Cheeseforce

A couple of years back M asked for an 'epic' boardgame. A quick Google for 'epic' and 'boardgame' led quickly to Twilight Imperium, or Twiglet Imperial as I occasionally irritate M by calling it.

Although some games I post here seem 'complicated' to those unfamiliar with them, this one really is complicated. That said, it's more deep than confusing - as illustrated by the very few times we needed to refer to the rules after reading them through. However, we were playing for 10 hours or so.

With the five players the game took up the entire doubly-extended table, and has more bits than you can throw a stick at. The above is just some of my counters.

I managed to save the total embarrassment of the male, Sci-Fi-enthusiastic, played-TI3-before, players by a last-minute catch-up with Ellis who had led throughout on her first play.

--
There are those who might ask what three Quakers are doing playing what is, essentially, a war game. There are many answers, but perhaps the most succinct is "Do you play chess?".

I'd not be comfortable playing a game that was explicitly, say, WWII-themed; it's not something to be trivialised. However, as a struggle for superiority is presented more and more abstractly there becomes a point where I can comfortably compete against opponents to that aim. Chess is simply further down the exact same war game scale.