The Universities of Jol Nar, Grokking Twilight Imperium

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[@vferrei2]

I don’t remember how or why KZbin recommended your channel to me, but I’m glad that it did. I’ve consistently enjoyed your videos. Very informative, and you also have a pleasant voice to listen to.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Thank you very much, your comment just made my day! :)

[@lightsidedragon]

Thank you for this! This is fantastic.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

You’re very welcome. Thank you for watching and requesting this one. I really enjoyed filming it. I’m really glad you liked it. :)

[@kombuchaman01]

I watched some of your videos and I must say that some of your tactics helped me A LOT to get a 1st and 2nd place. With yssaril I managed to win, but my second place with muaat was incredible (9 points). It helped a lot to expand with the agent on the first turn, as you suggested. Thank you and hopefully new videos of the missing factions will come out! Now let's see how it will be my match with Jol Nar haha

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

You're very welcome. I'm really glad that my videos were helpful to you. I think that the only faction I'm missing is The Council Keleres. I've had some requests to cover it, though it will be a bit challenging because of the significant differences based on which faction's home system you use and their different heroes. It's almost like trying to cover 3 different factions in some areas.

[@kombuchaman01]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain Yes, I fully understand the problem. It's like making 3 separate videos to cover a single faction. Anyway, great videos and, again, thank you!

[@JBearwa]

VERY well done. Lots of good useful info.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Thanks very much! :)

[@Mr.Meeple]

Thank you very much, fantastic work

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

You’re very welcome, and thank you very much. 😁

[@Prentyss]

Hi Kaptain! At 16:35 you say that you can reroll the combat roll for the flagship thanks to Ta Zern. I don't agree : Ta Zern says "after you roll dice for a unit ability [...]" And the unit ability of the flagship is "When making a combat roll" So, the unit abitily does not make you roll any die, it changes the way the combat roll behaves. Unit abilities that make you roll dice are for example Bombardment, Space Canon, etc. But Combat Rolls are not part of Unit Abilities. Chears

[@Prentyss]

by the way : i.imgur.com/UhzWhE0.png § 1.22 of rule book ;)

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@Prentyss You may be correct, though the wording in the rules are a bit ambiguous. The rules do say a list of "unit abilities" that are all abilities, but it doesn't say that they are the only abilities. I personally play it that you can reroll to try to get the ability to go off, but not to get a regular hit in combat, so a reroll that would be a hit wouldn't count.

[@Prentyss]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain yeah but as I said, the unit ability of the flagship does not make you roll dice, so you can't reroll any of them :)

[@bmxboy845]

​@@TheBoardGameKaptain you said it.. the rules list ALL abilities

[@thomasromanelli2561]

You're rocking these Grokking videos! I feel that Dane & company did an excellent job of simultaneously nerfing the UJN (predominantly through reducing the frequency of tech objectives) while also shaping the leaders and mech to enhance their thematic strengths. They remain a fun faction to play without being as OP'd as previously. 🖖

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I couldn’t agree more. It’s definitely very difficult to balance a game with so many factions, but they’ve done a pretty good job. Thanks so much for the awesome positive feedback by the way. Comments like this really make my day better. :)

[@SilentNSly]

I really like how the weaker factions got strong additions to balance them, so there were no nerfs needed.

[@siddharthsingh7861]

Ta zern wouldnt sync with the ability of flagship. Unit abilities are anti fighter barrage, bombardment or space canon

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

It's been pointed out before.

[@siddharthsingh7861]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain Yeah I saw it now. I really appreciate your in depth videos on the game and different factions.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@siddharthsingh7861 thanks very much, and thanks for watching 😁

[@MarcWebbFilm]

@23:27 It's worth pointing out that you're using the old misprinted version of Hyper Metabolism instead of the corrected version which is gain 3 command tokens instead of 2.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Thanks for that. I hadn't realized. :)

[@phoenixfire8978]

This vid is great. I’m playing TI for the first time today and I think this will help offset my absolute noob status

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I'm glad you liked it and that it will help you in your game. Let me know how your first game went! :)

[@phoenixfire8978]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain Game went well. I didn’t win but I had a lot of fun. I was playing the base game and didn’t realise some of the suggested techs and the companions were parts of the expansion though. Still I made it to 7 VP out of 10 which was third place.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@phoenixfire8978 very cool! Congratulations on a good showing in your first game. Having a fun time is definitely the most important thing.

[@phoenixfire8978]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain Update: Homemade baked goods are a powerful trading resource. Very useful in pre-game strategising

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@phoenixfire8978 they definitely are! ;)

[@thisjust10]

Great video! Ever considered adding chapters? It'd be nice to have a break down. (Check watch it played for examples)

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I haven't messed around with the chapters yet. I sometimes have trouble just finding enough time to keep up with the filming and editing for my self-imposed schedule. I may give it a try in the future when I find myself ahead of schedule. Thanks very much for watching and for the positive feedback, I really appreciate it. :)

[@Ibrahim-zd3vv]

I saw some of your videos on races for TI and from what i saw you never talk about race weakness. I think this is crucial information because you not only need to know what to do but also what you need to be aware of. In Jol Nar case its obvious but for example Mahact not so much. Also i have feeling that many things you talk about are great on paper but not so much in practice. For example in VuilRaith Cabal you talked about how they can capture war sun, then put free war sun in game and how amazing it is, but war sun in 80% of time isnt even in game. Most of the times you will be capturing cruisers. Dont get me wrong i like your videos. This is something i would like to see to improve.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Fair enough. I do sometimes make short references to weaknesses of the factions, but mostly I do gloss over them. I would definitely like to be able to spend more time on things like weaknesses as well as how each faction matches up against each other faction, but the videos would be so long that I fear that nobody would watch them. These videos are already quite substantial in length. It can be really difficult figuring out what topics to include and what to cut. I do agree that the weaknesses are just as important as the strengths of each faction, but I chose to focus more on the strengths for this series. Maybe, I’ll revisit the idea of exploring the weaknesses in a future series about how to beat each faction. I’m not promising anything mind you, but it could be interesting. I’ll have to explore the idea and see if there’s enough there to base a series on at some point. Thanks for watching and commenting, I really do appreciate it. :)

[@ArmaQuattro]

This faction looks incredibly interesting. A question though, I don't have very clear how Spatial Conduit Cylinder works. Does it mean that I may send one single ship out there in the wild and later make all my units converge into such system as if it were adjacent? (always limited by the fleet value)

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

You have it totally correct. You have to exhaust the tech card to do it and activate the system that contains at least one of your units, but then all of your other systems are considered adjacent to that system as if they all had the same worm holes in them. You can think of the tech as an artificial worm hole generator.

[@ArmaQuattro]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain Thanks! That's downright HUGE. :D Guess this will be the faction I will play next time.

[@RussAnimates]

Thanks for the video. Quick question about the Spacial Conduit Cylinder. Can you use it to get your flagship quickly into the front line? I've only played a few games, but when I built a flagship, it has a slow movement and took a while to get it where I wanted it to be...

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

It would definitely work. You have to activate a system on the front lines that Contains some of your units, exhaust the Spacial Conduit Cylinder and then your Flagship could move directly to that system from aywhere. If you had taken the warfare card then you could even remove your token from the system and attack with the flagship in the same round if need be.

[@RussAnimates]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain wow. Thanks. Most guides I listen to, seem to talk about it in a very defensive way, which I am sure is useful, but this strategy sounds really fun!

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@RussAnimates you’re very welcome. You definitely don’t want to make lots of enemies, since you’re not generally as good at combat but it’s definitely inevitable that you will have to pick a fight at some point and the universities can have a few tricks up their sleeves with their superior tech. Plus, you have the advantage of being generally underestimated. ;)

[@Desocupad0]

You missed warfare secondary. It allows expansion on turn 1.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Fair enough

[@KMReviews]

So with the pds 2 allowing to shoot one hex away, if you have the tech that allows your activated system with you in it being next to it, could you also use your pds basically anywhere you go?

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Yes and no. The Spacial Conduit Cylinder only works when activating a system that you already have units in and needs to be exhausted to make that system adjacent to your other systems. So it would definitely work if your opponent invaded one of your systems, wiped out your fleet, but was unable to eliminate all of your ground forces in that system. You could activate that system, with your units (ground forces), move a fleet in, and fire every pds you own into that system before mopping up the survivors with your fleet. The other restriction is that without using an effect to ready the card, you can only do this once per round. This can definitely be a very valid strategy for the specific situation described above though.

[@KMReviews]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain okay so the system you activate must already have you in it? You couldn’t go to mecatol Rex by activating it, bringing in all your ships, firing all your pds into it, and using the bio upgrade to eliminate ground troops all in one go? Lol. That would be epic lol

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@KMReviews yes indeed, you've got it right. :)

[@kurtbertling2511]

Great series of factions

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

Thanks! I’m definitely going to be continuing the series. When I run out of factions I’m planning to do some more grokking series’s for other games.

[@kurtbertling2511]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain excellent idea... can't wait to play people in person again

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@kurtbertling2511 I know exactly what you mean.

[@SilentNSly]

I been playing the Alliance variant from Codex II, so was wondering which faction would work well together with Jolnar

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I think that The Nomad would be a great partner for the Jol-Nar. The Nomad would allow the Jol-Nar player to buy their great flagship for free and the Jol-Nar player would allow The Nomad Player re rolls on the great anti fighter barrage ability of their flagship.

[@SilentNSly]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain That’s another good choice. Thanks! Currently, still preferring Argent Flight to give +1 dice to unit abilities. It’s agent also let’s Jolnar spread some ground forces to nearby systems, which can be useful at the start to move ground forces to your carriers that had already moved. Argent Flight destroyers also greatly benefit from re-rolls. By the way, Jolnar’s flagship producing +2 hits is not an unit ability, so it might not be as good as you think.

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@SilentNSly Why do you say that it's not a unit ability? It seems to fit the definition of one from the rule book.

[@SilentNSly]

@@TheBoardGameKaptain See: twilight-imperium.fandom.com/wiki/Abilities#Unit_Abilities

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@SilentNSly I see your point, though the FAQ doesn't say that those unit abilities are the "only" unit abilities and the FAQ also lists the ability in question as an "ability" under the section for the flag ship. I think that it's a toss up. You could be right, but I also could be right. TI4 is an amazingly awesome game bit there are quite a number of ambiguous rules. I may have to wait and see if they ever address this rule directly. I may write to them to see if they will clarify. Thanks for commenting, you've definitely given me something to think about.

[@jamesstevenson6720]

Hi, i'm fairly new. Just played my first game (base TI) I was wondering if there were a few more ways to get 2 techs (most on 4 player games but some on 6 player games with a few conditions) If you do Construction on home then produce 6 infantry you could use them to get the 2nd tech? Or am I misunderstanding. Could do the same with warfare, doing the secondary of construction, then removing the token, then producing 6 infantry? Or using the secondary of warfare to build 4 infantry for only 1 cost (nar) then play as usual. Then use the 2 from jol and the 4 infantry to get 2 techs? Am I misunderstanding or would these work but be really bad tactically?

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

I think that you're referring to the agent ability which allows you to use infantry as resources for the second tech, correct me if I'm wrong. The first thing is that you will need to be playing with The Prophecy of Kings expansion to use the leader cards. Once you are playing with the expansion then the trick of using the secondary ability on warfare to stock up on infantry would definitely work. You can't build 6 with a basic production because the Universities starting production limit in their home system is 4. Using Construction early game to get more space docks out there is definitely an option as you definitely want lots of infantry to use to get lots of tech. Always remember to use some available resources first to save on infantry so you won't need a full 6 infantry to sacrifice each round.

[@jamesstevenson6720]

Hi, yea that's what I was thinking. Thanks for the reply!!!! Would you say its worth doing on turn one or is expanding a better way too go? Especially with POK having less tech victory points? I play my first POK game next month and want to be able to hold my own against more experienced players!

[@TheBoardGameKaptain]

@@jamesstevenson6720 you do start with plenty of ships for expanding, you have two carriers and a dreadnought which can even carry 1 infantry. You just don't start with enough infantry. You should be able to take at least 2 new planets and make at least 4 more ground troops on round one. The four ground troops and your starting planet resources should be enough to get the two techs round one as long as you get them going before somebody plays the technology card. If you get warfare round one, use it to take more planets. If you get construction in stead, get a space dock on the planet with the highest resource value that you put adjacent to you home system to greatly increase your production for round 2. I hope this helps, let me know how your game goes. :)