FFG - Twilight Inscription

This epic roll-and-write game for one to eight players offers an experience unlike anything FFG has done before. With a limited pool of resources at your disposal, you’ll need to carefully manage Navigation, Expansion, Industry, and Warfare as you amass victory points and earn your right to the throne on Mecatol Rex. Will your faction become the new rulers of the galaxy? Or will your fledgling empire fade into obscurity? Anything can happen in this strategic, infinitely-replayable game!

Write Your Legacy

Much like how Twilight Imperium is a massive board game, Twilight Inscription is a massive roll-and-write. Where most roll-and-writes have each player filling out a single board (referred to as a “player sheet”) as they play, Twilight Inscription has you filling out four!

During setup, each player starts off by choosing a faction, such as the Arborec , the Emirates of Hacan , the Nomad , or the Titans of Ul . All 24 of Twilight Imperium’s factions are here, and each has its own unique abilities. Once you have your faction, you take one of each of the aforementioned four player sheets: Navigation, Expansion, Industry, and Warfare. These are what you’ll be writing on as you play the game. These sheets are reusable, and you’ll write on them with dry-erase chalk markers, which are included with the box. And the coolest part? There are eight different versions of each sheet! This means you can start with a vastly different setup than your opponents. (Don’t worry—for those of you who prefer that everyone starts with the exact same setup, that option is also included.)

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.

Each round kicks off with an event card. Most of these are “strategy events,” such as Fledgling Empire and Echoes of the Past . These grant you resources, which, along with the resources rolled on the dice, you then spend on one of your player sheets in a multitude of ways. You do this by using your marker to cross off the resource costs for whatever it is you’re trying to do (hence the “write” part of roll-and-write). Just keep in mind that you can only spend resources on one sheet per round!

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!

For example, some event cards, such as Border Conflict , will trigger a war, which involves you comparing the strength of your fleet (located on your Warfare sheet) to those of your neighbors. You earn victory points if your fleet is stronger than a neighbor’s, but you can also lose points if your fleet is weaker than theirs.

In a similar vein, if a council event occurs, such as Convene the Council , you’ll need votes, which you can build up on your Industry sheet. The effects of agendas like Technology Embargo and Corporate Tax Breaks can have serious effects on the game, but if you’ve been neglecting your Industry sheet, you won’t have enough votes to ensure the outcome is the one you want.

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 is resolved, at which point everybody’s victory points are tallied. Whoever has the most is the winner!

Alone Amongst the Stars

You may have caught it earlier when we mentioned the player count, but you can play this game solo as well!

If you play the game by yourself or with only one other player, than you will square off against an AI opponent. The AI opponent follows its own set of rules, and its objective is simple: make as much progress along its goal tracks as possible. The AI doesn’t earn any victory points for itself, but it does disrupt you (and your human opponent, if there is one) in your quest to earn points of your own. For example, the AI will actively oppose you in warfare and council events, so you will still want to make sure you build up your fleet and votes as much as you can. If you haven’t earned a certain number of victory points by the time the game ends, then the AI has beaten you, so bring your A-game!