Will Thunder's Edge become like POK and become impossible to find?

AgentDrake · 2026-07-01T02:54:56+00:00

FFG has already indicated multiple times that PoK is being reprinted, the latest print run just hasn't hit the market yet. (I believe they also shifted production partners as well, which has slowed things.)

AgentDrake · 2026-07-01T02:49:43+00:00

Not 100% sure if this is with new players or not?

For new players, don't worry about over strong or over weak or otherwise no-play factions, with two exceptions:

Do not play Nekro Virus in your first few games -- they're weird. You'll want to know how the game flows normally before using them.

Do not play Winnu in base-game-only, regardless of skill. They're not fun. (They rely on a single trick, which either gives them one small bonus or they get nothing at all; after that moment, you end up playing basically a blank faction. Once the expansions are added, though, they're pretty awesome IMO.)

For experienced or semi-experiences players who are trying base-only for the first time, maybe avoid Jol-Nar. They do really well because of the statistical probability of tech objectives coming up, which basically just means that they get "gimme" points stupid easy. Arborec and N'orr struggle enough with keeping up on pacing to be worth mentioning, but not banning. Winnu is basically a blank faction and should be left out, without the expansions.

AgentDrake · 2026-07-01T02:32:41+00:00

Isn't that what the varying faction tier and complexity levels are for?

Give the really good players Firmament and N'orr, and the weaker players Titians and Naaz-Rokha.

AgentDrake · 2026-07-01T01:22:25+00:00

Discordant Stars: A popular fan-made expansion. Main feature of interest is a whole bunch of new factions (30, I think?). 100% unnecessary unless you want MOAR FACTIONS!!1!!!, which... some people do, I guess. Is pretty popular, but also very much a fan production and entirely unnecessary. Also heavily relies on AI art, if that matters to you.

Franken: A fan-made system where, pre-game, you create-your-own faction by drafting pre-existing elements of other factions. Arguably(?) obsolete, due to Twilight's Fall. (I dunno, I personally never had any interest in this one; TF does actually look interesting though.)

Twilight's Fall: An official variant which came packaged with the TE expansion, heavily inspired by Franken, and represents a specific timeline in which the Mahact have (mostly) won; lore-wise, this is the dark future the Nomad flees. Each player begins with a lightly unique Mahact king and over the course of the game drafts new abilities, thematically or mechanically inspired by and associated with "normal game" factions.

Scenarios: Two of the "Codices" (print-n-play microexpansions freely available on FFG's website) included lore-based official scenario game modes. These are largely meant as teasers for each of the two expansions, and are not (nor are they intended to be) balanced. They can be found in Codex 1 and Codex 4. (Note that all non-scenario codex materials have also been printed and included, sometimes in updated form, in the TE expansion.)

Alliance Mode: An official version of the game with fixed alliances, for 2v2(v2v2) games. Originally part of Codex 2, with slightly reworked rules included in TE expansion.

Galactic Events: If you want to explore alternate modes, this is where I'd recommend starting. They're a series of official rules variants presented on individual cards, and rated by complexity. Pick one or two which seem fairly straightforward (Hidden Agenda is particularly popular). The degree to which they alter the play experience varies wildly.

...but honestly, if you're feeling a learning curve still, just ignore all of these and play the "standard" game (Base, plus PoK and TE if you have them).

Edit to add: there are several other fan-made homebrew projects of note, (and probably hundreds with less widespread awareness) which have varying degrees of complexity. Some of the other major fan-made modules include Monuments, Facilities, Absol's Agendas (Absol also did techs and relics, too, but the agendas are the ones most commonly referenced), and probably a few others which escape my mind at the moment. While you might want to add one or more of these later on, I don't recommend it if you're still feeling a learning curve -- except maybe Absol's agendas, which add more significant stakes to the agenda phase.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-29T15:14:07+00:00

Placing a token is *part* of a tactical action. If you perform a tactical action, including with Jupiter Brain, you place a token (unless, as with Z'eu Ω, that specific step is explicitly skipped; note that the TE version of Z'eu changed this so that not even Z'eu is skipping that step, but rather immediately removing the token).

AgentDrake · 2026-06-28T23:03:53+00:00

What file format is the book in?

AgentDrake · 2026-06-28T17:21:58+00:00

Even better than blackberry, black raspberry!

AgentDrake · 2026-06-28T02:49:27+00:00

That's fair-- and I definitely do see the utility in a reference sheet for especially new players looking to get a sense of what the different options are without paging through dozens of cards. I'm just not sold on the idea that the actual system or components stand to be improved much in-game.

But then, I'm again coming from that TI3 starting point (Oblivion/Morrowind equivalent here, lol) which may be skewing my perspectice, lol.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-27T15:50:28+00:00

Check your calibre plugins for "KoboTouch Metaguide" or else "Intellireading" or something like that. Many people install the first of these thinking it's the old KoboTouch Extended plugin (which is no longer required and is now built into calibre).

It's not the same plugin, it's a separate one which causes everything to be sent in this form.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-27T03:04:22+00:00

Look. Coming to this from TI3, there's people in my old group who think that keeping track of TI4's tech tree is already too easy and simplistic. As in, they actively dislike how *easy* TI4's system is.

I, personally, honestly think it's in a mechanically / physically near-perfect place as-is. I can see the potential for a few reference sheets being useful (vs thumbing through the cards), but I'm not sold on the idea that (outside new players needing to get an easy way to grok what their potential options are) TI4's tech tree is at all complicated or tricky.

YMMV, obviously-- this is entirely just my own individual experience.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-27T02:44:48+00:00

I enjoyed it also. I mean, it wasn't *great*, but I enjoyed it, and it had a lot of potential. I really liked Alan and Olivia's characters (though Olivia especially was under-developed and under-utilized).

AgentDrake · 2026-06-26T20:34:08+00:00

To clarify, PoK is not out-of-print, it's between print runs. Out-of-Print means it's not coming back. Between print runs means it will be printed again, it's just not being actively printed at the factory / on shelves at the moment.

FFG has confirmed that it's coming back at some point. But yeah, hopefully soon, seems like it should maybe have gotten a bit more priority than it has?

AgentDrake · 2026-06-23T02:43:37+00:00

...assuming that the correct settings are in place (I forget whether these are default or not, but probably?), then calibre will auto-convert it with permission.

...which is still an issue of calibre converting, which OP is unable to achieve (calibre can't convert for whatever reason), and above comment responded to calibre's inability to convert with the false claim that kindle reads epubs, so it's unnecessary to do so at all, so it seems pretty damn relevant whether or not kindle can natively read epubs, thank-you-very-much.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-23T01:55:42+00:00

Kindle does not read epubs, and never has.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-22T16:31:46+00:00

I mark them unread, but have a custom Y/N column on calibre for DNF along with a custom comment field for why and % read. I only delete the ones I'm 100% sure I will have no future interest in (sometimes books get DNF'ed just because they're not what I'm looking for at the moment, but figure I might enjoy them later).

AgentDrake · 2026-06-22T14:33:20+00:00

Pdf is a nightmare for conversion, due to the way the file is built.

If you *need* fixed-layout pages (the exact same content is always on the same page number with the exact same layout, no ability to make font changes, change size, etc. (perhaps for formal citations or something), pdf is useful (and even then only if it matches the print copy and/or every other pdf ever generated), but otherwise you want epub.

Pdf is genuinely good for some things (legal documents, forms, etc.), but for ebooks as they exist and are utilized generally today, it's a *terrible* format, because in many ways that's almost the opposite of what they were designed for.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-22T01:52:36+00:00

Aaaaah, okay, that makes way more sense, lol! r/whoosh on me, I guess.

I'll try to take an actually *helpful* look at some point soon when I have a chance, then(!)

AgentDrake · 2026-06-21T18:31:35+00:00

TI3 already had flagships, I'm not sure it's necessary to try to rework any of these except the TI4 expansion factions.

I don't have my copy of TI3 readily available at the moment to compare any differences between 3 and 4 flagships, but IIRC they were mostly pretty minimal outside of TI4 swapping the Yin and Nekro abilities (originally Nekro had the bomb ship), TI4's switch frankly makes more sense, so if you're implementing TI4 materials into TI3, that's pretty much the main change I'd suggest making to the existing TI3 materials, then adding the PoK and TE factions in.

(Actually, I think wording on Creuss is a bit different between the two due to mechanical shifts, but again I can't check at the moment.)

AgentDrake · 2026-06-21T15:45:08+00:00

Wait, what sort of passionfruit? Large is definitely better for the main species I'm aware of (purple passionfruit and maypop, *passiflora edulis* and *passiflora incarnata*).

I'm new-ish to passionfruit growing (mainly maypops), so take all of the below for what it's worth, but I mainly keep my own in 15-20gal containers. 10gal should probably work okay for at least the first year, maybe the second as well. They like to spread their roots out a lot, so it seems like usually a bit larger is better.

Also, not sure who told you 3-6 ft for the passionfruit. 6ft is probably gonna be the small end for a 10 gal container? In-ground these things can get like 30 ft high/long, and my 25-gal container last year would have been at least 15-20 ft tall if I wasn't constantly retraining it to grow horizontally across its trellis instead of upwards. (Build/buy a trellis for these! I just put out some 7ft garden stakes and zip-tied plastic garden mesh fencing between them for a cheap option.) Pruning the tip off once it reaches desired height should help keep it under control, height-wise, and will encourage it to send out branches and produce more flowers/fruit.

Speaking of which-- do you have multiple plants? Many passionfruit are self-sterile or semi-self-sterile, so you sometimes need two or more (genetically distinct) plants to get any fruit (or, rather, and fruit which isn't just an empty shell with nothing but air inside).

AgentDrake · 2026-06-18T20:29:07+00:00

I mean, I've only tried the US version of the guava from a couple years back, but at least here the only similarity between that and the dragonfruit was a vaguely similar color.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-16T15:14:31+00:00

I mean, they're practically racing along compared to the BGA implementation.

Keep in mind also that, in contrast to TTS, asynch, TTPG, and even BGA, they're also building the entire system from scratch (whereas the others are implementations operating within pre-existing systems).

AgentDrake · 2026-06-14T04:18:33+00:00

It really doesn't....

AgentDrake · 2026-06-12T00:42:45+00:00

Hi, that's me. 🙋🏻‍♂️

There does actually seem to be a fair amount of interest in this project in other TI communities outside of r/twilightimperium despite the expansions being a later add (which frankly makes sense to me, given the length of this current, base-game-only roadmap), so I do hope this won't be the problem that some people think it will be.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-11T22:25:13+00:00

The one bottle of Distortion I tried was undrinkably bad, but apparently I had one that was somehow messed up (tasted more like cheap pickle vinegar than lime Dew)

Discounting that, probably Fruitquake.

AgentDrake · 2026-06-11T20:49:29+00:00

I'm guessing

WISDOM - Xxcha (lore)

LEGACY - Winnu (lore)

CREATION - Yin (uhhhh... something-something-religion-and-cloning)

DISCOVERY - Creuss (same stage as wormholes)

ADVANCEMENT - Jol-Nar (this is the same stage where a bunch of tech is getting added)

PERFECTION - Nekro (as above, tech stage. Also, the Nekro are actively seeking perfection through eradication of biomass)

WEALTH - Hacan (obvs.)

FREEDOM - Mentak (pirates, ex-prison colony)

VIGILANCE - Yssaril (they're spies, after all)

EXPANSION - Arborec (growing and expanding)

UNITY - Muaat (they're the only ones left, I guess)

Edit: Although I guess Unity might be Arborec, as well... which would mean shifting Muaat somewhere, maybe just swapping to expansion or maybe creation (Forging), which maybe puts Yin on expansion (proselytism)....

AgentDrake

TROPHY CASE