If I own the base game on android and steam, and I buy Uprising DLC on android (or vice versa), is it true that I can then play Uprising on both platforms as long as I use the same account?

I played this game the first time yesterday. I read the rules 4 times and I'm pretty sure we got everything right (which seems to be rare for this game looking at other posts).

One question I had: We had one player who randomly started attacking me from the get-go because "I win every game we play for the first time". This was fine, as this game seems to reward aggression. I attacked him back after a while (mostly to kill his ships over my last starport and city, as a defensive move), stealing some cards, he retaliated a lot after that, etc. etc.

The other 2 were building all their cities and doing other stuff. I was pretty much wiped out on one side of the map.

One player gained lots of points thanks to the +5 from his cities (and some smart plays) and was at 19 power at the start of chapter 3.

I said ok we mustn't let him score anymore now and we have to destroy his cities (I forgot that the cities go to the trophies so it doesn't cover his +2/+3 for this chapter anyway).

the fourth player agreed, destroyed some of his stuff and stole some cards, I tried to destroy a city but failed, but the third player still attacked me (even though I had no guild cards, no resources and was at 7 points).

At the end of chapter 3 the player with 19 points gained another 12 or so and won easily.

Which made me think: Does this game need some leader bashing? Or was it only because we were all to inexperienced? I used to play catan competitively (I know, I know, Catan is hated) and there leader bashing was very important. Which meant it's only fun if everyone is a little experienced and one player can totally change the game by playing irrational.

I know this question has been asked dozens of times, and I’ve read all the posts I could find, but my case is a little special. I already own GP and AoI (with inserts). I’ve played GP about 10 times and AoI once. I haven’t played (and don't own) TM, but I’ve watched some videos.

Now I’m thinking about going full circle, selling both, and buying TM, and I’d like some input from people who can compare especially TM and AoI or TM and GP.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t want to own 2 (or even 3) iterations of this franchise; they are too similar for my tastes. I’m also only interested in 3–5 players. I won’t play any of these solo or with 2 players (there are better games for 2 players imo). And I’ll probably play this only once every 2–3 months at most.

So first of all, I have to say that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to keep GP. It’s a great game, but here are my reasons:

It feels like I have to know too much to have fun. It feels a little like chess in that I have to know 1–2 openings for each faction. And since there are 14 factions, it feels a little overwhelming.

It also feels like every player (or at least the one in 4th position) needs to have a pretty good understanding of all the factions to rotate the map correctly. (I know you can play with a randomly rotated map, but I’d rather just have a balanced map like in TM/AoI.)

Also, while the tech board is super cool, I don’t like it being so detached. It makes it hard to see for 2 of the 4 players, and it’s a little annoying during the income phase to check all the income imo (in TM/AoI everything is directly in front of you).

I also don’t really like the board as much as TM/AoI, just the way it looks with all the pieces spread all over the place. I much prefer the more bunched-up cities in TM/AoI.

And lastly, I like the theme of TM/AoI more.

Now for AoI:

It obviously has a fixed map, and it feels like you don’t need to know openings since there are so many more options. Imo it corrects most of the things I didn’t like in GP, and it always feels like you can achieve many different things.

But to me it felt a bit too loose. In the end, everyone built almost everything on their board, even though it was our first game (none of us had played before). And we scored sooo many points.

Also, since all the neutral buildings were built in the end, it just didn’t look clean to me. I know this is a dumb criticism, but with all the white in between the colored pieces, I just didn’t like how the board looked.

Also, the factions (we did a reverse snake draft including palaces) lacked flavor.

(And yes, I think the tile that gives you VP for spamming scholars is dumb.)

Which brings me to TM

From what I’ve read, the factions there have a lot more flavor (kind of like in GP), it’s way “tighter” (you can build less and score fewer points), and it’s even supposed to be a little shorter in playtime. All positives in my book.

The only thing that seems to carry over from GP is that you need to learn openings.

So, from everything you’ve read now, how likely is it that I’d like TM more than AoI (and GP)?

Can you have fun with TM if you play only 6 times a year and don’t want to learn all the openings? Or is AoI the safer choice?

(Btw, money isn’t a factor, since I could sell AoI for more than TM would cost. I’m also not particularly interested in the expansions for TM.)

If you made it this far, thanks for reading all of this!