The great thing about strategy games is there are so many different ways to play, and there is seldom only one correct way. There may be a correct strategy for a specific play-through, but it still may require precise execution and cooperation from the other players. This may be off-putting to some players who judge a game based on how viable their game-plan was, but it is nearly impossible to design a game that always has all strategies viable without being stale or solvable. I prefer to judge a strategy game based on two questions; are multiple ways to play the game viable at different points and time, and are they all fun to play?

Ever since games like Command & Conquer: Red Alert and Civilization 2, I have loved “turtling.” I always felt like I was getting the most out of the game by drawing out the action until a climatic finale. For those unaware of the term, turtling is basically a defensive strategy where you spend resources building an army or otherwise gaining power before making a late game push with a nearly unstoppable force. This translates wonderfully into Twilight Imperium. TI is already a long game with high impact moments, but that doesn’t always mean the player that turtles best wins. The great thing is that’s okay, board games aren’t as easy to save like a computer game so the game has to be designed to end at some point, and a game where the best strategy is to draw the game out as long as possible tends to be a game that isn’t fun. If you take anything away from this it is that turtling in TI is fun and balanced.

It won’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with Twilight Imperium that my favorite race is the Universities of Jol-Nar. It took over a dozen games of before I even had the option of picking them (as long as there is a race I haven’t tried yet then I will usually pick one of them). A lot of the qualities of the Jol-Nar appeal to me as a player that loves to turtle.

Tech focused: The Jol-Nar start with four technologies, can double tech regardless of who takes the technology strategy card, and can even skip requirements for techs that are not ship upgrades. Having the best stuff when it is time to make your move is one of the flag-posts of a successful turtle strategy.

Strong early defense: Starting with a Dreadnought and two Planetary Defense Systems (PDS) means players are unlikely to attack you early.

The Jol-Nar do have disadvantages. Subtracting one from all combat rolls is a huge setback and guarantees you won’t be making any aggressive moves early. That is fine for how I play since I can offset that disadvantage later, but it makes the race unappealing for other, more aggressive players. The other notable disadvantage is starting with only two Ground Forces which makes early expansion difficult.

Of course, players can play just about any race any way they want to. There are tons of factors from the layout of the board to what objectives come up that can change what the “correct” way to play is. The game I played with the Jol-Nar was a perfect example of not only having the pieces fall into place for a successful turtle strategy,but also still succumbing to a common pitfall of the turtling strategy. We’ll cover more of that in part 2.