Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Golden Rules
• Object of the Game
• Components and Key Concepts
• Unit Attributes
• Setup (Advanced Game)
• The Game Round
• 1. Strategy Phase
• 2. Action Phase
  • Strategic Action
  • Tactical Action
  • Component Action
• 3. Status Phase
• 4. Agenda Phase
• Objectives and Victory Points
• Combat
  • Space Combat
  • Invasion and Ground Combat
  • Bombardment and Space Cannon
• Movement Details
• Fleet Pool, Capacity, and Transport
• The Economy: Resources, Trade Goods, and Commodities
• Producing Units
• Technology
• Control, Structures, and the Custodians Token
• Elimination
• Winning the Game

The Golden Rules

The golden rules are fundamental concepts on which all other rules are built:

• If information in this Rules Reference contradicts the Learn to Play booklet, the Rules Reference takes precedence.
• If a card ability contradicts the Rules Reference, the card takes precedence. If both the card and the rules can be followed at the same time, they should be.
• If a card or faction ability uses the word "cannot," it is absolute and cannot be overridden.

Object of the Game

The first player to gain 10 victory points wins the game. (Players may instead agree to use the 14-space side of the victory point track, in which case a player wins at 14.) The game ends immediately when a player reaches the winning total; if two players would reach it simultaneously, the one earliest in initiative order wins. The game also ends if the speaker must reveal a public objective but none remain — then the player with the most victory points wins.

Components and Key Concepts

• Systems and the galaxy: the board is built from hexagonal system tiles. Green-backed tiles are unique faction home systems; blue-backed tiles contain one or more planets; red-backed tiles are anomalies or empty systems. The center tile is Mecatol Rex.
• Planets provide resources (upper-left, yellow border — used to produce units) and influence (lower-right, blue border — used to gain command tokens and cast votes). Each planet has a corresponding planet card with a readied (faceup) and exhausted (facedown) state; a controlled planet's card sits in your play area.
• Units are plastic figures of three types: ships (carriers, cruisers, dreadnoughts, destroyers, fighters, war suns, and a faction flagship), ground forces (infantry and unique faction infantry), and structures (space docks and PDS). Fighters and infantry can be represented by tokens.
• Command tokens are your action/expansion currency, kept in three pools on your command sheet: the tactic pool, fleet pool, and strategy pool. Your reinforcements hold your spare units and tokens.
• Trade goods and commodities are two sides of the same token (see Trade below).

Unit Attributes

Units may have these attributes, shown on faction sheets and technology cards:

• Cost: resources needed to produce the unit. A cost with two icons produces two of that unit (fighters/ground forces).
• Combat: the minimum die result needed to score a hit. A value with two or more "burst" icons rolls one die per burst icon.
• Move: how many systems a ship can travel during movement.
• Capacity: the maximum combined fighters and ground forces a ship can transport.

Some units also have named unit abilities: Anti-Fighter Barrage, Bombardment, Planetary Shield, Production, Space Cannon, and Sustain Damage.

Setup (Advanced Game)

1. Determine speaker: randomly give one player the speaker token.
2. Choose factions: each player picks a faction sheet.
3. Gather faction components: take your home system tile, 17 control tokens, 16 command tokens, 1 faction promissory note, 2 faction technology cards, and any faction-specific tokens.
4. Choose color: take that color's 59 plastic units, 1 command sheet, 25 technology cards, and 4 promissory notes. Combine your color and faction technology into one deck and your color and faction promissory notes into one deck.
5. Distribute starting planet cards: take the planet cards for the planets in your home system, faceup.
6. Create game board: place Mecatol Rex in the center. Deal system tiles per player count; then, starting with the speaker, players take turns placing tiles to build three rings around Mecatol Rex, then attach their home systems. Anomaly tiles and matching wormholes cannot be placed adjacent to one another unless there is no other option.
7. Place custodians token on Mecatol Rex.
8. Shuffle the action, agenda, stage I objective, stage II objective, and secret objective decks separately.
9. Create supply of trade good, fighter, and infantry tokens.
10. Gather strategy cards: place all eight faceup near the speaker.
11. Gather starting components: each player takes the starting technologies and units on the back of their faction sheet, placing units in their home system. Place three command tokens in the tactic pool, three in the fleet pool, and two in the strategy pool.
12. Prepare objectives: each player draws two secret objectives and keeps one. Place the victory point track (choose the 10- or 14-space side); each player puts a control token on "0." The speaker deals five facedown stage I and five facedown stage II objectives, then reveals the first two stage I objectives.

The Game Round

A game round consists of four phases in order:

1. Strategy Phase
2. Action Phase
3. Status Phase
4. Agenda Phase

The agenda phase is skipped during the early game; it is added to every round only after the custodians token is removed from Mecatol Rex.

1. Strategy Phase

Each player chooses a strategy card for the round.

• Step 1: starting with the speaker and proceeding clockwise, each player chooses one strategy card from the common play area and places it faceup in their play area. If a strategy card has trade good tokens on it, that player gains them. In three- and four-player games, each player chooses a second strategy card in another pass.
• Step 2: the speaker places one trade good token from the supply onto each strategy card that was not chosen (this makes unpopular cards more attractive in future rounds).

The eight strategy cards, with their initiative numbers, are:

#	Card	Primary ability (summary)
1	Leadership	Gain 3 command tokens, then gain 1 more per 3 influence spent. (Secondary costs no command token.)
2	Diplomacy	Choose a system with a planet you control (not Mecatol Rex); every other player places a command token there, preventing them from activating it. Also ready two of your planets.
3	Politics	Choose a new speaker, draw 2 action cards, and look at the top 2 agenda cards, replacing them top/bottom in any order.
4	Construction	Place a space dock or PDS on a planet you control, plus an additional PDS.
5	Trade	Gain 3 trade goods, replenish your commodities, and let chosen players replenish theirs for free.
6	Warfare	Remove one of your command tokens from the board and redistribute your command sheet's tokens among pools.
7	Technology	Research one technology; may spend six resources to research a second.
8	Imperial	Score one public objective you qualify for; then gain 1 victory point if you control Mecatol Rex, otherwise draw a secret objective.

The initiative number determines initiative order for the action and status phases (lowest number goes first).

2. Action Phase

Players take turns in initiative order. On your turn you perform exactly one of three action types: a strategic action, a tactical action, or a component action. After all players pass, the phase ends.

• You cannot pass until you have performed a strategic action (in 3–4 player games, you must exhaust both of your strategy cards first).
• A passed player takes no further turns but can still resolve other players' strategy-card secondary abilities and "at the start of your turn" abilities on the turn they pass.

Strategic Action

Resolve the primary ability of your strategy card. Then each other player, beginning to your left and going clockwise, may resolve that card's secondary ability (usually by spending a command token from their strategy pool — Leadership is the exception, costing no token). After resolution, you exhaust (flip facedown) your strategy card so you cannot use it again this round.

Tactical Action

The tactical action is the primary way players produce units, move ships, and extend their dominion. Perform these steps in order:

1. Activation: place a command token from your tactic pool onto a system that does not already contain one of your command tokens. That system becomes the active system. (Other players' tokens there don't stop you.)
2. Movement: move any number of your ships with sufficient move value into the active system, from systems that do not contain your command tokens. Ships may transport fighters and ground forces up to their capacity. A ship must end in the active system, move along a path of adjacent systems no longer than its move value, cannot move through systems containing another player's ships, and cannot start in a system containing your own command token. After the "Move Ships" step, players may use their units' Space Cannon Offense abilities against ships in the active system.
3. Space Combat: if two players have ships in the active system, they resolve a space combat (see Combat).
4. Invasion: the active player may use Bombardment, then commit ground forces to land on planets; other players may fire Space Cannon Defense; then ground combat is resolved; finally the active player establishes control of planets where their ground forces remain.
5. Production: the active player may resolve the Production abilities of their units in the active system to produce new units.

You may take a tactical action even if you do not move or invade.

Component Action

An action shown by an "Action" header on an action card, technology card, or faction sheet. Read its text and follow it; it cannot be performed if it cannot be fully resolved.

3. Status Phase

Players score objectives and prepare for the next round. Resolve these steps in order:

1. Score objectives: following initiative order, each player may score up to one public and one secret objective they qualify for.
2. Reveal public objective: the speaker reveals the next facedown public objective (stage II only after all stage I are revealed). If none remain to reveal, the game ends.
3. Draw action cards: each player draws one action card (initiative order).
4. Remove command tokens: each player returns all their command tokens from the board to their reinforcements.
5. Gain and redistribute command tokens: each player gains two command tokens and distributes all their sheet tokens among the three pools.
6. Ready cards: each player readies all their exhausted cards, including strategy cards.
7. Repair units: turn all damaged (Sustain Damage) units upright.
8. Return strategy cards to the common play area.

4. Agenda Phase

Added to each round only after the custodians token is removed from Mecatol Rex. Players cast votes on galactic laws and directives.

• First agenda: the speaker reveals the top agenda card and reads it with all outcomes. Then, starting to the speaker's left and going clockwise, each player may cast votes by exhausting planets — casting a number of votes equal to the exhausted planets' combined influence, all for a single chosen outcome. Trade goods cannot be spent to vote. Players resolve the outcome with the most votes; the speaker breaks ties (their decision is not a vote).
• Second agenda: repeat for a second card.
• Ready planets, then begin a new round with the strategy phase.

Agendas are either laws (permanent rule changes when a "For"/elect outcome wins) or directives (one-time effects). While resolving each agenda, a player may perform one transaction with each other player, even non-neighbors.

Objectives and Victory Points

Players gain victory points chiefly by scoring objectives.

• Public objectives (stage I and II) are revealed to all players. You can only score a public objective if you control every planet in your home system, and only during the status phase's Score Objectives step (unless the card says the action phase).
• Secret objectives are hidden and can only be scored by their owner. You may hold up to three total scored and unscored secret objectives.
• Each objective can be scored only once per game and shows its victory point value and the phase in which it can be scored.
• During a turn of the action phase you may score any number of eligible objectives, but only one per combat.

Advance your control token along the victory point track as you gain points. When a player gains their 10th (or 14th) victory point, the game ends immediately.

Combat

Space Combat

Resolved when two players have ships in the active system, in these steps (repeated each round until only one player has ships):

1. Anti-Fighter Barrage: in the first round only, both players may simultaneously use the Anti-Fighter Barrage ability of their units, destroying enemy fighters.
2. Announce Retreats: each player, beginning with the defender, may announce a retreat (which happens later, in the Retreat step). If the defender announces a retreat, the attacker cannot that round.
3. Roll Dice: each player rolls one die per ship; a result equal to or greater than a unit's combat value is a hit. Ships with different combat values roll separately.
4. Assign Hits: each player chooses and destroys one of their ships per hit their opponent produced. Before assigning, a player may use Sustain Damage abilities to cancel hits (a damaged unit lies on its side and cannot Sustain again until repaired).
5. Retreat: any player who announced a retreat and still has an eligible adjacent system (one containing their units or a planet they control, and no enemy ships) must move all their ships there.

Combat ends when only one player (or neither) has ships in the space area. That player is the winner.

Invasion and Ground Combat

During a tactical action's Invasion step, after ground forces are committed to a planet already holding an enemy's ground forces, resolve ground combat: each player rolls one die per ground force on the planet (hits on ≥ combat value), then assigns and destroys hits. Repeat rounds until only one player has ground forces there; that player wins and, in the Establish Control step, gains the planet (and destroys enemy structures on it).

Bombardment and Space Cannon

• Bombardment: during invasion, a unit with Bombardment rolls dice to destroy enemy ground forces on a planet before combat (blocked by Planetary Shield).
• Space Cannon: used in two ways — Space Cannon Offense after the Move Ships substep (against ships in the active system) and Space Cannon Defense during invasion (against committed ground forces). Roll dice equal to the ability's value; each hit destroys a targeted unit. You need not be the active player to fire Space Cannon.

Movement Details

• A ship's move value is the number of systems it can travel from its current system. It must end in the active system, travel along adjacent systems, and cannot exceed its move value.
• Ships cannot move through systems containing another player's ships, nor start where you have a command token; they can move through systems with your own command tokens.
• Anomalies: asteroid fields and supernovas block movement; a nebula can only be moved into if it's the active system (and a ship there moves at 1); a gravity rift gives +1 move to ships moving out of or through it, but each such ship rolls a die and is destroyed on a 1–3.
• Wormholes: systems containing matching wormholes (alpha, beta, or delta) are treated as adjacent.

Fleet Pool, Capacity, and Transport

• The number of command tokens in your fleet pool is the maximum number of non-fighter ships you may have in a single system. Fighters instead count against your ships' capacity.
• A ship with capacity may transport fighters and ground forces (combined, up to its capacity) as it moves, picking them up from the active system, its starting system, and systems it passes through.

The Economy: Resources, Trade Goods, and Commodities

• Resources (spent by exhausting planet cards) produce units. Influence (also from exhausting planets) gains command tokens and casts votes.
• Trade goods can be spent as a resource or an influence (but not to vote), or where an effect requires spending a trade good.
• Commodities are the reverse side of trade good tokens; they have no effect for their owner but become trade goods when given to or received from another player. Replenish commodities up to your faction sheet's value using the Trade strategy card.
• Transactions: on your turn you may resolve one transaction with each neighbor — exchanging any number of trade goods and commodities and up to one promissory note. Players are neighbors if they have a unit or control a planet in the same or adjacent systems (including via wormholes).

Producing Units

To produce a unit, spend resources equal to or greater than its cost; a two-icon cost produces two units (fighters/ground forces). Units produced via a unit's Production ability during a tactical action are placed in the active system (ships in space, ground forces on planets whose unit produced them). A unit is blockaded — and cannot produce ships (only ground forces) — if it is in a system containing another player's ships but none of your own.

Technology

Technology cards upgrade units and grant abilities. There are four colors of technology — Biotic, Warfare, Propulsion, and Cybernetic — plus colorless unit upgrades.

• Researching: gain a technology card from your technology deck (via the Technology strategy card or other effects) and place it in your play area.
• Prerequisites: most technologies show colored prerequisite symbols; to research one, you must own one technology of the matching color per symbol. Technology specialties on planets, and certain abilities, can be exhausted to ignore one prerequisite.
• Unit upgrades share a name with a unit on your faction sheet but a higher numeral (e.g., Carrier II); once gained, your matching units use the upgraded attributes. Unit upgrades have no color and don't satisfy prerequisites.

Control, Structures, and the Custodians Token

• You control a planet whose card is in your play area (or where you've placed a control token). You lose control if you have no units on it and another player places units there.
• Structures are placed on planets (max one space dock and two PDS per planet), primarily via the Construction strategy card. A space dock has Production; a PDS has Space Cannon.
• The custodians token on Mecatol Rex blocks landing ground forces there until a player spends six influence to remove it during an invasion; that player gains one victory point, and from then on the agenda phase is added to every round.

Elimination

A player is eliminated when they meet all three conditions: no ground forces on the board, no unit with Production, and control of no planets. An eliminated player's components return to the box; their strategy cards, agendas, and secret objectives are returned/reshuffled.

Winning the Game

The game ends the moment a player reaches the winning victory point total (10, or 14 on the long track), or when the speaker cannot reveal a needed public objective. The player with the most victory points — earliest in initiative order in the event of a tie — is the winner and claims dominion over the galaxy.