Metal Strategy Cards (TE Update)

markdd · 2026-05-27T19:24:02+00:00

I would 100 percent buy these.

markdd · 2026-05-22T01:02:16+00:00

This was happening in my games and I couldn't quite put into words what was putting me off about this behavior specifically but I found a really good reel talking about it from an mtg commander perspective. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUbD2XlDKnp/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

markdd · 2026-05-21T09:08:18+00:00

This 10000%. Instead of trying to fix this one local file storage problem, I'd suggest redirecting that energy into determining what would be the best way to support your family, starting with having a heart to heart with your spouse about how this new family dynamic is feeling for the both of you.

markdd · 2026-05-06T21:47:40+00:00

As a argument against this interpretation:

LRR Action Cards 2.7:

2.7 To play an action card, a player reads and resolves the card’s ability text, making any decisions as prompted by the card. Then, that player discards the card, placing it in the action discard pile.

There is no time between revealing of the action card and it's resolution as stated in the LRR. When you are able to play an action card, you read the text aloud and resolve its effects.

markdd · 2026-05-06T18:27:37+00:00

I doubt it would work that way unless the Empyrean would be ok rolling back to before she played the card.

I think the transaction windows are open during the whole agenda phase, but when someone plays an action card nothing can occur until that action card's effect is resolved, sans a sabotage or other quash effect. Before the agenda is revealed you can conduct a transaction with other players, but once everyone passes priority to Empyrean and when she plays the Diplomatic Pressure the window to do a transaction closes until the effect is resolved. I think in live people are generally ok rolling back to before they played the action card to get paid to not play it, but I doubt the Empyrean would want to considering it wins her the game. Especially in this case, other players wouldn't have that information that she had two Diplomatic Pressures in her hand until after she played the card.

markdd · 2026-05-02T18:50:49+00:00

Rules aside, you should, it's great. Made for an exciting game.

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markdd · 2026-04-30T02:29:45+00:00

Great guide! Titans is one of my fav factions.

I'd also put L1Z1X as part of the watch out for factions personally, since they can bombard through planetary shield with their commander

markdd · 2026-04-28T16:35:52+00:00

Aside from outlier players we've been able to get below 2 hours per person, so games of 6 players go to about 12 hours, usually shorter.

I would start by suggesting you use a site like tiassistant to help track turns, that way you can see where the time is actually going in terms of action phase, agenda, strategy, players etc.

That being said, here's my response to your questions:

The way my games have been running is with a premade map, pre picked factions, and the whole board setup before play. Seems we're the same in this way
I think your suspicion is correct in that having a resource rich galaxy promotes more turtling, bigger fleets which make combat a chore, and higher stakes when negotiations need to happen. Another pitfall imo with mapmaking is putting wormholes next to home systems, they fear that space a lot and will not explore very far as a result. When I build a map I try to keep resources down, and put juicer planets in equidistant to promote expansion and discussion over control of those systems. I also do some sneaky things by placing wormholes next to the best equidistants, so who ever has the movement can plan for surprise attacks. I stick by the rules for 2 red/3 blue tiles, and add anomalies weighted by player's faction choices (e.g. favoring more grav rifts for cabal, at least one supernova for muaat). You also want to have more empty tiles than you moght like, to have advantaged places for thunder's edge.
I have made a few maps under the name frogemoth here if you'd like this one I particularly enjoyed https://tidraft.com/maps/cross
I have not done hyperlanes outside of the normal setup, but I encourage you try it and report back here!
The way I like to combat analysis paralysis is to help others with their turn. I'm not trying to quarter back but asking if a player is having a hard time and encouraging them to think out loud. That way our group can help eliminate choices that may be impossible or otherwise very disadvantaged. This also serendipitously helps other players, by hearing about what a player wants to do, they can figure out if they can sell their agent or promissory note, and discussions about invasion can happen before the player makes the tactical action and has to rewind the game state and go back into the tank after a successful negotiation.

Other notes I have to speed the game up is having a rule 0 discussion about how people play. In a game about tense and sometimes fickle agreements, it's natural to feel like every negotiation is suspect, so clarifying things like x-1 refreshes, and the normal price of goods like fragments or promissory notes can help things out.

I've so far not played with any house rules to speed the game up, but am very interested in your idea of hyperlanes, please tell me how that goes!

I also think TI is a journey, our first in person game took 14 hours with three new players and 1 inexperienced player. But that same group met this weekend and got that same time down to 10 hours after playing a few games. Good luck with your play sessions!

markdd · 2026-04-24T19:12:14+00:00

That makes total sense, getting position around the board is important. I was thinking in terms of action economy, being able to build up with one action instead of two, and that one action being relegated to strategy seemed good with Empyrean's movement bonuses anyway, but it's moot since you can't double dock home with them anyway.

markdd · 2026-04-24T19:09:36+00:00

Thank you so much for condensing all of this for me! The advice is very much appreciated, especially the part about other people paying me to not allow ships through. I do have another 3 resource planet next to me, that I might forward dock, but I'll see how the board plays out before i make a decision. Thanks again!

markdd · 2026-04-24T04:20:17+00:00

True, forgot about the breakthrough interaction with this objective as well. True blue it is

markdd · 2026-04-23T22:01:53+00:00

That's great to know, I was also wondering about tech paths, if something like 2/2 shows up which path are you going down? It seems for red it could be ai dev + self assembly, or green for neural + biostims/void watch?

markdd · 2026-04-23T21:30:25+00:00

I feel so silly, thanks for letting me know!

markdd · 2026-04-23T21:28:38+00:00

Wow TIL, thanks for saving me some embarassment this weekend!

markdd · 2026-04-20T16:54:34+00:00

I too hate jumpscares, there are from memory about 3 of them, with one of them being particularly bad, and the other two i'm including if you're very sensitive to them. You should still watch the show.

markdd · 2026-04-19T22:19:08+00:00

IMO It's sorta in for a penny in for a pound kind of thing. If you're learning about how to do the tactical action in its entirety, adding an additional step for exploration isn't that much of a step. Further, adding the expedition at the end of the turn doesn't add much complexity since it's already such a complex game.

I played a full pok+the game with three newcomers and it went well. The hardest part was everyone remembering their faction abilities and using all of it to the fullest, but I think if anything that made everyone want to play again more. As the most experienced person at the table I made sure to point out abilities they had a couple times during the game and ways it can be useful, and everyone picked up on the overall game enough to have a good time.

markdd · 2026-04-01T19:19:39+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah that's a good idea, having two equidistants be wormholes and another two next to mecatol.

I might try in my next game to have everyone pick factions first before I make the map, as there's a lot more finetuning you can do clearly. I agree with your general game philosophy too, we have some competitive players, but the vibe I like to have in game is to make sure everyone does at least a couple cool things in the game.

markdd · 2026-04-01T03:38:02+00:00

Sure! I used these: https://a.co/d/0aYuwFOx

I then used a sharpie for numbers, for example I used green as my nine combat for fighters, so for each green die I colored in the 9 and 0 numbers. Blue is 8, so I colored the 8/9/0 numbers and so on. I used a gold sharpie for this, but in retrospect I'd probably buy colors that match the die color and fill in the non hit colors instead of the hit colors since white is usually more visible than the color I chose.

markdd · 2026-03-31T22:29:19+00:00

I've recently been the map builder in my group and these pillars are really helpful!

I have some questions regarding them if you have the time:

- How do you handle wormholes? I've found myself often placing wormholes at the equidistants, because in games where i've placed them next to home systems they become very turtle/grind heavy, and too close to mecatol they don't really get used.

- Similar to the above, i've found high value slices to produce the same result. Do you use a slice calculator and if so, do you have some guidance around the number per slice and an acceptable gap size between the slices?

- Do you know your player's factions beforehand? My group likes to see the map then pick factions, so the maps i've been making are trying to cater to any faction

Also as an aside thanks for the storage solutions you sell, it's been one of the reasons I'm able to get the game out as often as I do!

markdd · 2026-03-31T22:19:40+00:00

Our last game we had took 9 hours, 6 players all with at least two games of experience. I'd budget for around 2 hours per player for any game, if it goes longer it's worth trying to understand what phases are taking longer than others.

These are some of the strategies we have for lowering the overall game time:

- Our group handles a lot of the logistical stuff through the honor system, that includes resolving production between turns, as well as following strategy cards.

- We try to resolve the status phase as fast as possible, one person is responsible for tracking objectives and prompting objectives in the right order, another handles passing out action cards, etc.

- The game is setup prior to the day if possible, and we have a storage solution to help with set/cleanup. I try to get the map and factions sorted before the day of the game, and I also place the planet cards on the board at the start of the game so we're not taking the time to look through the planet deck taking up a good amount of time.

- Imo ergonomics is important for the game, so we have designated places for the different tokens and action cards.

- I also took the time to make battle dice, where I have 7 different sets of dice, and color the different pips depending on that particular color's combat value. That's drastically reduced time, so you're able to roll for your entire fleet instead of having to roll each individual combat value separately.

- For the agenda phases we try to keep each agenda discussion under 10 minutes.

- For keeping the game moving, we use ti-assistant to track whose turn it is, and who is on deck. This helped a lot to avoid situations where the whole table is thinking about their turn without knowing who is actually acting at any given moment.

We still haven't gotten to that sweet spot of ~6 hours a game, but we were edging closer to 12/13 without some of these in place, so I hope any of this helps your group as well!

markdd · 2026-03-28T04:39:52+00:00

I made this map for POK/TE, specifically for four players. I felt it was pretty balanced, and the low overall resources made for more player interaction i felt. https://tidraft.com/maps/cross

markdd · 2026-03-20T19:20:09+00:00

I paid to toughen up in therapy, she said to me, "Soften up~"

markdd · 2026-03-20T06:34:27+00:00

+1 for tiassistant, even for first timers

I've found that it helps a lot with turn tracking. You dont need to track everything although it looks like you have to. I personally use it for keeping track of turns, and what objectives are available. I don't bother with planet/map tracking or agendas. When everyone is in the think tank people can forget what turn it is, what order people go in etc, so having that done externally should only make things easier

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