The Empyrean Player's Guide - Twilight Imperium 4th Edition Prophecy of Kings
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- Rulebreaker guides you through understanding how to play as The Empyrean in Twilight Imperium 4th Edition. This is an instructional guide, designed for new players.
Time to make a pact... or five!
Twilight Imperium 4th Edition is by Fantasy Flight Games.
Music is by bensound.com - Hry
“It’s really mean but I highly recommend it.” That made me laugh out loud.
Hahaha, that's what Twilight Imperium is all about for my friends and I :)
@@RulebreakerBoardgames, ours too. That and two straight hours of debate over the wording of Action cards.
The thing is in my group, it would be a trigger for a heated rules argument that slows down the game, so I probably wouldn't do it for that reason.
These are those shadowy people who stand just behind the throne and whisper into the ruler's ear...
I love it 😄
Yeah definitely!
You could use Watcher’s effect to cancel a Direct Hit action card and make your Flagship truly immortal. I love it.
This faction seems to be capable of some crazy things. If you get all the blue techs and your blue racial tech, and you have an opponent who’s home system is adjacent to an anomaly, you can give your flagship move 3, and bypass systems that contain units, and fly the ship right into your opponents home system. Then you can have an epic battle as the enemy fleet struggles to kill a ship that repeatedly regenerates. You can use a mech somewhere in the board to block direct hit cards. Once your flagship wins the space combat, it can drop 3 ground forces and take a planet in their home system.
You start with a tech that lets you retreat into systems you don’t own, you have a hero that allows you to remove command tokens if you get attacked, could this create potential for crazy combos where you ask an opponent to attack you so you can do something cool?
If you play as Empyrean, be sure to read up on enforceable vs. nonenforceable deals! This faction is going to have crazy FAQs pretty soon.
Play close attention to their promissory notes. Most “put it on the table” notes are revealed immediately and can’t be traded around, these faction ones have to be placed down as an action. So you could give it to someone, and instead of using it they could trade it with someone else, or keep it in their hand so you can’t ever use it. Also, to put the card on the table requires using your turn, so you could give it to someone with the main selling point being that it’s a stall, and the effect is just gravy.
The “give me your promissory notes” tech is one of the most interesting ones in the game. If players are trying to stop you from winning by attacking you in the last round, then political secrets and trade agreements are useless and they will have no qualms handing them over. Now if you took those cards from them in previous rounds, then holding them could force people to give you the good notes. The other strategy is to actually use the cheap notes in mid-game to gain advantages, free money is free money and if you have everybody’s political secret, along with your pact, you can totally dominate agendas when the time is right.
Also your hero is epic, it’s enough to make other players want you to play Empyrean so they can explore more frontier tokens and actually get the cool stuff in the frontier deck.
(If you read all this, Congratulations! I hope it may someday be useful, but probably not.
Yeah, good point about placing the Promissory Notes down, it is a little different. Seems like you're excited about this faction :)
I love seeing these new factions unveiled. Thank you for showcasing them! Some very spooky abilities in their repertoires. Can you do The Mahact Gene-Sorcerers next?
Thanks Kyle. I was saving the Mahact for last actually. Wanted to end the season with a bang. They'll be with you next week.
Played Empyrean my first game. I went from dead last to coming second, having 20+ promissory notes and being king maker in a single action phase all because I got aether stream and void watch.
That sounds absolutely wild. How did you resolve your kingmaker choice?
So excited to see your new content for the new expansion! Your previous TI4 videos helped me immeasurably.
😁🚀👍
Glad to hear it!
Got my copy of this expansion. Unboxing with friends on Monday. Can't... freaking... wait...
Aaaah that's awesome, glad you could get a copy!
THIS. this is the race I've been wanting to see!
Yeah they blow the game wide open with possibilities.
Those racial techs tho...
Thank you, these are great.
Love these guys. thanks for the great videos
Thanks for watching!
The big thing with the Empyrean is the combinations between their agend, their starting tech, their hero and Frontier tokens. Frontier exploration is worth a strategic secondary most of the time. Thats a lot of free secondaries over the course of the game.
I thought of the Empyrean being a bit "meh" on paper. BUT after having played them, I think they might be my new favourite faction - their tech abilities are amazing, their commander is top tier.
I think of them as being a combination of ghosts and naalu - on steroids.
Video quality seems lower than we're used to. Possibly because I'm so early? Otherwise, amazing race! Thanks for showing it to us :)
I see what you mean. It is in full 4K but I think that the lack of colour on the Empyrean board also seems to have made it grainy around the edges. It looked alright when filming on the little screen, but on a normal screen it does seem worse than I normally would like. I have a new lighting setup for the next filming day too, so I am confident that we'll get that resolved for future videos.
Clean that camera lens bud! Just like cleaning your specs or a mirror.
@@johnmodlich530 Was clean, just a case of the lighting and the lack of colours. Was fine after and before :)
I might have missed this in the comments, but that commander ability to regain one of your command tokens on the board if they activate your space could be used with combat BUT also combos nicely with the Etherpassage ability. You're right, these fellows do look like a lot of fun. Appreciated the Buffy reference... I thought the same thing too!
Hah, I couldn't resist. I won't which faction is the Slayers...
I doubt that Combination !? Do you think that’s true? If another player passes thru ur Systems with the Etherpassage ability, do you get ur CTs with ur Commander back if these Systems have a CT? The Commander reads "moves into a system" not "passes thru a system" ??? What do you think, how do you understand the rules/card?
I think reading the background of this faction allows us to better understand how they should work. They are the void systems masters, they're contemplative and diplomatic, and they don't want conflict. Some of their abilities can be used outside void or anomaly systems without planets, sure; but they're better with void.
You can occupy void once per turn without spending a command token. You start the game with the ability to explore frontier tokens, and you can retreat to void systems. You don't hurt other people's movement, and other players shoudn't be as much as interested as you in void systems either because they can't explore them, you're already there, and there's nothing of value. If they still want you out of void systems, you have some deterrents (unique tech and your commander which allows for an "attrition" game over void) and diplomacy. Once you are occupying all the void you can have, you can use your hero, or keep trading with others with multiple things, of course motivating conflict between other players. Once you are well established, you can do your final moves to try to win the game.
So, it's not that they have very strange abilities, in fact I think they are very well connected to one theme.
That's a fair point, thanks.
I feel like the penultimate play for empyrean is to have all five support the throne from every player to win
that one time I had a mech in an empty wormhole system in a dreadnaught and my opponent used flank speed to try and get into my home system not taking into account that mech that just ended his turn for 2 resources was priceless :)
It sounds like to me at least. That the flagship is more towards other players rather than the actual owning player, in regards to its ability. so that, say e.g. that your are place behind a battle with two other races and you choose to back one the players that have sustain damage. .... Nice friend to have.
I can see myself constantly repairing the flagship itself while whittling away the enemy fleet.
Super presentation. Sadly, so sadly Fantasy flight has postponed the release in Canada and we will miss the delivery prior Christmas possibility. This I will remember and never again do a preorder with a Fantasy flight product.
Aw that is a shame. Sorry to hear that. If it helps, I haven't got many opportunities to play it myself with COVID lockdowns and restrictions in place, so you're not far behind in reality. What a difficult year the world is having.
It is a matter of Christmas gifts... Overlooked marketing aspect for Christmas period; or maybe a not important market for Fantasy flight to bother with...
do you get that token from the commander ability, so you can basically use it again or do you just take it off the board?
I wonder, if the action is to place the promissory note in your play area, does that mean it can no longer be traded with anyone else as it's not in your hand?
10/10 buffy reference
The Emperyrean seem to me that they're strength lies in your ability to persuade other players to allow you to be in certain places on the map and playing with a high enough player count that people desire to pass through your hexes.
I typically play 3 player the most and don't think they would do that well with thst count and the way we play.
Still, I can totally see them being strong in the right circumstances.
Yeah they need lots of other factions on the table to be at full effect.
I played these guys yesterday and had an absolutely crappy board for these guys. The only time I ever got a promissary note is when Vuil'rath decided to attack me unprovoked while I would have gladly given them the space they wanted for nothing. I still don't understand the play, since she moved other units in next turn and didnt move out of the space. That also delayed me from adjacency to all players until it was too late. No one ever moved through me, I couldnt get to any systems because an asteroid belt ended up next to my home system, and thus I ended up being a non factor.
I'm not sure if they are a high VP count race but Im pretty sure they are gonna be unrivaled in terms of negotiable benefits and general control over a game.
Yes, they're sly foxes.
So I absolutely couldn't wait to play the empyrean and we just finished a game and I hate them so much
Why?
What happened? Did you play against them and they were awesome? Or did you play as them and it didn't go according to expectations?
@@RulebreakerBoardgames I played as them and definitely didn't go as planned
"If Little Fingers was a TI4 faction"
You mentioned that, in order for Dark Pact to work, you need to swap commodities with a race that also has 4 commodities to trade. (Unless I misunderstood.) However, I don't think that's the case? The card specifically says "equal to YOUR maximum commodity value", I assume so it can be used for every faction.
You have to read it from perspective of Dark Pact holder not owner ;) this "Your" max means that you as player that have this promissory note activated have to grave all commodities, cant split. So only race that will not benefit from this pact is Hakan.
@@rafamichalak2314 Yup, my point
You can trade with anyone and both factions get an extra trade good. That can be with anyone, whether they had 2 commodities or 4 or any number. I thought that was clear, but I guess there's some ambiguity there?
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Then I misunderstood. :) My bad!
I think I prefer to give Dark Pact to one of my 2 Commodity neighbours. The 2 Com races are probably the ones most interested in this PN anyhow and I have less interest in boosting an already strong 4 Com Faction even more. If I swap 2-2 with my Dark Pacted neighbour we both get 3, and I have 2 Commodities left for more deals.
Also, having a Commodity or two left on your sheet is also a good thing, with all these Exploration Cards that let you turn a Commodity into something substantial.
Does the flag ship ability resolve before a direct hit card?
my thoughts exactly? any clarification, gaming saturday first time with expansion
@@stuartmathers7384 I think i have the answer.
Direct hit: After another player's ship uses Sustain Damage to cancel a hit produced by your units or abilities
Destroy that ship.
Ship will be destroyed, because it used Sustain Damage, regardless if you try to repair it.
@@MrPanzerTanzer Would be my guess too, thanks
So what happens if a player activates a system, based on you promising them to allow passage or the promise that you'd allow them to use aetherpassage to a system next to an anomaly, and then say no? You cannot activate a system that your ships cannot reach, can you?
sure you can! :D
Giles or Wesley! Mah man!
Represent!
Played a 4-player game as Empyrean. Everything the Emyreans do for others is a lot better for them than it is for you. Their flagship and mech should get on the board ASAP. Voidwatch is a bad faction tech, everyone has one or two promissory note they don’t care if you have. Aetherstream should be rushed and sold to others, great tech. The commander is bad unless you have a dedicated counter attack fleet. Hero is worse because you have to invest command tokens and ships to non-planet tiles and they pay off is not worth it. Starting with Dark Energy Tap makes you want to go after frontier tokens but that is a trap because your spending command tokens and ships to non-planet systems instead of conquering planets for resources. Just have one destroyer getting frontier tokens, not multiple!
Yeah I suspected that the Dark Energy Tap starting tech was not a good thing. Feels like a way to distract you and slow down your natural growth and progression.
So basically they are "Little Finger' of the Imperium.
Yes, pretty much.
So maybe I'm just dumb and don't see it, but why is everyone so positive about the Empyrean commander? I get that you have the chance to counter attack, but Empyrean doesn't exactly have a lot going for them on the offensive anyways.
Personally even if it was just a mediocre ability, I would think that it would be better to simply have something that won me the intitial combat. Even if that was just something as simple as gaining more trade goods to buy more plastic or even another diplomatic tool to deter people from attacking in the first place, after all prevention will always be stronger than retaliation. So rather than losing whatever portion of my fleet before retreating, and then having to spend a CC to take ships off of other systems I was trying to keep defended in order to counter, I just think something more synergetic could have been in its place.
Honestly I think it would have been awesome if the commander did something based off of the number of Frontier tokens you have picked up through out the game, would have comboed well with the Empyrean game plan and hero.
I like your Frontier token combo idea. That's interesting.
I like the Commander because it's something that you normally cannot do. It bends a rule that is very fundamental to the gameplay, like Warfare. It also applies if you win the combat, by the way, so at the very least it's an option to reinforce if you lost a few units.
Imagen convincing a player to push 1 destroyer into your big fleet so you can move it against something else. It gives you so much leverage!
@@peterboomsma Ya I've heard this mentioned before too. My only gripe is that in order to refund the command token and destroyer, I have to pay 4 trade goods already, then I need to actually add something to that to incentivize said person.
I'm not saying it can't happen, and that at times it won't be worth it but it seems pretty clutch case to evaluate the ability as a whole on. But who knows, maybe more playtests will convince me otherwise.
@@Kagemitsu888 I played a game recently where I did the above scenario, but instead of paying TG, I tossed them my Alliance and told them I would send one of my fighter II units to unlock a system. We both basically gave each other warfare secondary because warfare was not picked that round. We each built at home and then unlocked the other's home system to do stuff.