Since the last time we played Twilight Imperium 4, it has been all we’ve thought and talked about. The group has an ongoing email chain filled with dumb inside jokes and memes from the inaugural game and we’ve finally scheduled our next play through.
I have been trying to figure out ways to decrease play time and increase efficiency, as well as table space. I previously mentioned ordering the Twilight Struggle organizer from Midgard Creative Studio and in that same order, I sprung for the Twilight Imperium Organizer as well (Warning: You’re about to see a lot of images).
Assembling the organizer took roughly four days. I would glue pieces or sets and then rubber band them together and let them dry. As this is a large organizer and it’ll be carrying a lot of components, I just wanted to ensure that everything was as sturdy as possible before moving forward. Was I too cautious? Without a doubt but I would rather be safe than sorry. This easily could have been done in probably four hours if I sat down and just worked through it all.
The system holder was the piece I let dry the longest as I was worried it might be fickle due to the height and size of the holders. I’m happy to say that there hasn’t been any issues since it was completed and it holds all systems with room for maybe four more. The Creuss home system doesn’t fit in the holder but that was obvious going in.
I really like the individual boxes for the races. They fit the planet cards, unique tech, and tokens and are a nice way to keep everything uniform and tidy. The tops stay in place as long as you don’t turn them over as they’re not secure in place. They’re also a breeze to build. Once you’ve completed one, you can power through the rest as they’re all identical.
The only negative about the holder is that you basically have to take all boxes out to ensure you find the race that you’re looking for. I wish there was a symbol or engraving on the ends of the boxes so you could see from the side what box is what after the first row.
There are three additional boxes so if/when additional races are released, they’ll have their own (unmarked) storage solutions.
The spaces for some of the units, particularly the PDS and Space Docks, look thin in the photos but I assure you that my sausage fingers had no issue pulling the pieces out of their new homes. I’m very happy with the individual player inserts as they hold everything neatly. With the ample amount of space for the cards, I might experiment placing extra tokens for ground forces and fighters in each player insert as it would be one less item to have to pass around the table. I have custom dice for each race that fit above the cards too but they’re not shown in the above photo.
Once the entire organizer is complete, fitted with components and placed back in the box, Twilight Imperium will tip the scales at 9.2 pounds. I don’t know if that information is useful or not but I was more curious than anything. The box closes flush so there’s no worries there.
So that’s all well and good, but anyone can see the storage benefits and didn’t particularly need me to show you what it does (those photos were already available on the Midgard website). The important question is how does it impact gameplay, if at all? Take a look for yourself.
We played a full six-player game on a table that can just support six players and the organizers were a godsend. Everything was kept neat and tidy. The organized ships and card holders allowed players to layout their planets and techs for easy reference and we could even fit drinks on the table. For comparison, here’s a shot of my first every game with five players:
There’s shit everywhere and while the condiment containers were good in a pinch, they were not a long-term solution.
The most impactful aspect of this insert isn’t the box organization or the gameplay management, is set-up and clean-up. Myself and another player set-up the board and everyone’s pieces the night before in ten to fifteen minutes. Most of that time was spent reading the faction sheets to ensure we got the correct units out. It was an absolute breeze. For more established players, this probably isn’t an issue but for our first game it took me roughly forty-five minutes to set everything up.
We cleaned up Twilight Imperium 4 in under three minutes. It was like a drive-thru. We were in and out. Needless to say, I highly recommend the insert. It made everything better for us.
Hey that does look like a beautiful way to store TI4. Here is what I use:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MAV3GQ6/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B01MAV3GQ6&pd_rd_wg=CgyJ3&pd_rd_r=3GFAA1T41RCMEEXAK9H5&pd_rd_w=UFPyy
The top drawers are perfect for colors, races, political cards and action cards. The bottom drawers I have divide by Home System, Systems with Planets, and Red bordered systems as well as strategy cards, trade goods/commodities, dice, and strategy cards.
I have made some modifications as well. I have a handle drilled into the top for easy transport, a wood backstop glued on so the pieces don’t fall out the back, dowels on the sides of each row to prevent them sliding out, a large loose leaf folder attached to the back as well…it contains the rules, a manila folder with the races, and the Ghosts of Creius home system.
So what a game looks like when we are going is each player has 3 stackable drawers in front of them, 1 containing big ships (warsuns, dreadnoughts and the capital ship), 1 containing small units, and 1 containing the race tokens. It still turns into a mess by the end of the game, but this keeps things soooooo much easier and it turns what could be a 30 minute cleanup job to a 5 minute one.
Mine method does not look nearly as pretty as yours. I suppose I could spoof it up and put the race symbols on the front each drawers, but meh. it does its job.
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