What is Shattered Ascension?

Shattered Ascension is a set of modifications and a few addons to the epic strategy game Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, designed by experiened gamers/fans in order to improve certain lacking aspects of FFG's original.

This includes a more solid balance, an increase of meaningful choices, a boost to the pace and dynamics of the game by promoting more interaction, skirmishes, skill and demanding choices, more streamlined rules and at the same time potentially reduce the infamous game time (it is well known that many gamers sadly stay away from TI3 because of the required game time and sloggy pace). SA also enables 2-player games, or duels, a highly tense and demanding tactical game between two players.

All these benefits are often a result of many different modifications or patch rules found here. It should be noted that these are to be regarded as part of a complete set; some rules may presume that all other SA rules is in use, and is sometimes critical to the fine balance of things achieved in SA.

Design Philosophy

Designwise, we have been sure to stay true to the feeling and lore of the original game, and keeping the conceptuals and thematics in order. Furthermore, we've been careful to remove redundancies; instead of adding too much new elements, we've modified existing ones for each to have a unique purpose in the game to add strategical depth. Many varianters add many vivid things that increases the absolute number of choices, but actually reduces the number of meaningful choices to make. Despite our focus on redesign, some additional elements have been added during the latest versions. But these are sensible elements that actually add quality to the game as well.

All respectable computer games get patched and improved, because of the simple fact that nothing is perfect at the development deadline. Many board gaming communities however have a different mentality; that changing them is something like evil, even if it's clear that a board game of this complexity is especially far from polished, confirmed by the number of errors in the rules. While many board gamers refrain from trying out sound changes, either because they believe that the game as written is unsalvagable, or simply don't by default, SA has gotten a lot of attention throughout the years. Many have expressed their gratitude for making the game fun and interesting again. This is needless to say great to hear for someone that has put a lot of hours into this.

Game Pieces

One problem with adapting to a new set of rules is naturally the physical pieces. To have a valid strategial game, all players must be 100% aware of each change at all times; such take time and effort when the card texts do no longer coincide with the current rules; a true source of confusion and frustration when a player has laid a plan based on an outdated component. For that reason, all altered components have been graphically remastered by the release of SA v4.2 and presented in a while that should be easy for printshops to print two-sided on cardboard (or at home if you have a bad-ass printer with rear-feed). An additional benefit with graphically remaking all components is that we can get red of the errors made by FFG in the first print, e.g the cost of PDS units on the race sheet and the like).

Along with the change of rules and components, SA includes a small library of carefully tailored pre-set maps that in synergy with the other changes made, further will improve your TI3 experience.

Credits

PsiComa
Obokaj
Thrombozyt
Helgeran

Cyrusa
Bratalix
Dulkal
Gzar

Tzeen
Magic_Octopus
Wakke
Happygrue