Space Cats Peace Turtles

There's gonna be a lot of chatter about ground forces today. We're looking at two sides of the really tough infantry coin in Federation of Sol (Good) and Sardakk N'orr (Bad). (Yin is the Ugly) Some say Sol doesn't even need a guide, so we made an attempt to make that half of the episode for especially new players looking for a good beginner faction. Sardakk is a considerably more difficult nut to crack, however. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Hunter is out this week, and we took the opportunity to bring on noted lore aficionado, Absol! She and Matt both read the second Twilight Imperium novel by Tim Pratt, The Necropolis Empire. So here is our review, overview, as well as some lore implications of this especially good adventure sci-fi story! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Well we've teased this idea for many weeks now and finally were able to gather a panel to discuss winmaking. Our thoughts were outlined in depth in episode 203, but this topic bring about different feelings for everyone. So we decided to sit with three prominent players with many different takes on what constitutes winmaking and whether or not we should care. teddysjamforyou is the champion of this year's Patreon Tournament is primarily a player who chooses to follow bliss an fun. TheDeftPiper was a part of our invitational and views winmaking as a necessary tool to be used. And finally, patience_is_a_virtue practically wrote the book about winmaking and has a lot of research and analysis he's been working on for years to bring to the table. Let's enter the final Winmaking Gauntlet! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

IT'S BACK! Over 100 episodes have gone by since our last iteration of This Imperium Life, the show written by all of YOU. We stopped doing it when we felt like the base game well had run a bit dry, but with Prophecy of Kings having been out essentially an entire year, we've been collecting lots of your stories of your best moments in TI! Here are just SOME of our favorites. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Despite the hype of the ongoing Invitational Tournament, we're still out here working on your preliminary faction guides. Up this week are two polar opposites: the infinite variable that is the Emirates of Hacan next to the fairly understood and simple L1Z1X Mindnet. The Hacan side of things is wildly open-ended, so be nice. You've got some concrete L1 advice, so count your blessings! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Can the Galactic Council ever be appeased? Likely not, but we're here to do our civic duty and provide them with the second of the two tied options from last month. Here is EVERY SINGLE TECH, tiered and feared. No contradicting opinions necessary. We nailed it. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Our special event, the Invitational Tournament, is upon us and before the games begin we wanted to go over the draft structure we'll be using. We're taking an existing community draft procedure called Miltydraft and making some slight modifications. So before we talk about our version, it's important to set the stage by going over the basics of why Miltydraft is so popular! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

What a world we're in. This time last year, if we'd packaged the Winnu and Clan of Saar into an episode together, it would have been to showcase the two polar opposites of Twilight Imperium. But now, the two sing some similar songs and often times feel like sides of the same coin. Winnu has risen to be quite the powerhouse, and Clan of Saar has kept up the pace just fine. So, how do these two factions operate these days and what strategies are we trying out in this post-PoK landscape? Let's dive in. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

War were declared. For the second month in a row, the Galactic Council has gone rogue and tied our two poll options. So, for this month, we're just doing one of them and I guess we'll do the other later or something. So for now, here's Matt and Hunter improvising a scenario mode for Twilight Imperium, a la Alliance mode or the Shard of the Throne scenario from TI3. Is it chaotic? Yes. Is it playable? I make no promises. We also cheat a little and talk about an additional scenario we intend to do for this year's Holiday Spectacular! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Hunter is moving back to Portland this week, which meant something fun to squeeze in while he's gone. What better than returning to everyone's favorite interview series Fireside Chats with Root (Alec). This one gets extra confusing because Root sat down with a major member of the Root board game community, Bott Bott, to pick his brain about all things Twilight Imperium, Root, and Oath (and also Pax games, Lord of the Rings Risk, Stratego, you name it! This is a delightful discussion with a focus on board game Entanglement and various tournament scenes. Sit back and enjoy! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Here lies a wonderful example of our new project! We're so excited to announce the launch of our new show, The Old Gamer's Almanac, the definitive ranking of all video games ever, one week at a time. We're throwing this one your way so you get a feel for how we hope the rest of the show plays out, but don't hesitate to pause this and head over to the Old Gamer's Almanac podcast feed and listen to all three episodes now! Music by nightcorey. https://soundcloud.com/nightcorey Email us your thoughts on the ongoing list at oldgamersalmanac (at) gmail(dot)com. Or come talk to us on our main Discord (Space Cats Peace Turtles).

Oh Look! A new podcast has been spotted! As we teased recently, we are starting another show! Old Gamer's Almanac is the definitive ranking of all video games ever, one week at a time. We know how much this audience likes lists, and we've made the lifelong commitment to playing every video game that exists in order to accurately rank them. If the video game industry would just stop for a bit while we catch up, that would make it a lot easier. Please subscribe to the new show by going to https://oldgamersalmanac.podbean.com/ or finding Old Gamer's Almanac in your podcast app of choice! The first episodes launch Sep 21, 2021! Some aggregators take more time to populate new shows than others, so please give us a bit of time for some of the rollouts, but let us know if the show isn't popping up on your app of choice and we'll try to help out!

Hunter is about to move away, and we wanted to take the time to reminisce on the ongoing game of Oath we've been able to play while in the same region. We break down our thoughts about the strategy and our game's specific evolving story. Before that is some errata for our episode on Agendas, as well as a very special announcement regarding a new show we've been working on! Stick around next week for the premiere of Old Gamer's Almanac! 8:47 - Twilight Imperium Talk 21:17 - Oath Talk Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

It feels like ages since we’ve had a proper episode in which we just sit and read every card. Our original Agendas episode was among our longest episodes, and was one of our first component focused episodes. But a lot has been learned and a lot has changed since then, so we figured it was time to revisit the topic of Agendas. Additionally, we get to announce our next big project! We’re going to be holding an Invitational Tournament in October, comprised of 36 players from the previous 3 years of our Patreon tournament! It’s a fun celebration of many players we’ve seen before, and it’s a fun chance to introduce a possible new drafting system! Who knows, it might be what we use in next year’s Patreon Tournament! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

This week, we're tearing through a couple more factions as we try to lay some framework to better understand how the base game factions have changed since Prophecy of Kings released. How far have the Yin fallen? How high have the Nekro risen? Whose ground forces are best? Hint: it's not the faction that it SHOULD be... 0:00 - Yin Brotherhood 52:59 - Nekro Virus Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

We're finally able to dive into the future of Faction Guides, and this is what we have to start with. This won't be exhaustive, but it's a first pass to see where the base game factions are falling in the grander scheme of PoK. Consider these opening ideas that lay the framework for future, more thorough guides about specific strategies within each faction. Up first, the underrated Barony of Letnev and the nosedive into irrelevancy that is the Naalu Collective! 0:00 - Barony of Letnev 40:16 - Naalu Collective Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

This month's Galactic Council broke the system. They had two tournament related options, but the votes were split perfectly 50/50. So, we're just doing both! We start with a conversation about how all of the factions performed in this year's tournament and why they performed that way then follow it up with a discussion of the tournament drafts of yesteryear and how this year's faired. Then we get to be a bit theoretical and dream up some ideas for what we could expect from next year's tournament draft. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

And with that, the 2021 SCPT Patreon Tournament is over. We had an absolute blast, and we’re also completely exhausted from an amazing weekend. So, this episode is a casual recap of the Finals that turned into over an hour and a half of analysis. We thought it’d be a short beach episode, and we were as wrong as ever. But you’re not complaining, you freak. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Another year has passed. 336 players entered this tournament, and now only 6 remain. Before we crown the 2021 Champion, we first wanted to meet these players and get a closer look at how they think about the game. This is the Road to the Finals! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The semifinals of our tournament are complete, and we’re a couple weeks away from our Championship game. As such, we need to take stock of the tournament so far to get a sense of what strategies and drafts have worked and how our finalists got here. Next week, we’ll continue the hype with interviews with all 6 of our finalists! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

This week we have a special treat to reward you all for making it through the Semifinals! It’s an interview with the author of Aconyte Books’ Twilight Imperium series of novels, Tim Pratt! We discuss the setting, Tim’s influences, and there’s a bit about some horses. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Abandon all hope, ye who enter. What lies here is the worst, most infinite conversation topic in all of gaming. There is no returning from this place. There is only the void. We’re starting this, and we know some of you want to do this, so okay. Here’s the first of probably a few episodes on the topic of everyone’s favorite accusation to lob when they’re not going to win. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Hey, no joke, we love this game. And if you listen to this show, we know you will love it too. And Leder Games does pay us sometimes, but they did not pay us to tell you how good their new game Oath is. That’s all us, baby. But we do sort of have a vested interest in its success. But also, like, we chose to have that vested interest. Like we knew the game was good and THEN were like “what if you sometimes paid us?” Okay, we’re not journalists and I no longer feel I owe you any sort of editorial statement of integrity. Just play this game because it’s super good, mmkay? Music provided by Brian Kupillas. Find more at wanderinglake.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

We’ve been waiting to return to this episode topic for a long time. This show is never really about learning how to play Twilight Imperium, but more about how to think about Twilight Imperium. And in keeping with how we always like to approach new games, we wanted to go back to basics and try to explain what you can do to help yourself learn this game. Sure, you need someone to teach you the mechanics, but what kind of mindset do you need before you start THAT process? We hope this guide is helpful to the newest of players and those just curious about what all this Twilight Imperium business is about. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

It’s one of those major threshold episodes of a podcast where we decide to get rather celebratory. For Episode 200, we wanted to throw a party for our Weird Bear patrons, who have done a lot for us over the years. But turns out, they didn’t want to party. They wanted an opportunity to present a list of demands, and we were obligated to grant quorum to the first inaugural Weird Bearholder’s Meeting. So come listen to hear what a handful of the most active members of our community want from our show going forward! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

This game is weird and has a lot of strange interactions and timings. Since Prophecy of Kings’ release, things have been pretty confusing with some abilities, and our fearless leader Dane Beltrami is here to show us the light. We don’t have a formal Living Rules Reference, but he has been able to answer a lot of questions that some amazing community members have collected into one place. So, let’s go over some of these biggest questions with the man himself! You can find the pseudo-official FAQ here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_93kw7KkzvAXoQAxRioxo7iAt-Ar6BMIxdNf4Lv25rI/edit?usp=sharing Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

We’re still wrapping up our Prophecy of Kings introductions over here. This time, the Galactic Council wanted us to answer the question “Are the New Factions Too Good?” And in keeping with our previous eye-catching headlines, I’m not sure we even answer the question. But we do have a fun, wandering conversation about where we feel all of the factions compare to each other at this point. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

With the new faction introductions and component guides done, we wanted to take stock of what we’ve learned about Prophecy of Kings in these few months that it’s been out. This episode goes over how we feel about our recent episodes, our main takeaways for how the strategy has evolved, and a bit of what we think is to come! Ginger’s Mahact Guide referenced in this episode Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

7 new factions entered and now the 7 new factions have all been properly introduced. Today concludes our mission to quickly cover each of the factions that debuted in Prophecy of Kings. And it only took us six months! The Vuil’raith Cabal is an infamously mean faction that players try their best to avoid in our tournament, so let’s explore why that is and what we should do about it! 5:55 - Vuil’raith Cabal Introduction 12:32 - Abilities 38:28 - Strategy Cards 1:09:12 - Exploration 1:13:17 - Technology 1:27:22 - Trade/Meta 1:45:27 - Victory Points Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Our friend Shawn is in town and Molly is home sick on recording today, so prepare yourself to be a fly on the wall of a conversation between three friends about how they play against each other and what they think about when they sit down to play. There’s plenty of Molly blabbering in this, and I cut out as much as I could, but this episode has one of those unpolished vibes. Don’t get mad at me about it! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

As the tournament has gone on and we’ve seen some Prophecy of Kings meta develop, one thing keeps catching our eye. The ways players treat the Speaker Token and try to get an advantage in Speaker Order. So, similar to our recent Objectives episode, it felt important to talk about this Speaker Order tempo throughout the game and how tournament players are manipulating it. We also get lost in some theorycrafting of different ways to utilize Speaker Order. 4:07 - Horsebrew Faction Lore 15:37 - Speaker Order 26:26 - Round 1 35:07 - Politics 41:20 - Round 2 50:57 - Round 3 58:33 - Round 4 1:04:21 - Round 5 Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

We’re on the final lap of our Prophecy of Kings faction introductions, and Hunter completes his task with the Empyrean. It’s a wildly fun faction that has a little bit of everything, while rarely feeling “too good.” So, how do you best take advantage of all of these tools? I dunno, but here’s our ideas! Vagabond Errata - 5:54 Empyrean Overview - 14:32 Strategy Cards - 44:39 Tech - 1:08:24 Exploration - 1:16:57 Trade - 1:22:01 Victory Points - 1:42:57 Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The Galactic Council decided that this month you all needed to be punished. So Hunter and Matt are putting on their designer caps and improvising a Homebrew faction. We took Whose Line Is It Anyways?-style prompts on our Discord and just dove right in. And you know what, I think we came up with something PRETTY GOOD. If...you know, you’re into game-breaking unplayable ideas... Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

What a fun treat for you all today. Long ago we promised a follow up to our Learning the Vagabond episode where we would discuss the 3 expansion classes of Vagabond. But that’s not the treat, that’s just the typical episode you’re getting from Matt and Hunter. No, the REAL treat is after that, where we are joined by our friends Jake, Sam, and Kyle from Woodland War Machine! This one was an absolute blast, so join us while we rag on the Vagabond Woodland War Machine podcast by Good Time Society And find our wonderful guests on Twitter: @thejakemichels @SamDeRoest @kyle_acheson @goodtimesociety Music by Brian Kupillas. Find more at wanderinglake.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

It’s back to back Faction Introductions! This time, Matt tackled the Argent Flight answering the question “What if Base Game Xxcha was good and fit Matt’s playstyle?” These are wonderful little birds that have a wide range of possibilities but are perhaps best served by leaning into their strengths and playing up some “win-more” mechanics. 00:00 - Mahact Gene-Sorcerers Errata 16:09 - Argent Flight Overview 49:55 - Strategy Cards 1:12:09 - Tech 1:23:46 - Exploration 1:25:49 - Trade/Meta 1:50:39 - Victory Points Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Kneel, they say. Former rules of the galaxy, they say. Well, with such powerful lore, you may have expected a more imposing faction. But instead, the Mahact Gene-Sorcerer’s are perhaps best known for their winslaying prowess and their rules tomfoolery. Let’s take a closer look and figure out how this faction can help themselves win without tripping over pedantic technicalities along the way! 13:04 - Mahact Gene-Sorcerers Overview 42:55 - Strategy Cards 1:02:13 - Tech 1:10:12 - Trade/Meta 1:21:49 - Commanders 1:31:55 - Exploration 1:34:57 - Victory Points 1:47:27 - Our Messy Hero Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The conclusion to last week’s cliffhanger, we wrap up discussion on every objective in the game, and spend some time analyzing what the structure of all of these points means for the pace of winning. When and how should you be trying to score your 10 victory points? What is a “free” point? Also there’s some errata at the beginning here about the Galactic Council episode we recently published and the...disagreements that have grown around it. 0:40 - Errata for 187 “Is Arborec the Worst Faction?” 15:37 - Tech and Economy Objectives 34:47 - Miscellaneous Component Objectives 52:35 - Battle and Other Objectives 1:17:55 - Analysis Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Lot of assumptions in that title that I'm sure will get some responses on its own. Regardless, this is our first Galactic Council episode in our new format! This is an unprepared episode where Matt and Hunter blindly approach a topic and see where the conversation takes them. It was wildly fun to do, so we hope you enjoy it and look forward to future Galactic Council episodes. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The fact that we’ve never done an episode specifically about Objectives and Victory Points is either a huge misstep, or completely unnecessary. But here’s one anyways! This is part one where we go over all of the types of victory points, and cover our first section of objectives: Control Objectives. We talked way too much, and so this episode turned into a two-parter. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

With all of the recent episodes about Exploration and Relics, we were clearly building up to SOMETHING. And that something is finally here. The Naaz-Rokha Alliance are white hot right now, so we’re already overdue for introducing them. Spoiler: they’re a really good faction and you probably didn’t even need us to tell you how to do well with them. Patience’s Tech Path Guide 4:02 - Root: Underground Duchy Errata 14:30 - Naaz-Rokha Alliance Overview 55:25 - Strategy Cards 1:16:59 - Exploration 1:26:09 - Technology 1:48:05 - Trade/Meta 1:58:46 - Victory Points and Conclusions Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Today we get to complete the meat of our Learning Root episodes (don’t worry, we have more planned!) by learning the Underground Duchy. A faction of order and structure, fittingly, has many detailed ways of playing. Here, we cover what we believe to be one of the safest and easiest to pick up Duchy strategies, saving some of the more complicated stuff for the future. 6:30 - Ep 183 Errata (Relics and Legendary Planets) 15:40 - Learning the Underground Duchy 20:34 - Setup and Abilities 30:28 - Turn Structure 48:55 - Opening Ideas 55:48 - Crafty Corner: Base Deck 1:14:58 - Crafty Corner: Exiles and Partisans 1:35:50 - Pitfalls 1:41:40 - Where do we find our victory? Music by Brian Kupillas. Find more at wanderinglake.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Exploration has been sufficiently covered, but we left Relics on the table. There’s only a handful of them to cover, so to round out the episode, we’re also squeezing Legendary Planets into the discussion for today’s component episode. Stick around to make sure you hear about all 13 relics in Prophecy of Kings! 7:21 - Nomad Introduction Errata 15:54 - Legendary Planets 42:03 - Relics 1:14:21 - Still talking about Relics 1:29:15 - Our affinity for Prophecy of Kings and all its new cool stuff Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

We’ve done a close look at the Nomad before, but that was back in the before-times when we were only being given a teaser of them by Dane. Now we’ve had time to sink our teeth in, and so, we can now present our Introduction to the, by far, coolest new faction in the game. They drive a Volkswagen around the galaxy while traveling through time, what more could you ask for? 4:36 - Exploration Errata 12:49 - The Nomad Introduction 17:22 - Overview 57:37 - Strategy Cards 1:18:07 - Problems 1:19:42 - Technology 1:44:31 - Trade/Meta 1:55:17 - Exploration 1:57:11 - Victory Points 2:05:20 - Final Thoughts Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

It’s time to explore more Prophecy of Kings mechanics! And what better topic than Exploration? It’s the major new mechanical introduction in the expansion and has made the early game vastly different from Base game. This episode doesn’t get into Relics yet, but we discuss the four Exploration decks and what to expect from each of them. 5:20 - Fractured Void Review Errata 10:17 - Exploration Overview and Relic Fragments 23:54 - Exploration Deck Composition and Analysis Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

What a delightful change of pace the Galactic Council has granted us this month! After some delay, we finally got to spend some time talking about the Twilight Imperium novel, The Fractured Void. We aren’t necessarily literary critics, and we aren’t even experts in TI lore, but we read the book and here’s what we think! 11:55 - Root: Corvid Conspiracy Errata 19:46 - Fractured Void Review - No Spoilers 41:44 - Fractured Void Review - Spoilers Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

After some quick Tournament Structure errata, we finally get to sink our teeth into the Underworld expansion talking about the Corvid Conspiracy. We’re on record saying the Lizard Cult is a bad faction, but we didn’t realize how bad it can get. The Corvids can certainly shine, but what we’ve seen from the tournament is a faction that is easy to stop and just enough self-balancing that it can be hard to find your footing. But let’s learn them so you can make your own judgement! 4:20 - Ep 178 Errata (Tournament Structure and Signups) 14:00 - Learning the Corvid Conspiracy 20:13 - Abilities 25:16 - Setup 26:39 - Plot Tokens 34:31 - Birdsong 41:18 - Daylight 47:12 - Evening 52:19 - Opening Ideas 1:01:01 - Crafty Corner: Base Deck 1:11:34 - Crafty Corner: Exiles and Partisans 1:23:31 - Pitfalls 1:30:45 - Where do we find our victory? Music by Brian Kupillas. Find more at wanderinglake.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Twilight Imperium tournament season is upon us and Hunter and Matt are officially freaked out. There are clearly a lot of people vying for a spot in the upcoming Patreon tournament, so today we decided we needed to set the record straight on the structure of the tournament and give some important sign up information. This is one of those episodes that exists in the moment and won’t really be listenable in even just a couple months, but...it’s important information! And if you don’t care about that information, there is Tech Overview errata and some community “drama” that we address regarding whether or not our show is “gospel.” Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

As part of the groundwork for truly learning about all of the new things brought to us by Prophecy of Kings, we wanted to take time to break down the new tech and talk a bit about how tech paths have changed, generally, since base game. This episode doesn’t dig into any faction tech, as we’ll do that in faction overviews, but it’s a basic look meant to familiarize us with generic tech. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The galactic council took it easy on us this month. We get to relish in the casual conversations of our current favorite factions. But we took the opportunity to touch on some other topics as well, like how the meta might evolves over the next year, how War Suns might fare, and what to do about “powerful” factions. 42:50 - Titans of Ul Introduction Errata Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

The day of awakening is finally upon us. We have risen from the Buzzfeed slumber and come to you prepared to begin covering the factions as they stand in Prophecy of Kings. First up, we wanted to go a little easy on ourselves, so we have a Titan of Ul introduction. They’re a good faction. Maybe too good. Time will tell... Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/