Universities of Jol Nar Player's Guide - Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

Rulebreaker guides you through understanding how to play as the Universities of Jol Nar in Twilight Imperium 4th Edition. This is an instructional guide, designed for new players.
Technology!
Twilight Imperium 4th Edition is by Fantasy Flight Games.
Music is by bensound.com

[@LunaWolf217]

Played quite a lot of TI4 but only played my first game as the Jol-Nar. I found their fragility extremely difficult to overcome. Equally, it's so fast to unlock war suns and skip parts of the tech tree that you can potentially make a lot of progress. Making use of non-combat roll abilities- anti-fighter barrage, PDS space cannon shots, bombardments, and assault cannons, seems the way forward. Also, statistically speaking you want to avoid low-end units. For example, a fighter normally hits on a 9-10, or a 20% chance to hit. A Jol-Nar fighter hits on JUST a ten, thereby reducing its combat ability by half. Their fighters are literally half as good as other fighters in other fleets. If you take something like the Naalu, their upgraded fighters are literally likely to cause FOUR TIMES as much damage when upgraded! By contrast, a war sun goes from 3-10 to 4-10, a comparative loss of about 12.75% of its total firepower, rather than 50% of total firepower like the fighter. So this means, build war suns and dreadnoughts as often as possible, and remember those fighters are just cannon fodder! In regards to strategies- I would suggest the following: 1) Trade out your promissory note as often as possible, preferably for trade goods or trade agreements. You can rack up a lot of good favour from neighbours, everyone LOVES technology. 2) As suggested above, buy high quality units- you REALLY need them to overcome your fragility. It inherently affects weaker units more. 3) E-Res siphons is an excellent technology. It makes opponents wary of attacking you, and means any battle where you lose a dreadnought or less in resources is actually a net benefit in terms of resources (sarween tools brings the cost of the replacement down by 1 for 3, this of course doesn't take into account the influence cost of the token to purchase a new one by activating a system). 4) Use non-combat roll abilities. PDS, Bombardment, Anti-fighter Barrage, all are not 'combat rolls', they are rolls that happen outside of combat. You'll notice the little -1 symbol does not affect these rolls. You want to build your military around these weapons. When you do need raw firepower, look to your war suns and dreadnoughts. I hope this helps and my ramblings help some newer players or others looking for an edge in the game I love :)

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

This is a great write up, Mark. I agree on E-Res Siphons. It is a great tech.

[@archbasilisk6372]

Thanks!!!!

[@SabaqnoGaara]

Thanks for these tips

[@leandroronan498]

I know Im randomly asking but does anybody know a way to log back into an Instagram account? I was dumb forgot the login password. I love any tricks you can give me

[@leandroronan498]

@Chaim Stetson thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site thru google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later with my results.

[@Aurion254]

Lost against Jol-Nar the other day. The Jol-Nar player used gravity drive to get to mecatol rex first and took imperial that round and the next to get 3 free points. He then had plenty of influence to gain command tokens and so was getting his pds2s everywhere. We got him off mecatol and thought we had him penned in but he still managed to get the resources he needed to win the game using e-res siphons. The winning move he used was to send out a lone fighter to an unoccupied system next to the necro virus player seeming to strike a deal with him to assimilate his war sun tech. Of course one of the other players jumped in first and destroyed the fighter giving him the 4 trade goods he needed to get those final 2 VPs. Extremely well played by the player and terribly played by the rest of us. Jol-Nar seem very OP though. The ability to essentially get any tech very easily against a -1 to attack during combat seems a very favourable trade off

[@lilpotayto]

I find these videos very handy for introducing new players to their factions without sitting down with them and explaining each one. Twilight Imperium takes up a lot of time as is without spending an hour just introducing the factions. Thanks for saving me a lot of time and potential confusion! ^_^

[@dominiccarrano9513]

I've found the best tech path is this. 1. E - Res siphons, hypermetabolism. You get set on command counters and have an early counter to people attacking you. 2. Integrated economy, duranium armor. You will be producing a bunch of units which you need to do to make up for your combat disadvantage, and duranium is setting you on the War Sun path.

[@bonogiamboni4830]

No grav drive?

[@KristovMars]

Love this series! Just played my first game last week and I'm a bit obsessed. Reminds me soooo much of MOO2 which I still play on my DOSbox. My gaming buddy is lining up monthly games of TI4 and I love it so much that despite a 4am start at work I'm still raring to go after a power nap.

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Monthly :) I would love to get games that regularly. Enjoy!

[@gbgubben]

Great video! Keep em coming.

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Thanks. The rest are on the way!

[@poioio96]

great video, thanks for uploading a small detail I noticed but I'm not sure about: Spacial Conduit Cylinder says "1 or more of your units", but you said "ships" during the explanation; doesn't that rather mean infantry too, and if someone for example didn't successfully capture a planet of yours and left an infantry there, then you can take back that system pretty easily as it can be adjacent to all your fleet?

[@alfonsow3142]

Seems nobody has mentioned this yet, but (~7:15) Hyper Metabolism should give 3 Command tokens instead of 2, not 2 instead of 1. Is the card shown perhaps for an earlier version?

[@TheStratovarian]

Curious question, if you have the enchanced pds tech, and the one that connects, can you fire from all your pds on say, an opposing fleet since are all adjacement for matters of things?

[@bificommander7472]

We started our first game of TI. I got this race. The abilities are really good, but I got the wrong position for the race I feel. Right beside the +1 to combat rolls race, and in the bottom of the 6 player map, where resources are scarce. Only 1 2 resource planet, the rest is 1 or 0. And with only 2 infantries to your name, I couldn't grab more than 1 system on the first turn, which gave me a paltry amount of resources. I can only hope I don't get gobbled up by the space locusts before I can build up. Oh, and I think their flagship is pretty poor. It's nice if you roll one of those crits, but that's highly luck dependent, and their regular hit chance isn't great. I'd probably skip it and go from Dreadnought to warsun.

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Congrats on your first game. My most recent game was last week and I got these guys. I also started with low resources, but I used Trade early to get an even bigger advantage on technologies. My ship count was low for a while but I was soon able to expand and build up. Pds 2 was huge for me in the game, and I ended up with my flagship as a defender for my home. I actually rolled a double crit with it once which did 6 hits. That felt pretty cool! I won our 14 VP game on initiative order after a very late rush by Yssaril and a tidy game by a L1Z1X player. I find Jol-Nar extremely good.

[@maxhart8814]

my brother took this faction in our first game, he won. I say they're OP ^^

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

They have that reputation, for sure. Check out my Tier Rankings video to confirm that suspicion :)

[@KristovMars]

I played these guys on my first game. Won. I love tech, what can I say?

[@elijahclaude3413]

So I just finished my first game the other day and I was COMPLETELY confused as to how to use e-res siphons, I didn't even bother getting it because of this confusion. It seems that you can't really use it unless you somehow can get your ship in another player's systems, but how do you do that without starting a battle and getting said ship destroyed?? I figured I may need Light Wave Deflector to get in there, but I dont think that card allows you to actually stop in someone else's system, just cruise through it? The only other way I see to use it is if people decide to attack one of your systems first, in which case you'd have to make sure you don't lose too bad (like if I had multiple ships in that system + the loss of any planets that get invaded). How is that a good strategy though? You'd basically have to just keep a token ship in any system to encourage people to attack you where you want them to. Maybe I am just missing something here, because I really wanted to use it but just didn't understand how. Everyone says its OP, but maybe not for us dumdums?

[@Emsworth377]

Great video, thanks. Special conduit tech, what does exhaust the card mean?

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Turn it to one side or flip it over, basically just something to signify that it has been used and can't be used again until the next round

[@Emsworth377]

@@RulebreakerBoardgames. Right, so can be used once per round. Thanks for the quick reply. Mu sons and I find your videos really useful for learning the factions. Thanks again.

[@werewolf4358]

8:08 Jesus, who's dying back there? Jokes aside, thanks for making these videos, they're very helpful. Do you plan on making more in-depth strategy guides?

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Haha, I have 3 kids under the age of 10. They make a lot of unusual noises! I try to record when they're asleep or out for the day but it doesn't always line up. I do plan on doing more guides soon. It has been a busy winter but I'll find more time soon. Any games in particular you'd like to see covered? No promises, but ideas are welcome!

[@werewolf4358]

@@RulebreakerBoardgames bit of a random thing, but a guide on Crusader Kings boardgame would be pretty neat in my opinion.

[@brianlelas172]

@@werewolf4358 I haven't actually played this one, but I will look into it!

[@bonogiamboni4830]

Fun fact: with the new techs in PoK Jol-Nar are able to get a war sun in the very first turn, since AI dev algorithm is a red tech and lets you skip a single prereq on a unit upgrade, so you can get the algorithm as the first tech and then exhaust it to act as the third red to get the war sun since you already have two reds (plasma and algorithm) and a yellow (sarween). I can imagine them shouting at the muaat "fuck you losers and fuck your promisory note, who has the big guns now?"

[@Redskies453]

Wow that is evil. Thank you. There is still the production cost issue though. Turn 1 to enter the field is not possible.

[@ri9337]

What means "before applying modifiers" - (flagship)?

[@OneManMilitia69]

If roll a natural 9 or 10. the skill is activated. then add the -1 and +1 modifiers. 9 or 10 produced this way dont activate the ability but are just hits. I.E. you roll a 9 and a 6. The 9 is a hit with two additional hits. The 6 is a hit. Add modifiers. Fragile (-1 )makes the 6 a 5 which is a miss. Add any number of +1 modifiers that could make it a hit. If final additional modifiers make the natural 6 a 9 or 10, its just a hit with no active ability.

[@celsofidalgo874]

Can you use Analitycal in 2 technologies at the same time when you research technology and use resources to research for a second technology ?

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Yes, I believe so.

[@Antonin1738]

im watching these now because I read/watched that this faction is OP along with Naalu and Saar

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

And what did you decide for yourself/ Do you agree?

[@Then9002]

It’s hard to say if one or two factions are OP! It’s all in the hands of the player. Some are inherently better than others sure, but don’t just give up when you see someone else using these guys. Again, nothing is ever guaranteed in ti4

[@khyrodon]

I kinda hate the Jol-Nar for how OP they are. If they removed one of their tech abilities it would make them much more balanced, especially since technology is one of the most useful cards for everyone, but the Jol-Nar get a double advantage. Though it doesn’t help my friend plays them literally every time, while the rest of us like to try out different races and strategies, yet he usually wins by using the same faction and technology spamming strategy. I’m not a very good player yet I think even I could have an easier time as this one, which is a shame for a game so praised for its tactical depth.

[@DCAMM720]

I kind of hate this race. In my group's games we typically ban them outright because they're either going to get bullied early game to keep them in check or they run away with tech and hold out for the win.

[@drew284]

How do you guys choose races? My group is one of 2 options. 1. completely random race to everyone 2. roll to see who picks races first, highest roll gets first pick, then on down the line. I'm curious if there's any better ways. Other things I've thought about is giving 2 random races to everybody and they get to choose one.

[@ondrejjanosik5114]

@@drew284 " 2 random races to everybody and they get to choose one." I find this the best

[@bonogiamboni4830]

@@drew284 my brother's group which is where i often play does a snake draft including both races and placement on the map, we all roll dice, whoever got the highest number can either get first pick on the race or get first pick on the placement on the map, second player makes the choice again (can choose something different from the first player), then so on until we reach the end of the line, the last player picks both the race and the tile and then we go nackwards on the dice order to choose the other thing that didn't get chosen. For example, player 1 in initiative picks jol nar, player 2 picks a specific tile he likes, player 3 picks another tile, player 4 picks saar, player 5 naalu, player 6 both sardak and his tile, player 5 his tile, player 4 his tile, player 3 hacan, player 2 sol and player 1 gets the last available tile on the map.

[@marcoponts8942]

Why put this minus one on the stats? Why not just print the minus one stats on the sheet. It's like: Well, we want you to see you could've had these stats but now we make you subtract one.. Kind of useless and seems to just be there to annoy the person who plays that race ^^

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

I understand what you mean. I think they might have been concerned that people would take another -1 off the already adjusted numbers? I can imagine that they had both arguments in testing and development and opted to go with the way they did out of clarity of play. Just a thought. Could be way off.

[@celsofidalgo874]

because the unit upgrades would not take that into account

[@OneManMilitia69]

How to win as UoJN Step 1: Pick UoJN ;D

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Hah, this made me chuckle. Is it still the case, with PoK? I'm not sure!

[@bonogiamboni4830]

@@RulebreakerBoardgames not as much because i don't like their hero and agent (commander is great tho) but they still have a good bite if the others let them run away with tech.

[@Aruze1989]

Tell us strategies not How to play the game. Jesus

[@RulebreakerBoardgames]

Yes, this is for new players. Maybe more detailed strategy videos will come along in the future :)