Twilight Imperium – Shattered Ascension

Strategy Guide
There is currently only one in-depth strategy guide for TI3 out there, which is for the base game and
outdated. This guide is an attempt to help new players along in their games of Shattered Ascension. So
what is Twilight Imperium Shattered Ascension? Shattered Ascension (=SA) is a rule set for the epic
board game Twilight Imperium (=TI3). Twilight Imperium is a space opera board game involving 2-8
players vying to be crowned Emperor of the Galaxy. The winner is decided not by the largest empire or
the strongest fleet (though those things definitely help) but by being the first to reach the needed
amount of victory points. This makes it quite hard for beginners to evaluate the state of the game as the
power of a player in terms of territorial, military and political power – commonly summarized as board
position – needs to be weighed against his chances to win the game outright through the victory points
he already has accumulated.

Where can you (currently = November 2017) play Shattered Ascension?

You can head over to http://www.astralvault.net/ to get all the components to transform your physical
copy of Twilight Imperium into Shattered Ascension or you can play it online either in pbf forums or
through Tabletop Simulator.

The following guide assumes that you have read the rules and are familiar with the basic mechanics of
the game.

Overview of the Game

A typical game of TI3SA is played to 12 Victory Points (=VP) and runs over the course of five or six rounds
and can be roughly separated into four phases: Setup as well as early, mid and late game. Each phase
has its specific focus but the general trend is an increasing importance of Victory Points and a decreasing
importance of board position.

Setup of the Game:

Each game of TI3SA begins with the setup and even during the setup important decisions are being
made. The most important questions in setup:

How many VPs are needed to win the game?

The more VPs you need, the more important board position becomes over scoring victory points early
and the more favored ‘slow but powerful’ races become. Through playtesting a victory condition of 12
VP has been found to be optimal.

Are racial objectives in play?

Racial objectives mean more VPs are around to claim leading to a shorter game (adjust the target VP by
roughly 2). In general it is recommended not to include racial objectives.
How is the map?
A large open map favors quicker races while a small and tight map (few empty systems) favors the slow
and heavy.

Which Secret Objective have you been dealt?

While it is generally possible to achieve every secret objective with every race, some are more favored
than others. Some Secret Objectives are easier on specific maps or they favor the play style you prefer.
In general, it’s often better to decide on a SO first and then go for the races and starting positions that
make reaching this objective easier.
Example: You have drawn Forceful and Focused. On the map there is no starting position that has a
reasonable access to three tech discounts of the same color. Thus you should probably look to play for
Forceful, select a race that won’t raise any eyebrows when building dreadnought (e.g. Lizix or Winnu)
and select a starting location that has a reasonable access to Mecatol Rex.

Be sure not fixate too much on a specific race/starting location and keep your options open (e.g. if I
don’t get race XYZ or if I’m shut out of a these three starting locations, I’ll go for the other SO and pursue
a different start).

Race Selection
Depending on the initial die roll, you can either pursue your plan for the map more easily by picking first
or you can react to the choices of your opponents. Both have their own advantages. Pick a race that you
want to play and that does not run counter to your Secret Objective. All races are competitive in
Shattered Ascension, so electing to pass in order to receive a random race is a valid option as well in
case you don’t have a pick you really want to play.

Bidding for Starting Position

The bid for initial starting positions is more art than science as there are too many factors to consider as
to give hard rules. There are still a few guidelines that come in handy:

1. Don’t perform a bid, that leaves you two (or more) TG over the next highest bid. Have more
than one starting location that you can live with.
2. If you are a ‘squishy’ race, don’t let yourself be surrounded by early powerhouses.
3. Try not to end in a situation, where you have to go through an opponent to expand or move on
the map. This really limits your options.
4. If you need an early strategy card pick for your opening, don’t bid too high (i.e. at least 1-2 TG
lower than the highest bid) on the starting positions and save TG for the speaker.

Generally, bids for the home systems range from 0-3 TG. How high you can bid is influenced by the
amount of the TG already on the board. Bidding 5TG for a HS isn’t so painful, if 4 out of the 5 available
positions have 4TG on them already. Bidding 5 TG when the other four players get their home system
for free can spell disaster.

Bidding for Speaker

For the speaker token the bid is easier. If you have bid a lot for your home system – don’t bid much for
the speaker. If you need an early pick, be prepared to bid more. Remember, that you can recoup some
TG from the speaker by receiving bribes to turn the rotation cycler.
Secret Objective Selection
By now, you should have locked down one SO. Assess the setup once more and then discard the one
that you are less likely to score.

Early Game
The Early Game comprises rounds one and two. In the early game it is important to build up your board
position. Expand, build up units, get essential techs. Every unit loss in the early game is painful and
therefore all fights should be carefully considered. While it is great to already score objectives in the
early game, don’t go out of your way to score one VP while hurting your expansion. A strong board
position secures you the potential to score in later rounds and getting one VP early is not worth losing
out on three VP later.

For the first round it is important to plan out the round. Your opponents are still pretty far away and
your home system cannot be activated by anyone but you. Thus you can plan out your sequence of
turns in advance and you should. Determine, which systems you want to expand to and what you need
in order to achieve your goals. Plan out when you need the crucial strategy cards played and try to
establish deals for them. Try to avoid fights if it does not relate to crucial objectives for you. Deals are
preferred over skirmishes in order to secure contested systems. If you are able to build ships in round
one, you are often in an advantage over your neighbors.
Remember, that the early expansion consists of two rounds. In the second round the easy systems are
distributed and quick attacks are a viable option to expand. If you cannot grab a good territory in round
one but were able to build ships you can even the score in round two. Just consider, that it’s probably a
bad idea to make mortal enemies this early into the game. Prefer to take systems that are not vital to
you and your neighbors with your military if you go this way. That way chances are good to smooth
things over soon. Another potential goal for round two is to establish your first space dock outside your
home system.

Mid Game
In the mid game, the expansion slows down because there are few or no neutral planets left to take.
Tensions rise and border skirmishes become more common.

The Mid Game is where you try to bring yourself into a position to win the game. Starting with round
three, victory points should become a strong focus and you should be able to score a public objective
every round. If you have your objective for the round already lined up, then taking bureaucracy is an
option to catch up or get ahead.

It is now, that you should start to become an idea, how you want to end the game. Do you want to score
your secret objective? Then get into position to do so. Do you want to control artifacts/planets? Then
build the units you need to take them.

Now is also the time the first conflicts start. Try to avoid being seen as a warmonger – even if you want
to play aggressive and even if you are playing a warlike/aggressive race and even if you clearly have the
upper hand against your target. It’s always good to be able to present reason for aggression, be it slights
by your neighbor, objectives that require to attack or him being too strong in some way or form. It’s also
a good idea, to limit your conquest against a single opponent to one or two systems. Gaining too much
territory usually results in opponents starting to actively work against you and you don’t want alliances
forming against you. On the flipside, taking too much off a single opponent will make him a mortal
enemy that will throw everything against you. Sometimes your opponent will proclaim eternal war upon
you taking even a minor system off them. A good rule of thumb is that the more aggressive losing
players in a conflict behave, the more ruthless should you aim to take them out. Eliminating a
belligerent opponent in general does not incur the same diplomatic penalty than elimination “because
you can”.

To summarize: Build up your empire, score victory points and position yourself for your winning move –
while preventing others from doing so. Ideally you do this while not accruing mortal enemies.

End Game
The end game starts when you or someone else is in position to win the game. In this end stage you can
throw away board position as long as you get those victory points. I have won games where I had less
than 3 ships to my name. It didn’t matter, because after you reach the win condition the game ends.
Units and planets are just a means to achieve victory points in the mid to long term. During the end
game you need victory points and you need them in this round – or maybe the next. There are two
situations you can be in when the end game comes around:

1) You are in a position to win yourself

This is what you work towards for the whole game. Ideally, you also prevented you opponent from
reaching this point and you are the only one to win. It’s even better, when you are the only one who
knows, that you can win this round. Often however, it comes down to who has the most patience and
who is the hardest to stop. Try to be the last to make a bid for the necessary VPs because it’s usually
easier to capture the objectives you need (planet count & artifacts) than to hold them until the end of
the round. Stall and have your competitors for the win try first and get stopped by others so there are
less resources available to stop you.

2) Others can win this round but you can’t reasonably

In this case it’s your job to prevent a victory by anyone while you score VPs and get into a position to
win yourself. This is the phase where you want to stop anyone trying to make a bid for the win ideally by
using mostly other players’ resources. When looking around wondering which players to stop, you
should consider stopping those first that have the most amount of secure VPs. Those are VPs that do not
come from a green objective (i.e. Artifacts, Voice of the Council and planet numbers). The more green
VPs a player has, the easier it is to take VPs from him to keep him from reaching the victory conditions.

A final word:
Sometimes it won’t be possible to win due to circumstance, mistakes, bad luck or a combination
thereof. I’m of the personal opinion, that each victory point counts. This game – in my opinion – is
meant to be played to achieve the best possible result for the race you possibly can get. Be the guy that
gets remembered for reaching second place after facing horrible setbacks early on and not the guy that
unhinged the game just because things weren’t going his way. If you can’t be the king, be the prince and
not the kingmaker.
Strategy Cards
One of the key decisions each round is selection of your strategy card in the strategy phase. As the
holder of a strategy card, you are the only one to benefit from its primary ability while all opponents can
only access the usually much weaker secondary. The other advantage for the holder of the card is that
you can choose when to play it. Both considerations – as well as availability – should influence the
choice of your strategy pick. Sometimes your plan depends on a primary ability, sometimes the
secondary ability would do as well, but you need to be sure of its timing so better pick it yourself. The
final aspect of choosing your card is the initiative number it comes with. Often it’s crucial, that you act
before another player, so pick accordingly.
As you can see, the choice of cards is often dictated by your plans while on the flipside your plans are
often dictated by the strategy cards available to you. That makes it very hard to give general guidelines
which card to pick or even produce a clear power ranking. Therefor I will discuss in the following
segment the perks each card generally brings to the table.
Remember, that the order of executing a secondary ability, starts from the holder of the card and goes
in order of rotation.

1 – Leadership
Primary – Progressive Campaigns
Gain 3 Command Counters. You may then immediately execute the secondary ability of this card.

Secondary – Executive Commands

You may purchase Command Counters by spending influence. The cost of the first [Command Counter]
is 1 influence while the cost of each successive purchase is increased by one. The cost may be paid in
bulk.

Leadership is special in the regard that the holder can participate in the secondary as well as benefitting
from the primary. On the flip side, the difference between the primary and the secondary ability of
Leadership is only a difference in scale and not a difference in kind. The primary ability just gives you
more Command Counters (CC) but no further ability.

Obviously, Leadership is a very useful card as CCs give you more turns to act, but its true power comes
from picking Leadership in the right situations. For one, Leadership has the lowest initiative number.
Apart from the Naalu and certain action cards you will be the first to act – and strike. Leadership also
grows in power the fewer CCs are on the race sheets. Stalling Leadership until opponents are forced to
pass is a potent method to gain a significant advantage over a neighbor or to cash in massive bribes as
players are usually planning their moves with CCs purchased from Leadership in mind. You won’t be
making many friends, but the gains can be significant. For this you just need two more actions than
potential targets.

In the first round Leadership is a strong pick for three reasons. Firstly, it allows you to participate in in
more than two secondary abilities yielding a strong first round. Secondly, it allows you have the initiative
over rivals. In the first round, the one who claims a system first is often the one keeping it as there is a
high inhibition to attack when you could claim other stuff. Finally, it allows you to grab a system in the
very first turn, given the right starting location.
2 – Diplomacy
Primary – Demilitarized Zones
Choose either a) or b).
a) Take one CC from the reinforcements of each opponent and place them in (one or more) systems
containing your planets.
b) Execute the Secondary Ability of this card with no cost.
Special – A player performing a hostile action against you must either exhaust or lose control of a planet
he controls.

Secondary – Annexation Treat

Spend 1 CC from Strategy Allocation and 2 Influence in order to claim an empty non-Home System
planet in a system adjacent to a system containing friendly ships or planets.

Diplomacy is a dual use strategy. On the one hand, it can protect you from attacks by preventing
valuable systems from being attacked and taxing any attacker that targets an unprotected system. On
the other hand, it allows you to expand without the use of force. You can take over any planet that is
empty – be it neutral or controlled by an opponent. When taking over a neutral planet, you discard any
domain counters – good and bad. It is noteworthy, that Mecatol Rex cannot be taken over by
Annexation Treaty nor can any home system planet. Annexing a planet from your opponent does not
count as a hostile action and thus does not break trade agreements and it’s the go-to method to
exchange planets between allies. It is important to note, that the holder of the Diplomacy card is
immune to Annexation Treaty.

The value of the Diplomacy strategy card is heavily dictated by circumstance. The special makes you an
unattractive target especially in the early game where the likelihood of the aggressor having an
unimportant planet to exhaust or lose is low and the value of the lost resources is high. The early game
is typically when the option b) of the primary (and thus the secondary ability) is at its strongest as it
helps you to take over planets blocked by detrimental domain counters, extends the range of your
expansion or even pick up planets that opponents left empty when their frontier moved on.

In contrast, the option a) of Diplomacy increases in value later in the game, where shielding one flank for
even one round can mean the difference between a successful attack and getting stabbed by your
former ally. Note that in the SA version, you can protect different systems from different opponents so
don’t waste the ability on systems your opponents cannot reach anyhow. On the flip side it only works
in systems where you control planets, so you cannot block important special or void systems where your
fleet is stationed. It is also important to consider, that due to its initiative number of 2, you still have to
worry about a potential attacker picking Leadership. So ideally you have an ally you trust pick up
Leadership.

Diplomacy is unique in that it’s modified by a technology. With Xenopsychology, Annexation Treaty
becomes a potent aggressive tool. Suddenly a planet needs to have at least two ground units to be
protected, which is very hard to achieve on a large scale for many races. The more races have
Xenopsychology, the higher the value of Diplomacy as it provides its holder immunity to Annexation
Treaty.
In the first round the value of Diplomacy heavily depends on your starting position, but it’s very rarely a
top tier pick. If you have a system with a single high value planet ideally blocked by a strong domain
counter, then it’s value is rather high – though the secondary ability of Diplomacy is sufficient to claim
that planet. Else it falls behind other strong picks that are superior in the first round.

3 – Assembly
Primary – The Twilight Council
Draw 2 Action Cards and 2 Political Cards. Then choose either a) or b).
a) Claim the Speaker token and choose three revealed agendas to be voted on. You may not choose your
own agenda.
b) Choose another player to hold the speaker token and choose any revealed agenda to be voted on.
You may then select up to three agendas to be either included in the voting or to be placed on the
discard pile.

Secondary – Hidden Agendas

Spend 1 CC from SA to draw one Action Card and one Political Card. Then you may discard and re-draw
on card of each type from your hand.

Assembly is the gate to the political aspect of the game. When it is activated, all races gather to discuss
and vote on the agendas. The other effect of this strategy is the re-assignment of the speaker token,
changing the order or strategy picks. Especially in larger rounds it might be needed to claim the speaker
token first in order to get access to one of the contested strategy cards. Finally, one should not
underestimate the value of the two action cards the assembly holder is able to draw.

Naturally, the value of Assembly is highly dependent on the revealed agendas and the available votes. If
you are holding a large amount of votes and there are impactful agendas revealed that you can use to
your advantage, Assembly is a powerful pick as you can bring those agendas to the vote that benefit
you. On the flip side, even if you have very few votes, Assembly can be a crucial pick if there are agendas
that your opponents can use to harm you specifically or that benefit your opponents disproportionally.
In such a case picking Assembly and bringing only low impact agendas – those agendas that either
benefit everyone roughly equally or that do very little to nothing – to the table

The secondary ability of Assembly is especially valuable, if you have a poor action card. Being able to
discard a nearly useless card for another draw greatly increases the value of this secondary. If you don’t
have an action card that you want to recycle, the ability loses attractiveness.

In the first round, Assembly is a strong pick for races that have a high influence value stemming from
their home system – especially if many others are low on influence. Prime candidates here are Jol-Nar,
Xxcha, Winnu & Yssaril. Often you’ll have a juicy agenda on the table in the first round that you can take
advantage of. If you can’t set up Assembly domination, the first round value goes down quite a bit
though the combination of speaker and 2 ACs is still quite good.
4 – Production
Primary – Industrial Focus
Choose a system. Each of your Space Docks in this system may immediately produce units without
activating the system, even if the system is already activated. You receive 2 additional resources to
spend on this build.

Secondary – Muster Ordnance

Spend 1 CC from SA to produce up to 3 production capacity worth of units at one of your Space Docks
without activating the system, even if the system is already activated.

Production is an enormous boost to the amount of units a race can bring onto the board and to the
speed at which units can be deployed. The ability to build without activating is really powerful, as it
allows for an instant use of the units just produced as opposed to having to wait a until the next round.
It also means you can use your space docks twice per round, massively increasing the build capacity that
is available to you for the round. Building at a space dock triggers Sarween Tools for extra synergy.

The Primary ability gives two free resources to build and allows a single system containing at least one
space dock to produce at full capacity. Even if you cannot afford to build twice, you still have the tempo
advantage of building and immediately moving out. It also saves you a CC that you would have used to
activate the producing system. On top of it, the primary allows you to determine the timing of
production, which is often quite important – early on when fleet supply is limiting and later when you
need it to reinforce in time or deny that. All things taken together, Production is one of the strongest all-
round picks and is usually highly contested. Note that you can use Transfabrication with the primary
ability without limitation.

The secondary of Production likewise is one of the most utilized secondary abilities as well. While it
allows one the production of three production capacity worth of units, this often can make the
difference between having a carrier to take a planet or not, being able to hold a system against an attack
or not or being able to attack with overwhelming force or not. The secondary of production is especially
valuable, if you have very low production capacity in general (e.g. Saar early on) or your fleet
composition relies on costly units where the secondary alone can put 5+ resources worth of military on
the board. Note that units scuttled through Transfabrication during the secondary give you the
resources but do not increase the build capacity over the limit of 3.

In the first round, Production very often is the very first pick – for a good reason. It allows you to bolster
your colonialization forces resulting in one, two or even three extra systems being taken. In addition, the
timing of Production in the first round is very important as many races start maxed out on fleet supply,
which means they would miss out on the secondary which often means one less colonialized system.
This in turn gives the holder of Production a leverage to influence the timing of other crucial cards,
adding to the benefits of an already strong pick.
5 – Trade
Primary – Interstellar Commerce
Choose either a) or b):
a) Receive 3 Trade Goods. You may then execute the Secondary Ability at no cost.
b) Break all Trade Agreements in play. All players may collect half (round up) of their unclaimed Trade
Goods.
After either choice, Trade Agreements may be opened at your discretion (you are the Trade Master).

Secondary – Realize Profits

Spend 1 CC from SA to collect all Trade Goods from your Trade Agreements and add them to your Trade
Goods area.

The Trade Strategy does one thing – it injects additional resources in form of Trade Goods into the
galaxy. Even if the holder chooses to break all existing agreements, every player still gets to collect on
their Trade Agreements (TAs) for half the TGs. Given that the galaxies of Shattered Ascension are often
poor in comparison to RAW galaxies, Trade can often make up a significant portion of a players income.
This is compounded by the fact, that the value of trade agreements is independent from the size of the
territory so you quite often see the more peaceful races after being bullied draw 50% or more of their
resources from good trades. One thing of note is that the value of the Trade strategy is dependent on
the frequency of it being picked. As Trade is usually one of the lower priority picks, its value is further
diminished in 5-player games where three strategies remain unpicked every round and has a higher
value in 4-player and 8-player games where there is only one strategy unpicked every round.

Trade agreements are a solid deterrent for aggression as the mechanisms of trade insure, that there is
almost never a TA without trade goods on it. In case of a TA being broken through a hostile action, the
aggressor collects nothing while the ‘victim’ collects full. However, utilizing your valuable agreements to
buy peace only make sense, if you are not also conceding the border systems. Being bullied out of both
TAs and planets leaves you without income and presents you as an easy target. If you have to cede
territory, it’s often better to barter your high value TA for an equal TA from another peaceful race facing
a similar predicament – that way you have income that you can turn into defenses to make yourself an
unattractive target. On the flip side, when there are no equal value trade partners around, presenting a
warlike race with a juicy TA often allows you to grab – and keep – a system of strategic importance for
yourself.

The conjecture of trade and strategic alliances is one of the hidden powers of the Trade Strategy.
Especially in the first turn, being the trade master and deciding who will formalize their borders with
whom lets you set the stage for your own plans. Later in the game, the title of trade master is less useful
as there are usually only very few TAs to be re-opened and there are fewer rounds left to collect on. An
exception is the execution of option b) to break all trade and rearrange. In theory, the fees you can
leverage from your trade master position should even up the opportunity cost of not choosing the first
option. In practice, you lose 3 TG plus half the TG on your TAs (round down), which is very hard to earn
back through being the trade master plus you are annoying all other players on the table. Using option
b) to break up alliances is also a difficult proposition because it’s very telegraphed and ham-fisted. The
diplomatic cost is rarely worth the potential gains. However, should the distribution of trade be very
lopsided or should you have been frozen out of trade (or only granted one TA), you can shift some
blame onto the previous trade master to mitigate diplomatic fall-out and mask intentions to reshape the
strategic network. In general though, pick option a) unless you have a very good reason not to.

As for the secondary ability, it comes down to the value of TGs vs CC. The smaller the empire, the less
CCs are needed and the higher the portion of income derived from trade – with the reverse being true
as well. In addition consider the likelihood of an attack from your trade partners. If one is imminent and
you don’t need the resources from trade to build defenses, let it stack to collect for free.

In the first round, Trade is a top tier pick unless your strategy specifically demands something else. The
extra TG you get from option a), the trade fees you can leverage as trade master, the option to shape
the trading networks plus the opportunity to trade your TAs up in value make it a very powerful first
round pick.

6 – Warfare
Special:
After Secondary Abilities of this card have been conducted, you may immediately perform one Tactical
Action paid from reinforcements.

Primary – High Alert

Place the High Alert Token (HAT) in a system. You receive +1 to all combat rolls in the system. All ships in
the same system as the token receive +1 movement. You may move the token along with ships.

Secondary – Dispatch
Spend 1 CC from SA to move up to two of your ships from unactivated systems into adjacent systems
that contain no enemy ships. This does not activate the destination system(s). Cargo may be picked up
during this movement.

Warfare is the strategy most directly related to board position. The primary ability not only gives you a
sizable advantage in battle but also allows you to boost the range of a complete fleet. On top you
receive a free tactical action which saves your one CC from the Command Pool.

While many new players see the Warfare pick as a sign of aggression, the strategy is just as often used
purely to relocate forces. Especially early on, the range gained by the HAT allows slow races to keep
pace in the initial expansion as it powers up the movement of all ships in a system, allowing them to
move into different destination systems (leaving the HAT at the initial location). The actual combat
bonus grows more powerful, as the number of combat dice of a fleet grows, but the Warfare pick will
telegraph potential attacks. In such cases, it’s usually best to position yourself for a strategy pick prior to
your target, move your fleet in range at the end of one round and then pick the lowest initiative number
available so you can beat your target to the punch. Waging war successfully using Warfare relies on the
element of surprise. If your actual target thinks you are going after someone else, you can often put
your fleet in range through the HAT and strike.

The secondary ability is powerful in its own right. In response to seeing the HAT putting your systems in
range of a fleet, you can spend a CC from SA to block the path buying yourself time and/or discouraging
the attack altogether. The secondary ability is also useful to make small movements that would be
inefficient to make with a full activation. Taking control of void or special systems to block enemy
movement, bringing a carrier in range of a neutral system or moving slow dreadnoughts towards the
front lines are typical uses. Especially around ion storms and nebulas the secondary ability shines as it
allows you to bypass their movement obstructing effects. Also note, that movement through Warfare
secondary does not trigger PDS fire, so it’s a way to sneak past a PDS grid that you would like to avoid.

In the first round, the value of Warfare is dependent on the innate mobility and unit setup of your race.
Very often, the difference between range 1 and range 2 on your carriers massively increases your
options. On many maps, very valuable systems are placed at a distance of three or higher from the
closest starting location, so being able to reach those through warfare makes the pick desirable even for
the mobile races.

7 – Technology
Primary – Technological Focus
Choose either a) or b):
a) Receive one Technology Advance for which you have the prerequisites.
b) Execute the Secondary Ability of this card up to three time without paying CC from SA. The cost may
be paid in bulk.

Secondary – Advanced Research

Spend one CC from SA to purchase a Technology Advance for 5 resources. All prerequisites are required
for this purchase. Artifacts and active technology specialties of the associated color reduce the resource
cost of the technology.

The Technology strategy is – at first glance – a very straight forward card allowing all races to acquire
new technology. Under closer examination, however, it becomes clear that a lot of focus around this
strategy is based on overall game plan. Players planning to get only very basic techs don’t value
Technology very highly (apart from the very early rounds). While it saves up to 5 resources and a CC,
these benefits are minor compared to what other strategies offer.

The Primary ability shines, if you game plan revolves around reaching higher level tech. While pursuing
such a game plan, getting Technology in the mid game is crucial as it allows you to gain three
technologies in one round reaching your target tech that much quicker. The sooner you get a powerful
technology the longer you can reap its rewards before the game ends. In the first two rounds it is a great
pick for most races because it lets your get the tech you need without paying the hefty 5-resource price
tag. Later, however, the increased resource income and the availability of tech specialties make option
a) less attractive compared to the secondary ability. It is still a decent pick, but without a tech focus in
your game plan there are better cards out there. After round 2, option b) becomes the true prize of this
strategy card. It allows you to blitz through sections of the tech tree in one round acquiring high end
tech relatively early. This is best set up early by gathering multiple matching tech specialties – ideally
boosted by a scientist – to bring down the cost of a color to 1-2 resources. Classic examples are the
L1Z1X Mindnet grabbing as many red tech specs as they can in round one to gain Automated Defense
Turrets, Assault Cannons and Graviton Negator in round 2 to be set up for Fleet Logistics in round 3 or
Hacan getting multiple red tech specialties early to grab Impulsion Shields, Deep Space Cannons and
War Sun technology in one round, producing war suns really early. The timing of Technology can be
important for three reasons. For one, it may enable you to perform things previously out of reach. For
example acquiring War Sun tech to immediately build one. In that case you will want to activate
Technology just before you plan to do what you need your tech for. If you want to use option b), it’s
often wise to tech early as every tech specialty that you lose (e.g. when exhausting planets for CCs or for
production) until you actually research hurts you a lot. Finally, if neither of the above applies, it often
makes sense to tech late pushing your opponents into exhausting their tech specialty planets driving up
the price for them.

The secondary ability is very straight forward. You pay a CC, you pay resources, you get the tech. Due to
the price attached this decision should always be made carefully. Do you really need the technology? If I
skip technology now, do I reach my target tech in a reasonable time frame? Will I have more tech
specialties later? This is very much dependent on your game plan and the situation, so you need to
make your own choice. Be aware, that acquiring a tech can expand the reach of fleets, so the tech
secondary can be used to set up attacks. Prime candidates here are the techs Ion Drive and especially
Maneuvering Jets. Many players rely on the stopping power of an ion storm to protect crucial systems. If
you pick an SC between Technology and their initiative, you can acquire Maneuvering Jets and attack
before they had a chance to react to your tech purchase. The same goes with Ion Drive enabling a
carrier to suddenly move further than previously possible. Be aware of those possibilities.

In the first round, Technology is a very powerful pick as the value of resources is at a premium, barely
anyone has tech specialties and many races need additional tech to expand the range of their initial
colonialization. Especially the Mentak Coalition completely relies on acquiring stasis capsules before
moving out. Many other races want to acquire XRD transports ASAP, so having Technology in the first
round not only saves you a massive amount of resources but also gives you timing leverage.

8 – Bureaucracy
Special: Each time a bonus counter is added to this card, reveal an Objective Card of the current stage.

Primary – Senatorial Control

Receive 1 CC. Openly draw three cards from the stage I objective deck. Choose and place one face-up in
the common play area. The remaining cards may be placed either at the top and/or the bottom of the
deck. You may then immediately claim any one Public Objective you qualify for. You may flip the
Rotation Cycler for 1 influence.

Secondary – Galactic Network

Spend 1 CC from SA to relocate a leader on the board and gain a Trade Good. You may then reallocate
your CCs on your race sheet.

Bureaucracy gives you advantages directly related to objectives. Not only can you influence which
objectives are getting into play, you can also claim one public objective outside of status phase. This of
course is of massive importance if the VPs of this objective let you win the game, but also if you couldn’t
claim objectives early, it lets you catch up in the race. The secondary offers a mixed bag of smaller
benefits.

With the primary ability being tightly linked to objectives and VP it’s obvious that the value of
Bureaucracy starts out low and continuously increases. This strategy doesn’t help you to improve your
board position, which is important early, but it lets you claim extra VP which is the most important thing
later in the game. However, even earlier in the game, Bureaucracy has its uses. The choice of which
objective to bring into play and what to do with the alternatives is powerful – especially if Bureaucracy
isn’t being picked in the following round allowing the agenda you put on top to be put into play
automatically. It allows you to shift the focus of the game towards areas your own race is strong at and
avoid its weaker areas. The ability to claim an objective outside of status phase is doubly useful. For one,
it allows you to circumvent the one-public-objective-per-round limitation, letting you either catch up or
even take the lead. Bureaucracy also might open up objectives for scoring that would have been hard or
impossible to score. You don’t have to fulfill the criteria during status phase, but only at the moment of
playing Bureaucracy. So if you want to score “I have more influence than either of my neighbors”, you
can offer a deal to your neighbors that they delay taking influence rich planets while you take them
early. Once you meet the criteria, you score and can now fall behind on influence again without a
problem. Finally, there is the matter of the rotation cycler, which can hugely influence your position of
picking strategy cards. Especially during a conflict, it’s important to be able to pick before your enemy,
so you can have the initiative. It also allows you to strike deals with the holder of Assembly in respect of
who should get the speaker.

The secondary is of situational use. Both the trade good and the reallocation of command counters
allow you to fix minor problems. The most powerful asset of this secondary is the ability to relocate a
leader – even from an activated system. That allows your agents to capture installations in multiple
systems, your generals to lead two invasions or your diplomats to arrive at the planets that are actually
under threat.

In the first round, the value of Bureaucracy is very low compared to other cards. It does nothing for your
board position, has a late initiative and odds are, that you cannot score the objectives available anyhow.
This strategy goes unpicked in the first round nearly every game.

9 – Prospect
Primary – Recoordination
Choose either a), b) or c):
a) Openly draw two Stage I Objective Cards. Place one back to the deck (top or bottom) and one face-up
by your race sheet. Only you may claim this objective.
b) Receive 2 Trade Goods, one Action Card and one Political Card
c) You may immediately relocate your Leaders to any friendly planets or fleets. Then recycle up to three
Action- or Political Cards for new cards of the same type.

Prospect is used in games with 4, 7 or 8 players in order to expand the choices of the later picks. It’s also
unique in that is has no secondary ability for others to use. That makes it very flexible in regards to
timing.

The primary ability offers three options. Option a) is very valuable in the long term, especially if multiple
public objectives are very hard to fulfill by the majority of the table. It gives you a private objective that
only you can score. Remember, that scoring this objective counts towards the limit of one public
objective (even if it’s a private public objective). The utility of Prospect option a) increases, if
Bureaucracy is picked in the same round, as you can strike deal with the holder of Bureaucracy to place
the agendas you like on top of the deck to be re-drawn by the other player. In contrast, option b) gives a
moderate immediate short term gain, which is an attractive option earlier in the game, provided you are
fine with the public objectives already revealed. Finally option c) is very situational and rarely used.
However, the option to immediately relocate all of your leaders can be immensely powerful and the
ability to trade in three poor Action Cards for new draws can be very useful as well. All three options
aren’t as good as to make it a priority pick, but combined with a bonus token or two Prospect can be a
very good choice if you don’t have any pressing needs.

In the first round, the value of Prospect is better than Bureaucracy, but that’s about it. You can use it
nicely to cause another strategy to go unplayed. Examples would be Warfare if your mobility is good but
multiple other races need the secondary to extend their range or even Technology if you don’t rely on it.

Diplomacy & Negotiation

Foreword
Twilight Imperium is a competition between human beings and as such, the interactions between
players is a large part of the game. While superior planning and execution will give you the edge against
a single opponent, you will most likely lose if you stand alone against two or more players. To make
matters worse, the game dynamic between competitive players often incentivizes players to gang up on
the leader. So while one aspect of successful TI3 play is to make the right decisions and execute a
superior plan, another important aspect is to do so while staying on good terms with the other players
so you don’t get singled out and crushed. Speaking of plans: There are many sayings, denouncing the
validity of a plan in a chaotic environment. Real success in Shattered Ascension, at least in my opinion,
often comes from having a plan and ensuring through diplomacy and negotiations, that other players
don’t disrupt it. Also be aware, that you are never negotiating with just one player. Shattered Ascension
is usually played with open table diplomacy and while you and your neighbor are talking, the whole
table is listening and assessing.

The 3 General Negotiation Rules

With negotiations being a huge part of the game, I have compiled a few rules that I follow when
engaging with other players. Naturally, the style of negotiation is highly personal and hard to describe
and so the following paragraphs are even more a suggestion than the rest of the guide.

Rule 1: Be civil, be professional

This should be a given for any board game, but players can get emotionally invested in a game and the
potential for betrayal is real in Twilight Imperium. After all there can only be one victor who often wins
at the expense of others. Don’t be the guy who loses his temper after being stabbed by his trade
partner. Acknowledge your temporary weakness and accept that your opponent chose to pounce
instead of collaborating with you. Kindly ask if your losses could be limited or if you can have the lost
systems back after your opponent has scored objectives attached to them. You will be surprised how
often that actually works. You can still plot your revenge, but it’s a dish best served cold.
On the flip side, you shouldn’t gloat while mercilessly betraying the trust of your ally. It’s much better to
tell him how much it pains you to be forced to suddenly end your partnership and how
circumstance/opponents/objectives/his lack of defense basically forced your hand. Offer to make
(minor) reparations. Often you can avoid making a mortal enemy while still having a massive gain. In
parallel you also give the rest of the table as little motivation as possible to attack you.

Rule 2: Be reliable, be generous

A lot of cooperation is based on trust. Often your opponents need to trust you in order to help you. Thus
you should keep up the vast majority of the deals you strike and have very good reasons (e.g. winning
the game) to break one. Don’t renegotiate a deal. If a collaboration disproportionately benefits your
partner, don’t renegotiate threatening to kill the deal. Instead, let him have the benefits and use them
to point out that the next deal should be in your favor. Should you be the one who massively benefitted
from a deal, be generous. Offer to give more than your opponent bargained for. While technically also a
kind of renegotiation, it’s the kind your opponent appreciates. That way you can control what you give
away and avoid obligations for the next deal.
Of course you can break a deal sometimes. No one can expect you to lose a game just because you
upheld a deal. But if you have the choice between an easy win with a broken deal and a slightly harder
win upholding the deal, it can often times be worth taking the harder path to victory. This is especially
true, if you play with the same people again and again.

Rule 3: Be reasonable, be concise

When approaching an opponent with a deal proposal, it is usually best if you offer something of worth
to your opponent straight away. Listen to your opponents to get a rough idea of their plans, so you
know what to offer. Such proposals usually have a way higher chance of being accepted. It is OK for you
to gain a little more out of a deal, as long as you offer the most profitable option to your opponent. Be
sure to point out, that you don’t see another decision bringing more benefits to your partner. Also try to
avoid endless haggling that casts you both in a greedy light for the rest of the table. The ideal deal sees
you first offering something to your opponent, which you know he values highly but which is OK for you
to give, then ask him for the favor you want (after he has appreciated the opportunity). Your opponent
agrees and the deal goes through. On the flip side, when someone approaches you with an inacceptable
offer, either decline or – if you are interested in general – make one counter offer. For every proposal,
simply put yourself in your opponent’s position: Would you take the deal? Don’t offer deals you
wouldn’t take.

What’s on the table?

With all that talk about making deals, lets briefly examine, what you can bring to the table:

‘A favor’
One of the most used initial proposal and simultaneously probably the worst idea. Offering a favor will
be regarded very lowly by your opponent, opens you up to really bad situations when favors are being
cashed in and often lead to massive disputes over the size of ‘the favor’ which sours relations. In short –
don’t offer favors for any deal of importance. You can maybe offer “a minor favor worth a TG or a few
votes” but even then it’s better to directly offer the TG or votes and then have your partner give them
back when he needs a favor.

Votes
A small item suited for swaying a friendly partner – something that you can put on top to sweeten the
deal. However its worth is usually low as Assembly often is too unpredictable to attach a firm value. In
general 3-5 votes are worth a TG, if you need a guideline. Only during Assembly bartering votes is a
sensible thing as the implications are immediately tangible, you don’t need to attach strings like “if it
doesn’t hurt my interests”.

Trade Goods
Trade goods are the universal bartering item and nearly universally accepted. Note that their value
decreases over the course of the game (inflation even hits the TI3 galaxy) as more trade goods become
available and the value of VPs increases. Trade Goods are well suited for short term deals with
immediate effects. You have a problem and so you throw money at it. Trade Goods are ideal for small
transaction as people rarely have large amounts saved up and larger items (such as territory & VP) are
hard to assess in monetary terms.

Timing of actions
The flow of a game round depends on the order in which things happen. Thus influence on when an
action is taken and shape the game round subtly in your favor. Very common bartering items are the
timing of Leadership, Production or Technology, but depending on the game state, nearly every strategy
card can become very timing sensitive. In a similar fashion, the order in which your neighbors execute
their fleet movements opens and closes avenues for your ships. It’s often better to make a deal about
that than to leave it up to chance.

Trade Agreements
Trade Agreements are powerful tools to shape mid- to long term relations. They can be used to set up a
dignified tribute (e.g. Jol-Nar trading their 3 TGs away for 1 TG of an aggressive race), to formalize
border or even as a peace treaty after aggressive acts. Note that the value of a Trade Agreement steadily
decreases as the remaining game time decreases.

Territorial Concessions –Claims

A very useful option that is often overlooked. Offering to cede claims over disputed systems and planets
is a valuable item to bring to the table and it sometimes even does not cost you anything (e.g. if you
didn’t plan to take the system anyhow). It is, however, a very immaterial item and thus its worth is
derived directly from the trust players put into your word. Stabby McDagger will probably see an offer
to cede claims rejected while someone that can be trusted within reason will most likely get something
for a cessation in return. Note that the value of ceding claims scales with your ability to take it by force.
The elegant way to bully is to have an extremely powerful fleet in range and then offer to cede claims
for benefit. In the same vein, if you are in a winning position in a war, you can cede claims to your
opponent’s core system in a peace treaty.

Territorial Concessions – Planets/Systems

Giving planets or even whole systems you control over to your opponent is a major item as control of
planets/systems provides income, allows movement and – through Sovereign/Imperial contributes to
victory points. Consider such deals carefully before proposing.

Victory Points
While Victory Points cannot be given away, they can be trade by allowing an opponent to score an
objective that requires action against you or to occupy sensitive systems. Many objectives can be
achieved quite easily, provided a cooperative neighbor.
A special case are artifacts that can be literally traded away. Make sure to ask a suitable price.
On Meta-Gaming
The diplomacy and negotiation is greatly aided by information on your opponent. How do they in
general act? Are they trustworthy? Are they prone to altering the deal after you committed? Often such
information is available in a gaming group. While strictly speaking, this is meta-gaming, it’s an
unavoidable process and usually fine. Meta-gaming becomes troublesome, when there are pre-made
alliances entering the game, when in-game decisions aren’t made with the current game in mind but to
send a message for future games. Many players, when stabbed and out of contention for the win, focus
on taking someone down with them. Don’t be that guy. If you gain a reputation for suiciding with all
your forces as soon as someone takes an underdefended system, the other players will make sure that
when they betray you they completely eliminate you. Even worse, they will immediately seek allies to
crush you entirely giving you no chance to recover – or at least they should. The threat of taking
someone down with you will work with inexperienced players. The better the players you play with, the
more such an attitude hurts you. Instead play to achieve the most VP each game. You don’t have to go
super hard anymore and break deals in order to come in 4th instead of 5th, but if players know, that you
will be reasonable in defeat, they will limit the damage they do to you in order to keep a reasonable
‘junior partner’. Sometimes they open themselves up for revenge a mere two rounds later that way.

The Races of Shattered Ascension

When playing Twilight Imperium, you can choose from 17 different races each offering a different flavor
catering to different play styles, different kind of maps and different secret objectives, each having their
own specific quirks and powers to exploit.

The Flagship statistics are given in brackets: (Cost / Combat dice / Movement / Capacity)

Disclaimer:
While I haven’t played all the races enough to be an expert, I have gathered a lot of experience against
all of them. This of course might taint my view of them.