

Space Cats Peace Turtles
Matt Martens and Hunter Donaldson
An unofficial podcast for fans of Twilight Imperium and other strategy board games. Each episode is a humorous analysis of mechanics and strategies for new and experienced players alike!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 29, 2021 • 39min
227: Holiday Spectacular - Survivor Edition
Here's a quick one for your Holiday and New Year ears. We talk about the attempted goofy game we played with our friends and what went wrong. We hope to do it again though, so this was just the preview for how good Survivor: Twilight Imperium can be.
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Dec 24, 2021 • 1h 9min
226: Round One Negotiations
It's almost holiday time, but we have a Galactic Council episode to attend to first! This month, the Sidereal Confluence coalition was betrayed and we instead saw Round One Negotiations rise to the top, which is a perfect opportunity to return to the basics of how to get all the things you want round one, and determining what those wants even are! If only the galactic council was better at negotiating their way into functioning coalitions...
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Dec 22, 2021 • 7min
Radiolore - The Lazax Empire (TI3)
The Lazax Empire, as it appears on the faction sheet in Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition.
Written by Christian T. Petersen
Narrated by Phoenix "Absol197" Gruber
Dama-May - Primal Drive by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200086
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Dec 15, 2021 • 60min
225: 2022 Tournament Structure
Well normally I would think an episode like this isn't gonna attract that many listeners, but SO MANY OF YOU signed up for next year's tournament that this announcement episode became a pretty important thing. In it we detail how we will get through the 2022 Patreon Tournament, with an emphasis on the Qualifiers, as well as some discussion on the structure and rules that will be in place in the games themselves. Thank you again to everyone who signed up, you have blown us away with your support and enthusiasm and we look forward to a raucous 2022.
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Dec 8, 2021 • 1h 49min
224: Preliminary Guide to Yssaril Tribes and Embers of Muaat
The theme of this week's Preliminary Guide is "The Big Stick." We've got two factions who can pack a big punch, but don't always have the point acquisition to make a successful game. Neither are "bad" factions, but there are tricks to both, and it can be hard to navigate their toolsets to find a victory. The best part of all: we don't talk about blue tech very much! So come listen just for that!
Rasmus' Muaat Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltvKIXpCXY5qTXZ4rxCWHIfFQNvGzNdO6L2cZPA6siI/edit?usp=sharing
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Dec 2, 2021 • 42min
Radiolore - Rex: Final Days of an Empire
As promised, a narration of the short story included with Fantasy Flight Games' Rex: Final Days of an Empire.
Written by Christian T. Petersen
Narrated by Matt Martens
Music:
Dreaming in 432Hz - Unicorn Heads
Satya Yuga - Jesse Gallagher

Dec 1, 2021 • 2h 1min
223: Rex Final Days of an Empire
The galactic council worked together this month to give us a real treat! It's lore time and we're kicking it off with some lore that's slightly harder to get a hold of: the board game Rex: Final Days of an Empire. We're taking a look at the little clues into factions thousands of years before the setting of Twilight Imperium and during the fall of the Lazax Empire. It's a fun little ride with Matt's best attempts at some stupid accents as well as a wonderfully difficult quiz provided by the resident lore expert, Absol!
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Nov 24, 2021 • 1h 38min
222: Preliminary Guide to Sol and Sardakk N‘orr
There's gonna be a lot of chatter about ground forces today. We're looking at two sides of the really tough infantry coin in Federation of Sol (Good) and Sardakk N'orr (Bad). (Yin is the Ugly) Some say Sol doesn't even need a guide, so we made an attempt to make that half of the episode for especially new players looking for a good beginner faction. Sardakk is a considerably more difficult nut to crack, however.
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Nov 17, 2021 • 1h 6min
221: The Necropolis Empire with Absol
Hunter is out this week, and we took the opportunity to bring on noted lore aficionado, Absol! She and Matt both read the second Twilight Imperium novel by Tim Pratt, The Necropolis Empire. So here is our review, overview, as well as some lore implications of this especially good adventure sci-fi story!
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/

Nov 10, 2021 • 1h 38min
220: Winmaking Roundtable w/ teddysjamforyou, TheDeftPiper, and patience_is_a_virtue
Well we've teased this idea for many weeks now and finally were able to gather a panel to discuss winmaking. Our thoughts were outlined in depth in episode 203, but this topic bring about different feelings for everyone. So we decided to sit with three prominent players with many different takes on what constitutes winmaking and whether or not we should care. teddysjamforyou is the champion of this year's Patreon Tournament is primarily a player who chooses to follow bliss an fun. TheDeftPiper was a part of our invitational and views winmaking as a necessary tool to be used. And finally, patience_is_a_virtue practically wrote the book about winmaking and has a lot of research and analysis he's been working on for years to bring to the table. Let's enter the final Winmaking Gauntlet!
Music provided by Ben Prunty. Find more at benpruntymusic.com or benprunty.bandcamp.com
To learn more about our Discord, Twitter, Patreon, Merch, and more, visit https://spacecatspeaceturtles.com/