Space Cats Peace Turtles

And now the premiere of your new favorite game show with only one episode: Can It War Sun? Today we’ll go through each faction and answer this ever-important question. At some point, we might finally decide this tech just isn’t good, but for today we’re doing our best to play devil’s advocate. If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com For tickets to Hunter's Comedy Party, click here! Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

Daddy is away this week, so it’s up to your Show Buddy and Actual Daddy to steer the ship. And what better way than to do a player profile on our favorite guest host: EJ! EJ helped up commentate the finals of the tournament and makes regular appearances on the show, so it’s time to hear how he approaches Twilight Imperium. If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

Podbean iTunes Google Play Stitcher Spotify YouTube Last week we were only able to cover *checks notes* FOUR promissory notes?! So now it is our duty to cover the remaining 17 faction promissory notes. Strap in, because it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

The Galactic Council has another great pick for you this month: Promissory Notes. These little things are something we notoriously had trouble analyzing early on in TI4, but now that we’ve had some time to sit with them, we’re starting to feel more confident with how to use them. There’s a LOT of meta-meat on these bones, so it’s not all going to fit in one episode! If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

Dane Beltrami (designer of TI4) has a huge announcement, and he agreed to make it on our show. You’re not going to want to miss this episode where we dig deep into the details of the huge surprise Dane has brought us If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

After some notes about a recent game with our Good Yin Brotherhood patrons, Matt and Hunter begin to lay out the case for the five games proposed to be our “game #2.” The poll is live now to all of our patrons, and we wanted to make sure people had an adequate understanding of each game so that their vote could be informed. We’re excited to add something alongside Twilight Imperium, we just need help figuring out what that something should be! If you’re attending GenCon, be sure to sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW our GenCon LIVESHOW! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

The Space Kitties have gotta thirsty. Only blood will quench their thirst. Blood or the tears of podcasters. This week’s episode is brought to you by Space Kitty Yin4Life, who took Hunter on a tortuous journey. The game was 14 points, 4 players, and Hunter was required to play as the Embers of Muaat. Joining him was Matt as the Winnu, Yin4Life as Sardakk N’orr, and UnalignedMagi as the Arborec. With E.J. as our stream host, this is the story of their suffering... To sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW, make sure to add our event to your GenCon wishlist! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

We’re on the precipice of a new arc of the show, and it felt necessary to take the time to hold a bit of a shareholders meeting for all of our listeners and patrons. We’re planning some big changes, and as always, we want you to be a part of them. So please, check out this episode, and help give us your feedback so we can keep discovering new things with this show together. To sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW, make sure to add our event to your GenCon wishlist! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon

It’s that time again! We are joined by our dear friend Blarknob so that we may yet again prepare for the GenCon Twilight Imperium Tournament. This episode gives the details of the setup for the GenCon tournament and how to sign up, as well as your hosts swapping notes with the most prolific TI moderator out there. To sign up for the GenCon TI Tournament, add ONE of these events to your wishlist: Thursday @ 8:00 AM Friday @ 8:00 AM And don’t forget to take a look at the trophies! To sign up for the GenCon Casual games, hosted by blarknob, add these events to your wishlist: Thursday @ 4:00 PM Friday @ 4:00 PM To sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW, make sure to add our event to your GenCon wishlist! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon And thanks for listening!

Part Two of our Expansion Wishlist kicks off with some errata. This whole episode is a mixture of your responses to the first part of our wishlist, some of your ideas, and some of ours. So join us on this wild adventure of pretending we actually have an expansion... To sign up for our GenCon LIVESHOW, make sure to add our event to your GenCon wishlist! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com Join in on the discussion here, on our Discord, or at our Board Game Geek Guild. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. And send us your in game moments for Play of the Week! and This Imperium Life at [email protected] We appreciate all of the feedback and discussion, but there are more ways you can contribute! If you want to join in and help us organize and record more games and tournaments, visit our Patreon And thanks for listening!

It’s beach day! We’re gonna relax and have a fun conversation, per the request of our Galactic Council. This time around, the council has chosen our wishlist of everything we’d like to see in an expansion for Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition. Now, there’s a lot to cover here, which means this is just part one. And for next week’s episode, we want to include some of your wishlists, so be sure to get in on the errata! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Today is a day to unwind a little. We’ve learned a lot during this process of hosting a tournament and we wanted to share it with you. In this episode you’ll find our overview of what surprised us, what we expected, and what we hope to do going forward. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

And so another chapter is completed. The Patreon Tournament is over and we have a champion. Today’s episode is all the details behind that player’s victory. There is some non-spoiler stuff up at the top if you want to listen a bit before you watch, but from then on out, we break down the entirety of the game, which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRzUStXyiU8 Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Patreon Tournament FINALS are this Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 2:30pm CDT! And before you join us LIVE (at twitch.tv/spacecatspeaceturtles) to watch, you MUST listen to this episode! Today we’re talking to all 6 finalists and getting a better idea of how they approach each game of Twilight Imperium. Matt and Hunter also analyze what they believe victory and defeat looks like for each player. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Patreon Tournament Knockouts are officially over, and we now know our 6 finalists. Today, we detail the three very different games and discuss what led to victory for our three winners. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

This Imperium Life is LONG overdue. We’ve been promising a collection of stories about salty behavior for a while now, and we finally have enough to make a show out of them. There’s a little bit of sweet mixed in, but it certainly doesn’t lessen the flavor of the salt contained within. These are YOUR stories, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we do! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

We have a special treat this week! Space Kitty James Bocks would like to present to you a discussion on content creation in the Twilight Imperium community. We discuss how Matt, Hunter, and James have gone about creating things in the past, and James makes many impassioned speeches to convince YOU to get out there and make something! So don’t sit there and let James down! Makes something, already! Also, there is a brief errata on last week’s Semifinals updates. To see James’ videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVq7LQFyLC0p-M4EoUasoWA Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Semifinals are OVER and we now know three of the players that will be in the Championship game of our tournament! This episode details the stories of each of their victories and some analysis of the games all of these top contenders played. Afterwards, a brief errata about our Knockout Map Analysis, which includes details on our Five-Player Drafting Method. Stick around to the end as well for some fun business about a mouse... Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Semifinals for the tournament aren’t even over yet, but we may not have a better opportunity to do some in depth analysis of the Knockout round map. To check out the map while you listen, visit this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/twilightimperium/comments/ax7w23/scpt_patreon_tourney_knockout_map_5_player/ After the analysis is some errata from last week’s Metagame List with JattaPake. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Today we celebrate with SCPT’s first Space Kitty. JattaPake made a name for himself in the community early on and he continues to be one of the funniest and kindest people out there. For his Space Kitty episode, we all decided to break down an hold forum post of his called The Metagame List. It’s a list that covers all of the behaviors that one might see above the table and outside of standard tactics. It’s a hilarious conversation and is followed up by some quick errata for last week’s episode about the Semifinals map. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Prelims are over! 18 games on one map in 7 weeks, and we’re finally ready to move on. Today, we cover the last five games as well as an overview of the statistics of the Prelims overall! After breaking down our thoughts, we go IN DEPTH on the new map for the second round of the tournament. It’s a very different kind of map than the Prelims map and expects a lot more out of its players. To see it, visit this link! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

We seem to be in an alternating pattern, with the large volume of tournament games necessitating another update-filled episode. This week, details of games 8-13 are all scrunched together, hopefully offering more insight in what seems to lead to the most success in our tournament structure. After the breakdowns is errata from last weeks Action Cards ranking! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The epic conclusion to Action Cards Part 1: Action Cards Part 2! This is our DEFINITIVE list of action cards, ranked from worst to best with no room for dispute. What card will get #33? What will get #32? The whole community is dying to know! Come inside and find the answers you seek! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

This weekend had such intense games in our Patreon Tournament that we had to dedicate the whole episode to it! I know many listeners were looking forward to Action Cards Part 2, and now you get to look forward to it even more! This episode covers games 6 and game 7, as well as a special announcement from our friend in Austin, TX, DavidSNorr! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s Galactic Council Week! This time, we’re dipping our toes into the pesky action cards, and there’s no way we can contain it all in one episode. So instead we’ve already decided this will be a two parter! But before we can even get to action cards, we have THREE Patreon Tournament Games to overview. Strap in, because this is a long one. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

This week is our inaugural SPACE KITTY episode. As part of our highest Patreon tier, we allow contributors to produce an episode with us! This week, longtime contributor InMacKWeTrust joins us to talk about the evil maps he has inflicted upon us, as well as a discussion about why we make weird maps and why we diverted from the original map making process altogether. Before that discussion kicks off, there is a lengthy piece about Game Two of our patreon tournament, and after the episode is a quick errata about Game One of the tournament. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The tournament has begun, and this week is a quick recap of the first game. It was a fun game with a lot of surprises, which bodes well for the rest of the tournament. Afterwards, there is a lot of errata about last week’s Tier List! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The year is over and it’s time to RANK THINGS. We wanted to talk about how this year felt for all the different factions and give you a DEFINITIVE list of how they compare against one another. This is the most serious episode ever and our opinions are final. We are nerd masters and we have thought many eons longer than your tiny human peon brain has. FEAR US. No errata! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

THIS IS IT. As I type these words, we officially involved ourselves in Twilight Imperium related activities for 15 hours. I'm going to bed. Please enjoy this post game(s) wrap-up discussion, recorded after our one serious game of TI and our one....less serious game. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! Prepare yourself for the high octane action of probably something like 12 to 14 hours of TWILIGHT IMPERIUM! This week’s episode is a bit of a filler, but for those of you who have never tuned in to a streamed game we’re here to convince you to join us! We play some normal TI, but also some very strange TI, and this episode is all about breaking down those strange games. It’s a strange episode, but IT’S THE HOLIDAYS and we’re going to stream literally all day on Dec. 23...so bear with us... Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The Galactic Council has voted again, and this time, despite all of our expectations, is an episode about fleet compositions! Today, we break down the role of each ship within a fleet and how different factions think about putting fleets together. Afterwards, there’s some errata in there about four player games. Make sure you don’t get any on your shoes, I hear the stench never goes away. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Matt played a four player game and was reminded how long it has been since he’s done Four Player. This is because Hunter despises Four Player games of Twilight Imperium. So, today is a regular old duel to the death over whether or not Four Player games are “good.” Afterwards, there is some important errata on the Tournament Prelim Round Map, including a couple of changes to the map itself. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Tournament preparations are underway, and first on our list was to make a properly balanced map for the Preliminary round. Eighteen games will be played on this map, so we wanted to make sure it had exactly the right feel. On today’s episode, we breakdown the map and discuss its yin and yangs between slices and go over which factions we think can flourish in which spots. Then we have some errata on last week’s Player Profile about Hunter! To see the map, visit this link! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s time for another Player Profile! There’s only one other host of the podcast, so that means this week’s profile is all about Hunter! We cover his much more strategic background, how he goes about handling relationships at the table, and how he manages his salt output. Also included is a breakdown of the structure of the upcoming Patreon tournament and some overview of a recent Good Yin Brotherhood game. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

The votes are in, and the Galactic Council has spoken! This time, the council proposed a conversation about what factions are best for new players and what skills new players can hope to develop when playing a specific faction. We brought in our friend and frequent contributor E.J. to help us with this discussion. We hope this is a great episode to show to new players as a possible entry point for getting into Twilight Imperium! Afterwards, there’s a lot of errata about our Tournament Draft method that we detailed last week, and some further speculation on what to do about 5 player tournament games. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s Election Day! Which means it’s time to discuss the best way to elect a faction in Twilight Imperium. This episode is focused on our Draft method for the upcoming Patreon Tournament. We outline the system in detail, and discuss the pros and cons to using it. Then it’s a breakdown of how the system works and analyzing the types of decision making we expect players to make when using it. Enjoy! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Today is the first episode of a new concept for the show: Player Profiles! We find there is value in assessing why a specific player makes the decisions they make. You can use their ideas to better your own play, or use their thoughts AGAINST THEM. For the first one, we break down how Matt has thought about strategy games in the past, and what goes through his head when he plays Twilight Imperium. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Shh! There are many secrets in this episode. This week, Matt and Hunter discuss the value of secret, backdoor politicking in Twilight Imperium, and the different amounts of whispering that seem acceptable within the community. Looking for more feedback on this discussion, so be sure give your thoughts! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Today’s episode is a bit of a stranger topic. But with the Patreon tournament more on our mind, we felt it was best to talk a little bit about the benefits and pitfalls of playing on Tabletop Simulator. We’re hoping this episode sparks more discussion from TTS experts in the community that we can follow up on next week. After our TTS discussion is errata for Tech Skips. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

While tech paths are still topical, Matt and Hunter decided to sit down and talk about planets with Tech Specialties, otherwise known as Tech Skips. They break down the different planets themselves, the best techs to skip, and how this impacts different factions' tech paths. After that is errata for the “Always and Nevers” episode from last week. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s time for an episode decided on by the Galactic Council! The “Always and Nevers” of Twilight Imperium is our list of somewhat absolutes players should consider when playing. None of this is actually absolute, and there is no such thing as always and no such thing as never. Unless we’re talking about Stymie. Then "Not Even Once..." Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Sorry for the late show this week! While Matt was traveling across most of the United States, Hunter sat down with other close friends and discussed getting mad in games of Twilight Imperium. TI has a special ability to get players emotionally involved, and often that leads to explosive results. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s our Ding Dang Ol’ Birthday! So it’s time to celebrate. To do so, we’re going to set the strategy and theory-crafting aside, and instead discuss our plans for year two and onward. We’re shifting the focus of the Patreon to primarily revolve around tournament and league play, and so today we break down what a lot of that means for you. We’re very excited to try more tournaments and have a lot of ideas that will require a lot of playtesting, so join us on this adventure, won’t you? Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

It’s time to finish the fight! This week we complete the trilogy of Optimal Tech Path discussion. This episode is defined by some of the more difficult to pin down factions and leads to some more open ended ideas of what is truly optimal. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

We’re putting off Tech Paths Part 3 this week because we just streamed our very first 14 point game, and there is simple too much to talk about while we still have it on our minds. This won’t be an in depth analysis of 14 point games at large, but instead a breakdown of the game we played and our first reactions to the differences between 10 points and 14 points. This game is available on our YouTube to watch, so if you want to see it first, THEN hear our reactions, go check it out! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

Hey look! It’s just what you asked for! It’s more discussions on Tech Paths. This week we cover six more factions Optimal Tech Paths, and breakdown alternatives to those paths. We’ve got five more to go, so looks like there will be a part three!! Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

This week marks the first item on our list of topics Matt and Hunter are revisiting and re-examining. Tech hasn’t been covered extensively since Ep 004, and we’ve learned a lot about the game since then. So, in looking closer, we decided to focus on the importance of Optimal Tech Paths in TI4, and what that looks like for different factions. Stay tuned, because next week we’ll continue this conversation and look at the rest of the factions’ tech paths. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

We sat down with Fantasy Flight’s Corey Konieczka and asked him about all things Twilight Imperium, from his beginning with the company to the development and reception of 4th edition. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

We made it through GenCon! This week is a recording we did the evening before the finals. We sat down with some of our close friends and crew members and broke now all of our favorite parts of GenCon and the Semifinals of the tournament. Afterwards, it’s just Hunter and Matt, giving a rundown of what you all hoped to see from GenCon, vs what we ended up actually seeing. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com

GenCon is THIS WEEK and we are absolutely flipping our lids. We’re bouncing off the walls and going crazy in anticipation. So what follows is a recording in which we bottle our excitement and present it to you, capped and labeled with just the right level of carbonation. We hope you enjoy as we indulge a little and discuss what we expect from GenCon 2018. Afterwards, Matt does some solo errata on last week’s Win from Ahead episode. Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com