by carnifex
The OP sounds a little bit like this:EHRMERGERD, I want to play ASL with my friends, but they all play Memoir '44 and don't even want to touch ASL. How do I make them play my game?
More to the point, the only common thing Eclipse and TI3 have are space setting, plastic ships and hexagonal tiles. Other than that, they are completely different games with completely different premises, completely different mechanics, completely different goals and, therefore, completely different experiences. If your friends want 3 hours of “pewpew in space” and they really don't want 10 hours of “political struggle in space”, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Eclipse will never be the latter and TI3 will never be the former.
Find new friends.