Twilight Imperium is a strategy board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games in the genre of science fiction and space opera. It was designed by Christian T. Petersen and was first released in 1997. The game is in its fourth edition (2017), which has large changes over previous editions. It is known for the length of its gameplay (often greater than six hours), and its in-depth strategy (including military, political, technological and trade). Game background The game's premise is a large-scale space opera. It is set in the unstable power vacuum left after the centuries-long decline and collapse of the previously dominant Lazax race. The old galactic central capital, Mecatol Rex, located in the center of the map is maintained by custodians who maintain the imperial libraries and oversee the meetings of the galactic council. Players assume the roles of rising empires on the fringes of the galaxy, vying for military and political control, until one finally becomes sufficiently dominant to take over as a new galactic emperor. Development history First Edition The first edition of Twilight Imperium was conceived by Christian T. Petersen while working as an importer of European comics. Drawing from a background of working at a Danish game importer, Petersen designed, published, and assembled the first edition of the game single-handedly. The final version of the first edition debuted at the Origins Game Fair in 1997. Fantasy Flight set up demos of the game in a high-traffic corridor to garner more attention, and ended up selling out of all of their available copies in under two days. Second Edition The second edition of Twilight Imperium was published in 2000. It was the first edition of the game to feature art by Scott Schomburg and Brian Schomburg. It also introduced plastic spaceship pieces, replacing cardboard tokens that were used in the first edition. Third Edition The third edition of Twilight Imperium, published in 2004, was designed at roughly the same time that Petersen was also working on A Game of Thrones, and his desire was to emphasize similar narrative development in this new edition's gameplay. He also looked to the mechanics of Eurogames like Puerto Rico for inspiration of how to represent complex mechanisms simply. The game box proved to be so large that wholesale distributors had to purchase custom-sized shipping cartons in order to make them fit. Fourth Edition Development of Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition began