Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition – Twilight Codex Volume IV: Liberation
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition – Twilight Codex Volume IV: Liberation Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Component Notes
These notes appear in the Codex's foreword from the developer and describe the components in this volume.
- Each new component is marked with the Twilight Codex icon to show that it belongs to the Codex.
- A separate file containing high-quality PDFs of all new components released in the Codex is available from the publisher's website alongside this document.
- To best utilize these components, it is recommended that all components of a given type be sleeved, along with the other cards of that type, so that players cannot determine if they are from the Codex before drawing them.
- Components that do not need to be shuffled or hidden do not need to be sleeved in this way.
Ixthian Artifacts
The Ixthian Artifacts section is a regular feature that contains entirely new components. This section provides an opportunity for us to spice up the game with new options. They do not replace anything and are combined with existing components from the base game and Prophecy of Kings.
Relics
Several new relics are included in this edition of the Codex. The first, an Empyrean Circlet of the Void, gives a player unprecedented freedom when interacting with anomalies, and also allows them to explore frontier tokens from afar, and without researching Dark Energy Tap to do so.
The next two relics each arrive explosively into the realm of victory points. The first, the Book of Latvinia, does so by introducing a control-based side quest of sorts, granting its owner a victory point if they can collect every type of technology specialty. The second relic, the enigmatic Neuraloop, allows unprecedented (and likely chaotic) manipulation of public objectives, even allowing secret objectives to become public.
Circlet of the Void
Your units do not roll for gravity rifts, and you ignore the movement effects of other anomalies.
ACTION: Exhaust this card to explore a frontier token in a system that does not contain any other players' ships.
Book of Latvinia
When you gain this card, research up to 2 technologies that have no prerequisites.
ACTION: Purge this card; if you control planets that have all 4 types of technology specialties, gain 1 victory point. Otherwise, gain the speaker token.
Neuraloop
When a public objective is revealed, you may purge one of your relics to discard that objective and replace it with a random objective from any objective deck; that objective is a public objective, even if it is a secret objective.
Galactic Events
Next up, we have a first for the Codex: an entirely new component type. In the past, Codex components have been largely focused on replacing, supplementing, or referencing other components, but that ends today with the introduction of Galactic Events! Galactic Events change the fundamental rules of the game by warping the expected way that things work, or by adding entirely new game systems. Only four Galactic Events are included in this volume of the Codex, but many more may be waiting just over the horizon...
Using Galactic Events
Galactic Events are picked during setup and are entirely optional. One event can be selected randomly from the deck, or one can be selected ahead of time. Advanced players can even try playing with multiple Galactic Events at once.
Minor Factions
During setup, players are dealt 1 fewer blue tile. Before creating the galaxy, shuffle the reference cards for factions not being played and deal 1 to each player. In speaker order, each player places that faction's home system in the second ring, equidistant from players' home systems. Then, that player places 3 neutral infantry on that system's planets, split as evenly as possible. These systems are minor faction systems and do not count as home systems.
When a player controls each planet in a minor faction system, they take that faction's alliance card from the deck or from the player that owned it previously.
Planets in minor faction systems gain all three planet traits (cultural, industrial, and hazardous).
This event requires Prophecy of Kings to play, though players without Prophecy of Kings may use this event by ignoring the paragraph that grants a faction's alliance card. A diagram that further illustrates how to set up this Galactic Event is printed in the Codex as "Minor Factions Setup (Six-Player Example)"; its legend labels Ring 1 as Mecatol Rex, Ring 2 as Home System, and Ring 3 as Minor Faction Home System.
NOTE: Use proxy components or figures for neutral infantry; they have a combat value of 8.
Total War
When a player destroys or produces hits that destroy another player's units, they place commodities from the supply equal to the combined cost of the units they destroyed on a planet they control in their own home system (infantry and fighters are worth 1 each).
When a player gains control of a home planet that has commodities, they move those commodities to a planet they control in their own home system.
All players can perform the following action:
ACTION: Discard 10 commodities from planets in your home system to gain 1 victory point.
Age of Commerce
Players do not have to be neighbors to perform transactions with each other.
Players do not have a maximum number of commodities; when they refresh commodities, they gain a number of commodities equal to their commodity value instead.
Players can share non-faction technology with other players as part of a transaction. When sharing technology, the receiving player gains that technology from their own deck; the sharing player does not lose the technology.
Age of Exploration
Age of Exploration allows players to explore off the game board by utilizing system tiles that were unused during the game's setup. Additionally, relics will become more commonplace; expect to see the entire relic deck come into play when using this Galactic Event. This event requires Prophecy of Kings to play.
Relics require only 2 matching fragments be purged instead of 3.
The Naaz-Rokha Alliance's FABRICATION faction ability and BLACK MARKET FORGERY promissory note do not require purged fragments to match.
All players can perform the following action:
ACTION: Exhaust DARK ENERGY TAP and choose a non-home edge system that contains your ships to roll 1 die. On a result of 1-4, draw a random unused red tile; on a result of 5-10, draw a random unused blue tile. Place that tile adjacent to the chosen system so that it is touching at least 2 non-home systems. Place a frontier token in the system if it does not contain any planets.
Pax Magnifica
The Pax Magnifica section is a regular feature that contains unique scenarios and game variants that change how the game is played.
The Liberation of Ordinian
During this scenario, players fight over the Nekro-devoured world of Ordinian. The remnants of the Salient Sun joint task force hope to win the hearts and minds of the people of the galactic rim by liberating Ordinian. Meanwhile, suspicious opportunists seek to learn the source of the upstart faction's rising power.
Setup
This scenario requires six players and the Prophecy of Kings expansion. The rules for setup are modified as follows. The Codex prints only the setup steps that this scenario modifies; the remaining setup steps are unchanged from the base rules.
-
DETERMINE SPEAKER: The player who chooses the Nekro Virus in the next step is the speaker.
-
ASSIGN FACTIONS: Each player chooses from among the following factions:
- Xxcha Kingdom
- Federation of Sol
- Ghosts of Creuss
- Naaz-Rokha Alliance
- Nekro Virus (Speaker)
- Nomad
-
GATHER FACTION SPECIFIC COMPONENTS: In addition to the standard faction setup:
-
The Xxcha Kingdom and Federation of Sol players are allied; they resolve the setup step 3 from the Alliance game variant in Codex II. They also gain the F.S.S. Orlando hero card.
F.S.S. Orlando (Apollo Protocol hero card) UNLOCK: The Nekro Virus has 5 victory points.
-
The Ghosts of Creuss player replaces their leaders with the three Unknown leaders.
UNKNOWN – Forlorn Shadow ACTION: Exhaust this card to choose 1 player. That player may swap the position of 2 of their ships in any systems; they may transport units when they swap.
UNKNOWN – Wistful Soul UNLOCK: Resolve a combat with another player.
-
Special Rules
- The Federation of Sol and Xxcha Kingdom players represent the Salient Sun joint task force; they are allied using the rules from the Alliance game variant in Codex II. However, the number of victory points they need is different as described in the next section.
- Both the Xxcha and Sol player must agree in order to use the F.S.S. Orlando.
- Game effects that refer to Mecatol Rex or its system instead refer to Ordinian and its system.
- After the first Stage II objective is revealed, flip the Liberate Ordinian objective card to its Stage II side (Control Ordinian) and remove all tokens from it; victory points scored from its Stage I side are kept, but the Stage I objective can no longer be scored.
Winning the Game
The game ends when either:
- Within the alliance of the Federation of Sol and the Xxcha Kingdom, one of those players has 12 victory points and the other has 10 victory points.
- Any other player has 10 victory points.