can be anything from researching new technologies to taking your neighbor&s home system At the end of every turn a player can claim one public objective & one secret objective As play continues more of these objectives are revealed & more secret objectives are dealt out giving players dynamically changing goals throughout the game Play continues until a player reaches ten victory points 3-6 Players 240-480 Min Playing Time Age 14