You refresh your planets at the end of an Agenda phase so you could still use them during a regular round. It just means you can't place any votes. I guess you play Maw of Worlds when you were going to play Riders so weren't going to be using the planets anyway? Plus, it's *gain any* technology. So you could skip any and all prereqs and grab something really powerful very early. Situational, obviously, but if you get it at the right time that could be a huge boon.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Exactly. Especially if you don't plan to do anything in the agenda phase and have exhausted all your planets already, you exhaust all of your planets (which are already exhausted) and get a tech for free basically.
@@Dylan-oh1li You do ready all your planets before the agenda phase so they wouldn't be already exhausted, therefore you trade in your votes for the tech which is definitely worth it "if you don't plan to do anything in the agenda phase."
5:37 There are 4 ways to get a gamma wormhole. Besides the two you listed, the Ghosts of Creuss can use their Wormhole Generator (or promissory note) to place a gamma wormhole, and there is an agenda card that will place one. The Wormhole Nexus is one of my favorite things about the expansion, because you never know when new paths for Diplomacy/Trade/War will open up. 20:18 The Maw of Worlds: Don't forget that you refresh all of your planets at the end of the Agenda Phase (Rule 8.4 LLR 2.0). The Maw of worlds just means you don't have any influence for votes during the agenda phase, so it can be useful if you know the agenda's won't be consequential.
Hey, you're dead right. I was just talking about my experiences so far, haven't played as Ghosts yet in PoK and I haven't encountered that Agenda. Sounds like fun. And yes - the refresh of planets at the end of Agenda phase somehow passed me by when thinking about Maw of Worlds. I understand that it's potentially quite good now.
Nine month later I can finally say I have my first game with the expansion! Luckily your videos kept me well up to date. 6 player with new factions too.
The Sardakk N'orr with the Prophecy of Kings expansion is SOOOO MUCH FUN. Last game I played another player had a ship in the Mecatol Rex system and I used my commander's ability to take control of Mecatol without sending any ships into the system. :D To win the game (they gave up after this, I had 13/14 points, and could score a public objective, and they had 7 each) I used the Dominus Orb to be able to move my 2 Carriers, filled with infantry, from a previously activated system into the Wormhole Nexus and used my Hero's ability to land the ground forces on Mallice. Won the combat, gained Mallice and, more importantly, regained Shard of the Throne (which put me on 13 points). One player had already activated the nexus so they couldn't take it from me, the other didn't have any ships nearby that could move to the nexus. On top of that they had no chance of beating the 5 dreadnaughts and flagship that were sitting in my home system, never mind the 10 or so infantry on each planet in the system.
Played my first ever game of TI with this expansion. Was definitely a victim of analysis paralysis for awhile. Was playing as the Ghosts, and felt fairly discouraged that I wasn't able to do much. After watching your race breakdowns though, I don't feel as bad since they're a pretty underwhelming race to play. Did manage to swap Mechatol Rex with a vacant system right next to my home wormhole though, so that was fun. Called that my own personal victory.
Ghosts are a very tricky race at the best of times, and a really tough first play faction. I feel your pain. Hopefully when you play again you get a more conventional faction and play it differently.
I just started the game and picked up ghosts. I also felt discouraged seeing people have a million units and I'm sitting there with like 20. I did manage to get to 9/10 points however so I guess I did decent?
Can't wait to finally release it in my country. I have a big community of this game in our town in Russia, we love your game and I took a lot of your advices via playing different races so I am very excited to try this expansion :)
Maw of Worlds is AWESOME!!! 3 reasons, but primarily the first reason. 1. Its GAIN a tech, not RESEARCH a tech. This difference is important as researching a tech means you have to meet the prerequisites of the technology (e.g. 3 red techs and a yellow tech to get war suns), while gaining a tech means you can ignore the prerequisites. (from the living rules reference pg 28 "If an ability instructs a player to gain a technology, he does not research it; he takes it from his technology deck and places it in his play area, ignoring prerequisites.") 2. Using this relic is not hindering your production or research capabilities during the action phase, it ONLY affects your ability to vote during the Agenda Phase...and there are things, including agendas, that make it so that you can vote without needing to exhaust your planets. Hell one agenda makes it so that everyone can only ever cast 1 vote and you don't exhaust planets to do that. 3. If you get this and then choose Politics for an action phase, you can decide whether to use the relic or not during the upcoming agenda phase (depending on how much you care about the outcome of the Agendas), or you can play the "When an Agenda is revealed, discard the Agenda and vote on the next one instead" action card if an agenda that you really don't like pops up.
@@jessedijkstra1220 Yes. The Representative Government's For says " Players cannot exhaust planets to cast votes during the agenda phase. Each player may cast 1 vote on each agenda instead", so you can still use other game effects to vote. This also works with the card Bribery, Distinguished Councilor, and the Hacan Commander.
Glad you are good now :) Heading to a board game camp in 2 weeks and I am getting ready so this video was useful thanks :) Loved your past video about ranking the different factions from S, A,B,C and D ... I would love to see an update with this expansion included.
Didn't realize you had new videos until now. Anyway, there are 2 additional ways of unlocked wormhole nexus. Playing "Ghost Ship" action card and placing the destroyer on wormhole nexus as the wording the card says any wormhole. Doing so by the rules will flip over wormhole nexus enabling the usage of beta and alpha wormholes without requiring a gamma wormhole. 2nd way is the usage of Creuss agent to move units into the wormhole nexus, usually Creuss themselves do this.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames yes exactly. It was the Exploring Drone or whatever its called. Im actually playing the german Version :) I really enjoy your videos. Greetings from Germany
Thanks. Do you mean just talking a little randomly about different factions? I guess I could, but not sure what I'd say that hasn't been covered in the Faction Guide vids and the Mechs/Leaders vids. I'm happy to keep talking, so maybe I'll find something to frame the conversation with :)
@@RulebreakerBoardgames just recommendation I would offer would be revisit to races you got more playtime with after expansion came out. Always good to have a fresh perspective after games under belt. Hope for same since my group finally may get games in person now again. Glad to see the vids and you are back.
I just want to comment on how you present TI4 on video - ALL the camera time is on video of the game, its cards, tokens, etc. and NOT you trying to be funny, or 20 minutes of you just talking into the camera while waving your arms or saying "uh" every tenth word because you are making it up as you go - keep up the professional videos - they are USEFUL and INFORMATIVE!
Thanks a lot, Thomas. I honestly can't stand the board game vids where there's just a dude sitting in front of the camera, because I'm not there to see that dude, I'm there to see the game. As a result, you will see the game in my videos and not a lot else :)
speaking of length, I think the game ends in fewer rounds, but each of them is longer than before: so much actions to do and abilities to care about. Luv this expansion, the game is also more enjoyable to watch
If playing with 7 or 8 players would you play with the 4-ring galaxy or the “alternate” galaxy? I believe the alternates have fewer tiles so maybe more interaction? Is the 4-ring too far apart with too much exploring without fighting? Thoughts? Experiences?
I would probably go 4-ring. But I honestly don't think I'd like a game with that many players. The down-time and intense amount of keeping track of stuff would go beyond the fun threshold for me. 4-6 is great. More... I haven't tried, but I think it would be a lot.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames Thank for the reply. So we played 7 player with the "alternate" map and we loved it! All but one strategy card each time. The extra time between turns gave everyone a chance to process the game and have their move ready when it came to them so it felt like the pace was good. We have a good system of making sure when our turn ends we "pass the baton" and tell the next person it's their turn. I loved the hyperlanes and the alternate map has essentially the same TILES PER PERSON as the 6 player. So it ultimately felt a lot like the 6 player game with space to expand but also not too much space with fighting and interactions needed.
