There are a lot of things to spend resources on across all four sheets, and figuring out the best place to do so is part of the core strategy in Twilight Inscription. Maybe you want to discover new systems or race to Mecatol Rex on Navigation; perhaps you’d rather develop some planets on Expansion; you could always generate commodities to amass your wealth on Industry; or maybe you just want to build up your fleet on Warfare. You’ll gradually gain victory points no matter which sheet you invest in, but take care not to neglect any of them; otherwise, unexpected events could throw you off your game! Why only once a year? For those who don’t know, Twilight Imperium is a massive, brain-melter of a game. In my experience, it takes about an hour to walk through the rules with a quasi-experienced board gamer and can take anywhere from 8-12 hours to play depending on player count. It has a number of great elements: area control and wargaming, political intrigue and subterfuge, economy/resource building, and a tree of technology for you to research that will often vary depending on which alien race you’re playing. And those are just some of the elements of the game. The Saga Continued There’ll be no shortage of room to experiment too, with Twilight Inscription including all of the factions from both Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition and its expansion, Prophecy of Kings. Each faction comes with its own unique ability, a faithful translation of those seen in the original board game to the roll-and-write format. If that wasn’t enough of a way to shake things up from game to game, all four of the sheets have different A and B sides, which can be combined in any format - and with players able to use completely unique combinations in the same session, it looks to offer a huge amount of replayability and variation without changing the central gameplay. While it’s easy to know what to do on any particular turn – I will say that figuring out your overall strategy can be a bit opaque in your first few games. With four full sheets, it’s honestly a bit hard to visualize how they will work together. It’s hard to know how much emphasis to put on production or army strength. The warfare angle also depends on what your opponents are doing…

I’m not sure if this is my favourite heavy roll and write game. Hadrian’s Wall is excellent and I really enjoy Rome and Roll too. I think Twilight Inscription needs you to strategize more when you play. Those other two games I’m very much thinking, what is the best thing I can do this turn? Twilight Inscription has me thinking more about the bigger picture and about how these choices are affecting my path in general. I also feel like Twilight Inscription plays better with other people. A lot of Roll and Writes play well, if not at their best, solo. Twilight Inscription has a good solo mode, which is also used in a 2 player game, but the game absolutely shines with 3 or more players. That said, beyond the Warfare events, player interaction is pretty minimal. This is a mostly heads down, solo experience. All in all, striking the balance between Navigation, Expansion, Industry, and Warfare is the key to achieving victory. There are endless possible strategies that you could use to pull ahead of your opponents—the question is, which approach is the best for you? The game goes until the war event A Throne for the Taking Alone Amongst the StarsIn Twilight Inscription, you will choose one of 25 different factions, each representing the different alien races seeking to take over as rulers of the galactic empire. You are then presented with four sheets—Navigation, Exploration, Warfare, and Industry, as well as a neon-orange dry erase marker. You will navigate through 23-25 phases of the game, using resources and influence to explore the galaxy, claim planets, construct space armies, and accumulate both economic and political capital. These will give you opportunities to claim victory points and at the end of the game, whoever has the most victory points wins! Twilight Inscription takes the epic experience of the 4x behemoth Twilight Imperium and shrinks it down into a roll and write. That doesn’t mean this is a small game though. Twilight Inscription is an epic roll and write which plays 1-8 players, each of whom will have 4 dry erase sheets to fill in. These cover each of those 4 X’s; eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. I have always wanted to play Twilight Imperium, but the high player count, complexity, and most importantly, game length, prevented me from doing so. Well, at least until Fantasy Flight Games announced a new game premiering at Gen Con 2022. A much more streamlined version of their flagship IP called Twilight Inscription? Sign me up!! Wait… it’s a roll and write? And it still takes two hours? Seriously?? Inscription is a very different game from Imperiumbut shares a core of strategic, enticing gameplay that provides ample experimentation and replay room for established gamers. Inscription relies less on in person interaction too, which may be a blessing to the less outgoing amongst us.

In Twilight Inscription, each player assumes the role of a major faction from the Twilight Imperium universe as they expand from their homeworld into the galaxy. Through technological superiority, military power, and industrial zeal, each faction seeks to become the dominant force within the galaxy. Twilight Imperium’s imposing length combines with a fairly steep climb up its rules for newcomers - expect to add at least a couple of extra hours for teaching first time around - and enough cardboard tiles and plastic spaceships to leave most tables creaking. In short, it’s a board game that asks a lot of you. There is a lot of game here, and I’ve been pretty engaged through my games thus far. The game length is admittedly on the upper end of the spectrum for me, but like I said, the game keeps you involved throughout – and I’ve been happy to play this so far. There is a lot of solitaire play in the game, though you interact with other players in the War turns as well as the council voting. For me, it’s a pretty good balance; I admittedly like games where I have my own area that other people can’t mess with… but I wouldn’t want to do that alone for 2 hours. The 32 sheets included in Twilight Inscription are double sided – one side is the same for every player and the other is asymmetrical.If the words 'technology embargo' and 'trade-fleet subsidization' fill you with dread, Twilight Imperium might not be for you (Image credit: Future) Navigation – a map of the galaxy/universe. You start in the lower left in your home system. You can explore new systems by drawing lines to the next one in the path. You can claim systems by circling them. The icons needed for each icon are shows in the chart in the upper left. You’ll see Mercatol Rex in the upper right; furthest away from your home system. There are bonuses for reaching this planet (as it is the fallen capital of the Empire), especially if you are the first to make it there. As players reach Mercatol Rex, they write their faction name on the topmost available slot on the chart, gaining both the VP and votes to the left of the line. The problem is: how often do you really have time for a 12 hour battle of politico-economic galactic warfare? The strengths of Imperium’s size and complexity are also huge weaknesses; a failing that Fantasy Flight have aimed to correct with their new roll & write game set in the same universe: Twilight Inscription.

The Warfare sheet is among the more complicated, with players needing to divide their units between four different war events and battles with each of their table neighbours. Final Score: 4 Stars – A unique game that offers direct interaction and the most choices (so far) in roll and write history. Between all the factions you can play as and the different player sheets you can use, no two games of Twilight Inscription will feel quite the same. Now, let’s take a look at the things you’ll be doing during a game.

Twilight Inscription is a competitive roll and write for one to eight players, with games lasting between 90 and 180 minutes, depending on the number of players and their knowledge of the game.

The use of the Twilight Imperium IP, and the expectation that this game is a distillation of that game's substance into a more abstract form really don't do the game any justice because it does such a good job of distilling the mechanics of Twilight Imperium down that it distills the soul right the hell out. Now, having said that I will admit that the more I play Twilight Inscription the more I like it, but I've also completely shifted my expectations for the game, and in making that adjustment I've really started to see just what this game has to offer. Does Twilight Inscription Set Itself Apart From Other Roll And Writes? As roll and write games go, it’s also surprisingly interactive. Winning wars isn’t such a huge deal in this regard. You can try and keep up with the military totals of your neighbours, but failing to do so just means a few lost resources and victory points; it’s not zero-sum where what one player loses is gained by another. No, the big interactive engine is the council votes. These involve drawing a random motion that has a specific pass-or-fail effect which will benefit some players and damage others depending on how their strategies are evolving. Then you use votes you’ve gained to support or oppose the motion. It’s an exciting moment that can have a big impact on how the game unfolds. After spending half an hour digesting Twilight Inscription’s meaty basics, one thing was clear: any worries that the roll-and-write would be a shallow imitation of Twilight Imperium can be dispelled. Twilight Inscription is by some distance the most complex and lengthy roll-and-write game I’ve ever played, and - while it’s understandably not quite as deep as the board game - doesn’t skimp at all on the potential for rewarding strategy and hard-fought competition. While much of this review has focused on how players who have played Twilight Imperium might feel about Twilight Inscription, it is important to look at this from the other direction as well. If you have friends who you would like to bring into the Twilight Imperium universe, Twilight Inscription is a much more accessible entry point. It does not require any knowledge of the original to enjoy the game or play it well. In the same way that knowing Twilight Imperium might help you learn Twilight Inscription faster, having played the roll-and-write could make someone feel less overwhelmed and daunted by the immense Twilight Imperium experience. Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Twilight Inscription, a brand-new game in the Twilight Imperium universe!The plus side here is that player count has much less impact than is common. The box accurately promises a playtime of 90-120 minutes. We managed our first full two player game, including learning the rules, in just over two hours, and repeated play is much faster. I suspect at 8 players you might find that extends by half an hour or so, but nothing like the exponential change you see in many games. The solo and two-player variants also use a simple and effective AI that feels much better implemented than elsewhere. The largest difference in the two games is the absence of the board.In Twilight Imperium, you are all on the same board interacting with each other and the decisions of another player might severely hurt or help your strategy. In Twilight Inscription each of you are on your own individual boards. While this is common in roll-and-writes, this takes away from the communal aspect of the original game’s experience. If you are that type of player, Twilight Inscription may not be the game for you. The Takeaway What it isn’t, however, is Twilight Imperium. Without armadas to manoeuvre across the map, without the mystery of a flip-tile map to explore, without the edge of untrustworthy diplomacy, it doesn’t feel like the same game at all. While it’s interactive for a roll and write, it’s not remotely interactive compared with even the tamest tactical skirmish or auction game. Nor does it generate much in the way of memorable narrative. It is, rather, a gigantic optimisation exercise with a constant flow of random inputs to keep it tantalisingly fresh with every turn of every play. Handling other players is just another variable on the intergalactic highway to becoming the master of the universe. Should you buy Twilight Inscription?