Check out my fifty by fifty geeklist for the latest update!

Go on, do the needful. I’ll probably be getting at least another two title onto the list fairly soon. But I need to be working the games that are in the 30s, not the ones pushing 50.

Sweet Saturnalia

Some random thoughts for a random day:

• Man, Attika is good. It’s been too long.
• Luke Cage — fine.
• I suppose I should say good — I finished in six days, although today was a sick day … but all of Netflix’s Marvel shows could stand to lose 3-5 episodes. More tone than plot (not that I’m against that), Luke Cage easily had the best ensemble cast of any of them.
• The CW superhero shows are now dropping, so that will be next (I’ve heard that Arrow tanked last year, so I’ll start with Flash).
• Played Eclipse vs the TaoLing when he got home from school (since I was home). I was about to get schooled (I randomly took the Orbital guys, Aidan picked Hydran) after The Boy drew not one but two “Advanced Research” double pink tiles early on. But the worm turned. On Turn 4 the Hydran super cruisers (Anti-Matter Cannons and +6 to hit and initiative, using the discovery power to fuel it!) attacked two aliens and rolled — snake eyes. Then the Aliens wipe two cruisers (because they had zero hull). Down ten material and then lose a world because the Hydran’s banked on that orange planet to cover expenses…. Even then I might have lost except he had another minor set back so I could use the GCDS as a screen for most of the game.
• 1846 is charging, so looks like I’ll get a new game in a moth or so. And Jump Drive maybe this year…
• My 50 by 50 geeklist hasn’t had any additions in a while, but several games are inching their way towards fifty. (I’ve played six games that were in the 25-49 category this week). In fact, I almost played my fiftieth game of a title today, but I wasn’t in the mood. Still, it will take a concerted effort to finish in time….
• If you know Mrs. Tao, you may want to shoot her a congratulatory email, as her new job title is “Intern.” (She’s starting work as a programmer).

Bonus Eclipse Game

Got in a game of Eclipse … 4p, two relatively new. I drew Draco (randomly), and since I hadn’t played it in a long time (because they are terrible). Orion was my neighbor, so I explored sector I and II to force them to join the long way around, and explored. I had pretty mediocre draws (considering I get to pick tiles) and so I lost a bit of time, but just slighlty unlucky, I think. I researched Plasma Cannons, Gauss Shield and Tachyon Sources, so I went into the GCDS on T4. Orion threw in some ships to weaken me (she had the Ion Missles Discovery, 3 Yellow missiles), but only one ion cannon. The missiles whiffed, so I smashed her ships, then the GCDS (my build was 2x Plasma Cannons, Gauss Shield, Computer, Tachyon Source, Hull, Hull. More than enough against base game GCDS).

At this point I was economically pretty, but I had … two DNs. The other experienced player had a solid Magellan build, and was threatening me, so I offered a truce to the (now depleted) Orion player to solidify my side and researched the only Plasma Missiles to give him pause. He attacked, but I responded with three missile starbases. I lost, but managed to take out a roughly equal part of his fleet and now I had more starbases available, and I outfitted my cruisers as pure defense bait (2x Missiles, 2x +2 Computers). In the end game he made a mistake (IMO) by using artifact key for mineral, when he already had ships in my sector. If he had used it for money I would have been forced to commit defenses, as he could afford to wait for me to pass before attacking.  The next turn I artifact keyed for money so that I could withstand the waiting game, and managed to defend my homeworld and pick off a human world.

I got some early VP draws, but also managed to improve my 3 tile to a 4 at the end, which was lucky. That one point was my margin of victory. As always, faster weapon upgrades played a big part. (I did manage to get Improved Hull before Magellan did, too, but only by a turn, but having no other missiles show up helped, and Magellan was a few turns behind on Plasma Cannons).

Edging close to fifty games on this.

Eclipse — Thing of the Other Thing (part 2)

My big games of the Gathering included two games of Eclipse, including the new Shadows of the Rift expansion.

I’m not turning down Eclipse, and right when I got home I ordered this (and the first ship pack) from Amazon, who deliver on Sundays now, so it arrived today. The bad news news is that this is not a varietal expansion. You do get new races and a few new tiles, but (for the most part) every new thing has a new system or rules. The good news is that you don’t have to include them all. If you just add the Octantis race, you do need to add the new rules for mutagens, and if you add the Mumble Mumble I forget their name (Edit — Shapers of Dorado. Dorado? Honestly, the name raises more questions than it answers) then you need to add in time travel.  But you can play the Pyxis straight up. There’s also a rift, which is another Throneworld that may or may not appear, and I haven’t even read the rules for that.

If you want to, you can play a nine player game of Eclipse with 9 unique races, fully qualified player order (not just 1st then clockwise or widdershins), rifts, wormholes, genetic engineering, time travel, developments, discoveries, alliances and the whole meggilah. I do think I should try to do this at least once.

But Eclipse is starting to teeter under its weight. Easy enough, we just removed developments and the rift (and alliances, as we were only playing 4-5 players) from our games. Now (with experienced players), it’s still a pretty fast game although setup and tear-down is a bear and I’ve finally admitted that my box will never close fully and Joe R. clued me in as to where he gets the Velcro stuff he uses to keep his boxes closed. It’s surprisingly cheap.

But let’s break down this expansion. First the rule-free parts (the “variety” stuff)

• The Pyxis nanobot race are fun. Their actions are all mixed up. They don’t have an “upgrade 2” action, but they have a “Research 1 and upgrade 1” action. The combinations are mainly useful, but sometimes you’d wish you could upgrade multiple things in a single action. Also, their ability to snap their ships together and apart like Lego bricks (spend to turn 2 interceptors into 1 cruiser, or vice versa, all the way up the food chain) works amazingly well to let you move ships. Or if you have radically different build outs you can move in, wait for your opponent to upgrade and then switch ship types! (Good if you have a high computer ship or a “needs to roll sixes” ship with more weapons). I haven’t even used the Death Moons which are super star-bases that can move and score VPs by existing, but can only be built by combining two DNs.
• The rift cannon rare technology (and rift turret) are stone-cold brilliant additions to the game. Rift cannons add pink dice that don’t roll 1-6, but just roll hits (and self-inflicted hits!) directly. Which means that the player who gets that can ignore computers and shields completely. This is wonderfully unbalancing as one player may be going heavy computers, which makes another go heavy shields, and then the rift cannon shows up and suddenly all those upgrades are pointless. In a large game, this can be huge. Honestly, I want Rift Cannon technology to show up more often, and I may make a second one for my set.
• The Soliton Cannon rare tech (and turrets) do 3 hits, which isn’t nearly as game changing as rift cannons, but given improved hull a 3 damage cannon is much better than a two (if you can afford the power).
• The combined 4 power and -1 to hit shield (rare tech) is a nice addition.
• (The rules suggest that if you combine this expansion you only play with 12 rare techs. Rather than pick them, I just suggested a modification that you roll a die when a rare tech shows up and on a five or six it is discarded).
• New discoveries, tiles, GCDS (Throneworld defenders) and developments are nice. (The rift tiles add rules, but there are just some new tiles).

So, you could play with no new rules (well, the new rules for the cannons are new, but incredibly minor) and you’d get good value. What about the new systems?

• The new “bonus VP” counters — These have symbols (not numbers) and are revealed when drawn, and you can keep 1 symbol and 1 number per combat. (Redraw symbols until you get the right number of numbers). This is technically a new rule, but again its very minor (but not minor enough that we got it right the first time). But this rule also means that people who do early combats are likely to get a little boost reward (maybe an extra build or upgrade or move or die re-roll). I approve of this, and it will be in all my games going forward.
• The mutagen system isn’t bad. It introduces a 4th currency (Green) and the Octantis earn 2 green/turn and have five options of what to buy with it. These typically improve their race (get an extra build, or move, or purchase, or upgrade, or a discount on some object, or improve your trade ratio) or provide bonus VPs. My complaint with this (I’ve now seen three games with Octantis played) is that you really have to watch the opponents player mat to see what they are up to. (Yes, this is true for research and ship designs, but the honestly quite attractive chromosomes used for genetic upgrades are hard to read).
• The time distortion system (for the other race) again isn’t as difficult as I’d imagined. You can either send things into the future (at which point they re-appear wherever you like), or pull them from the future. If you pull them from the future, you have to buy the thing you get now 1-3 turns later. So, in many ways, Time Distortion is basically like interest rates on credit cards. Get it now, pay later!
• For both races, my feeling (with new players) would be to discard any discovery (etc) that used that mechanic unless all the players were familiar with the system.
• I glanced over the Rift system, but honestly I didn’t grok it yet. More later.

Anyway, there’s really no decision or not. If you like Eclipse, you’ll like this. Yes, there are new systems, but you can ignore them to your hearts content. Really the only issue is storage. I’m honestly considering getting an Ox Box to hold my game.

Rating — Pretty much whatever you rate Eclipse as. For me, Enthusiastic. (And I really should buy those cube holders, what’s another $20 to pimp my game?)

I’ll probably update my Eclipse thoughts at some point.

Admin Note — I’ve added an Eclipse category, so now you can just find everything instead of having to type out the word Eclipse in the search bar! I know, progress, right?

Eclipse Aliens Gone Wild

I’ve now played Eclipse 25 times … I played a few teaching games in the last month.

So, a few words about the various Aliens, rated on the Fudge Scale for both Fun and Viability (chance of winning).

Human ( Fair / Fair ) — As the default race, I’m calibrating the ratings to humans. Humans can easily defeat aliens, in particular starbases and 3 movement are not to be sneezed at. The 2:1 trade ratio does allow some aggression, but mainly benefits you when things go bad … which isn’t a great way to win.

Planta (Mediocre / Mediocre) — The Planta’s fungal expansion is a one trick pony. You can do well, especially in a passive environment. But people quickly learn to pound the Planta. Their ship design (lack of initiative, mainly) is crippling. I must admit, though, that I haven’t played them in a 6+ player game recently (since the expansion showed up). In this case, the large number of tiles may help, but the warp tiles probably keep them from being as isolated as they like.

Draco (Fair / Good) — Draco’s early expansion (& Co-existance with ancients) lets them take prime spots, at the cost of early discovery tiles and VPs earned from pounding out on aliens.  (This may be mitigated in the expansion, as they can’t coexist with Alien Cruisers). The Draco can safely explore Sector I and claim it on turn one, then another on turn two, for a nice steady growth. This can force neighbors to explore Sector I/II, lest they get cut off. (Avoiding Sector III isn’t a great strategy, but it does mean if you get poor Sector III tiles early you can still colonize a great system).

Orion (Good / Good) — Let’s admit it, combat is fun. The Orions can snowball. One upgrade (such as Improved Hull) and they can stomp Aliens out of the gate, and their ship design is impressive. To be sure, the Alien Dreadnought from the expansion keeps them from threatening the Galactic Center as early, but they are a force to be reckoned with.

Hydran (Good / Fair) — My latest game had the Hydran’s get the sector III tile with a double pink world (one improved). Drawing that is a good strategy. The expansion (with the rare technologies) helps Hydran’s out immensely, as it’s practically impossible to shut them out of finishing a track. And, with some decent early world draws, finishing two or three becomes possible. Without the expansion, I think they are Poor, but I’m not sure. Having lots of cool technologies to research makes (IMO) the Hydran’s fun, because they get to decide which route to follow.

Mechanema (? / ?) — Honestly I’ve only played them once and I don’t have strong feelings about them yet.

Epsilon Eridani (Mediocre – Great / Mediocre) — EE’s rating depends on your point of view. You’ll (effectively) get 1-2 less actions per turn (because of your two disc shortage). That’s a tough disadvantage … warchest or not. But it’s a hell of a challenge. Winning with EE against experienced players requires pressing every advantage and a bit of luck, which IMO makes them a fun race.

The Expansion Races

Magellen (Superb / Great) — My most controversial claim is that the Magellan race(s) are the best across a wide range of setups. They can’t go toe to toe with the combat races, but they’ve got many advantages. Most subtly, their starting technology provides a useful turn 1 upgrade that helps them tactically bankrupt and will almost never need to be undone. Their extra mileage out of discovery tiles (and a free tile) work wonders. On the fun side, they aren’t locked into any one strategy and (more so than most races) roll with what they get.  Flexibility means they are more likely to pleasantly surprise you that most races.

The Exiles (Good / Poor) — I like playing the exiles, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to win with them. Orbitals are, for the most part, a trap. And they are a trap the Exiles are forced into. I suspect the best way to use them is just go for an interceptor heavy fleet and take advantage of your other technology, the cloaking device.

The Rho-Indri (Fair* / Great) — As I mentioned, combat is fun. The R-I have great ships, and a massive fleet movement. Their Fair fun rating is actually wildly variable. More so than the Orions, their early snowball determines if you run rampant and get lots to do, or just crawl along. That’s true of every race, to be sure (an early disaster is a challenge) but when your combat victory not only determines your early VPs and fleet strength but Economy, that may be too many eggs in one basket. When they lose, the syndicate is often dead last, and not just by a bit. But they win a large percentage of games.

The Lyrans (Poor / Fair) — I don’t enjoy their turtling, but I’ve seen it work. The Lyrans get a wide variety of special powers from their shrines, from wormhole generators to an extra disc. But they are (IMO) a reactive race, painting a pleasant target and challenge others to come get them. I suppose they could be viewed as a challenge, like Epsilon Eridani. But I don’t enjoy them.

Rise of the Ancients

Unshocking — I like the Eclipse expansion.

For the most part, Rise of the Ancients is a “varietal” expansion. New alien races, a few new hexes, discoveries, technologies, etc. These don’t threaten to overload the game. Allowing 7-9 players may very well overload it (my games so far haven’t dealt with that), but there are at least a few clever adjustments to try and balance it.

1. Two players take their turn at the same time
2. The diplomacy rules are extended to include alliances, which means the game can collapse from a 9 player furball into a number of factions.

Even throwing out the insets, the main (huge) Eclipse box is now full and weighs as much as a healthy newborn. I think it will last a good long while even without more expansions (which I’m not necessarily against).

Enthusiastic.

Five Thousand Words about Eclipse

As always, my random thoughts about Eclipse. In non-condensed form. When thinking about Eclipse, a chess aphorism kept popping into my head.

The threat is mightier than the execution.  In Eclipse, you often want to be in a position to attack everyone. But you certainly don’t want to attack everyone. Even if you romp all over the board for the first five turns, you will likely be beaten back. But being flexible means you just build up a solid position and then find a point of weakness (either a player’s position, or a few aliens, a great technology) and then pounce. This sort of thinking is rampant in Eclipse, see (for example), the strategy guide on Virtual Fleets.

Another chess thought I’ve been coming back to is Jeremy Silman’s discussion of Imbalances. There are lots of aspects to a position, and you will be ahead on some of them and behind on others. You can try to push your advantages and shore up weaknesses, but you only have so many actions. If you are losing, you need to mix things up … take on another negative to get a new positive. Eclipse has lots of factors — topology, technology, resources, fleet placement, alliances, pinned pieces, the counter mix limit, upkeep costs. Except in a small game where you can steamroll someone, you’ll have positive and negatives. Be aware of them.

Explore — The early game

The first turn (or two) is exploring. An exception can be made for grabbing a really juicy advance right off the bat (Advanced Robotics) a delay can be made. The reason for early exploration is two-fold … you need more resources but you also want to control when and where you meet the neighbors.

Typically you explore Sector III, because those tiles are limited. There are only 6 Stage I spaces, and only twelve Stage II (minus the number of players). Those stages are limited by space, but Stage III is limited by tiles. So, unsurprisingly, everyone should rush out to stage III and claim as many as possible, even if you can’t claim them all. There are a few reasons:

• Deny them to your opponents
• Discovery Tiles
• Resources for new systems
• Linking up

Linking up to form diplomatic relations is understood, but another reason to link up is to be able to fight later. Having a position where you only connect to your opponents is nice and defensible. The problem for you is that it’s nice and defensible for everyone else. This is worth delving into.

Tempo, Trenches and Plasma Missiles

After your first game of Eclipse (or even just perusing the BGG forums) you’ll hear one thing over and over. Plasma Missiles. Complaining about Plasma Missiles strikes me like Complaining about pawn promotion. Now that’s overpowered. Once the pawn promotes, you’ve already lost. The promotion just indicates you were in a losing position earlier. My first few games of Eclipse felt like this, but not because of missiles. The problem was tempo. Everyone grows, expands, researches, upgrades, takes out some Aliens and (one player) conquers the GCDS (which I just call the Throneworld). Then a bit of jockeying for position, then the 9th turn attack.

That’s ok (especially when learning the game) but anticlimactic. Eclipse is as much a Race as Race for the Galaxy. Whoever gets the Throneworld has a decent edge. If everyone only connects there (which isn’t terribly far fetched in a smaller game) then things can go static quickly. If two opponents attack me in the same space, they have to fight first, they pin each other, and it just gets ugly. They each have incentive to let the other person whale on me, then attack the next turn.

So they hesitate. If this happens, Eclipse will rapidly bore you.

And this situation can be easily diagnosed pretty early. Given a choice, I’ll make sure that one of my Sector III hexes points towards the Stage II hex I don’t normally connect into. This threatens to explore into Ring II and rob my opponent of a crucial hex. If they explore there they may very well connect up (so as to form diplomatic relations) and tempowise I’m ok.

Remember, the Sector III hexes aren’t great (long term). You want to explore them, but not necessarily keep them. If there are two available cube slots, that’s fine. An alien isn’t bad (some VP and a discovery tile). I love the discovery tiles with no worlds. You claim it, take the discovery, and then tactically bankrupt ASAP. (If you find two of them, you can influence to remove the discs the same turn or bankrupt, depending on details).

But in the long term, having influence discs on too many Ring III hexes will slow you down. The point is to explore them. Not hoard them. So when exploring, I make it a point to also use the exploration to try and prevent choke points. I may try to prevent too many connections with my neighbor, but I’ll try and make one.

Later (sometimes as early as T1, and sometimes not until T3) I’ll try to arrange connections on Sectors II and III. The point is to control fluidity.

In Eclipse, Defense trumps offense. Lets say you have two medium fleets. Say, 4 ships. We each spend equal actions to build and upgrade them. But if you attack me, you have to spend 2 actions moving. If I know I’m defending (and where) I can build starbases instead of interceptors, which are much better (5 slots instead of 4, and no need for a drive, better innate initiative). If we’re fighting 8 vs 8, I get even more actions. If we mutual and rebuild, you’ll have to spend those movement actions again.

On top of that, defender wins initiative ties, which are fairly common.

Defending rocks.

Which means that if you need to attack someone, you want a fluid position. But even that’s not enough. Assume we’ve got a long open border. If I attack you, you can just build up wherever I go (assuming available minerals). So I need to have a decent advantage (say, technological, or fleet wise) to attack. Or, the borders have to be fluid enough so that you are under multiple threats from multiple players.

Which brings us to trench warfare. If the galaxy stabilizes so that people only connect on the first ring, then defense is going to dominate. You can just plop down 4 starbase on your chokepoint and (if everyone is technically equal) that’s that. You can’t gang up on a leader. The game will end.

Similarly, if you get cut off, you are going to have to go through one player, and they can defend. Sure, you can defend too, but if you are cut off odds are you have a smaller chunk of resources. So, unless I’m sure I’m going to be ahead, I don’t want to risk getting cut off in the early game.

That’s what the explore phase is all about. Well, that and snapping up discoveries.

Discovery tiles are two points (if nothing else), but on turn 1 they can also provide you a significant resource boost, which can snowball. If you turned in all 1st turn discovery tiles, you’d be wrong sometimes, but probably not too wrong. As the game goes on, you’ll need a specific reason to keep the tiles. Going through the types:

• Money/Science/Material — Obviously keep it if you are suffering a shortage, and if you have a surplus then take the points. (I’m not sure if it’s possible to have a surplus on science).
• Ancient Technology — Taking a random technology saves you an action (if you were going to get it anyway) and gets you a point if you were going to run that track. And it gets you a few points of science (or improves your discount). So already it can be worth 1 obvious point. Add in denying a technology, and it’s often right to use.
• Ancient Cruiser — This is 5 material and half an action (or so). The only downside is if this cruiser is on the wrong end of the galaxy (don’t ignore those fleet limits!)
• Ship parts — Brutal, although they only work for one ship type. (Remember that you can’t move them around once placed). The drive and super shields (-2) are problematic because you often don’t have energy for them in the early game. If I can’t place them down immediately I’m tempted to just take the points. The uber-power source isn’t that useful (unless you have technologies that absorb power). It’s usually 2VP. Shard Hulls, Ion Missles and usually useful. The turrets depend on the point of the game.

I’ve seen ship designs with multiple ancient parts (usually HULL + WEAPON + DRIVE) and they do intimidate, but you can only have 4 cruisers and 2 dreadnoughts. I suspect the 6 points would be better. Probably 4VP and one upgrade is best. Despite my original “Ship parts are the best early discovery” thought, I’m not so sure.

One final point of exploring. It’s painful, but sometimes it’s right to lose the action and not place a hex. In particular, a low resource hex that will close you in (or a double Alien hex you aren’t in a position to face quickly).

Expand & Exploit — The midgame

Once things settle down, mop up aliens around you. These give you points, access to good hexes and more discoveries. Also, building up your fleet annoys your neighbors. It’s entirely possible to take an Alien on T2 (build a cruiser, research improved hull, upgrade your figher and cruiser, and move). But the odds aren’t great. If you get a lucky tile by all means go for it, but typically I’m aiming for taking my Ring I aliens (should I get them) on T3. If that goes swimmingly, the Throneworld often falls on turn 4. An early setback means that someone else will take the throneworld, though.

By this point you should have an idea who is winning. It’s not just VPs; look for imbalances:

• Production (Mineral, Sciences, Money)
• VPs from Discoveries
• Upkeep (if we have the exact same production, but I use one less disc than you, I’ve got an upkeep advantage)
• Technological

If you are winning, then by all means grab the throneworld and make it a chokepoint. If you aren’t, don’t let that happen (the chokepoint part, anyway).

The game of Maneuvering

Eclipse can bog down into trench warfare, but in the midgame (which is roughly Turns 2-7 or 3-8) its surprisingly fluid. There are races to set and claim rings II and I, fighting aliens and the throneworld, and even attacks. Because of the superiority of defense, directly attacking a neighbor can be a problem. Once you achieve a manuevering advantage, things change. How can you do that?

1. Your opponent runs out of mineral. Now he can’t build where you attack.
2. Your opponent passes. He can build, but at only one ship/action it’s expensive. This also applies to an unpassed opponent who has a high upkeep.
3. If you have decent drives, you may be able to move to two or more systems. Even if your opponent can build a matching fleet in each system, splitting battles results in devastating loss for your opponent (particularly if you have Neutron Bombs, which is a cheap technology). This isn’t something you can do wily-nily in a large, multiplayer game, but if someone is threatening to run away with it, this works as a nice check. After all once the war goes to the trenches, you can’t complain about an entrenched defender.
4. You can pin your opponent’s fleet. This may sacrifice a few ships, but if you wipe out a few systems it’s a big deal. (See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/750685/pre-emptive-strike-how-to-win-the-war-with-weake)

In the middlegame you often have a tempo battle to race into the throneworld. Once a player parks a fleet there, they get the initiative advantage. But you may find that your best bet is to outwait your opponent. Make neutral moves (technologies, upgrades) and wait until the last action or two to attack. If an opponent is threatened on multiple fronts, they may leave an opening, or be unable to defend.

In this way, the threat of an attack can be more powerful than an early (first action in a turn) assault.  If you find yourself defending a sitzkrieg and can’t hold out (you have to pass soon), consider building a picket force on edge worlds or attacking with a small (expendable) force directly. Better to lose a few ships than lose a few ships and a system.

Action Density — Why DNs are worth 3 interceptors.
One aspect of Eclipse that took a few games to get around is that you want good action density. Money (and actions) can be saved up between turns, but it’s not linear. If I can afford $10 a turn, then taking one less action this turn and one more next turn usually costs me a dollar or so. Saving two actions now for two later costs me several dollars.  So this means you should look for ways to smooth the number of actions between turns. If you don’t have a great action now, but upgrading would be OK, consider doing it now rather than later. If you don’t have a great technology, but have spare minerals, build the fleet now, then upgrade them next turn.  This isn’t hard an fast. Saving an action and spending one extra is often fine. Saving 3-4 won’t net you 3-4 next turn. Maybe 2. So plan ahead.

The cost of actions is part of the defender’s advantage — you want to make actions count. Maneuvering is difficult when each move action only lets you shove two ships (3 if Terran) with your croupier stick. (Man, I need a croupier stick). That’s a real advantage for Dreadnoughts. If you have 18 mineral, you can build and invade with 6 interceptors … at a cost of 6 actions (5 if you have nanobots or are Terran, 4 if you are both). Building and invading with two Dreadnoughts costs only 2 actions (and only 16 mineral). Even if the 6 interceptors are better, that may be worth it.

So a DN, particularly a fully up-to-date one, is a potent threat. You only get two of them, so you have to decide where to point them. This also means that if your opponent has one sitting around (particularly in a neutral space, such as after defeating an alien, but not claiming it), it may be worth an interceptor to pin. It’s almost certainly worth slapping down interceptors (or starbases) on routes if it can move a great distance.

With the countermix limit, and the threat of pinning, and the cost of moving, sometimes it’s worth it to kamikaze a DN (etc). On Turn 7 I shove it into a not-great odds battle. If I win, great. If I lose (assuming I’m mineral rich), I now have a “Virtual” DN to use as defense wherever I need it, or to build and attack in any corner of the galaxy. This doesn’t come up often, but be aware that a virtual fleet is a powerful threat and (more importantly) if someone has 4 uber cruisers, but all built up and several hexes away … then they aren’t your problem.

Why we can’t be friends — Diplomacy and the Traitor
I’ll make trade alliances early on with anyone. Everyone. “How do you deal with them later on?” Simple — if they are weak, I attack them. Traitor Schmaitor. 2VPs can be overcome through one hex and a decent draw of reputation tiles, and then if I rampage through them some more I’m in the bonus. If they are strong, I defend against them and hope that my defense plus the traitor penalty is enough of a deterrent. If we’re roughly even I maintain flexibilty (having some actions and minerals ready to defend) and go after softer targets.

In my first few games everyone made an alliance or two and then nobody broke it, because they didn’t want to be the traitor. But look at the logic:

• The early alliance gets you critical resources and a potential VP. If you dont take it, you are falling (a bit) behind.
• The late alliance costs you potential VP (because the ambassador takes up a slot. The ideal situation would be to have your opponent break it and then grab a bunch of his VP. But he shouldn’t do that.
• Everyone is the same boat as you. They all want to break their alliance.

So me? I want to break my alliance first. If nobody else break their alliance (say), I’ll get a good stab out of it. If I get a 3 VP out of it (not unreasonable, and after a decent battle 2VPs for the tile and 2VPs for a hex isn’t hard) and nothing else then I’m up over everyone. I have 4 VP – 2VP, and then have 1 VP. I’m especially up over my trading partner.

You still need to have a good move to be a traitor. Those don’t come along every day. But be receptive to them when they show up. And don’t ignore your defenses. Nations don’t have friends, they have partners of convenience.

(Also amusing, being the traitor with A while having an alliance with B. Now B has to worry about you attacking them at no cost, while if B attacks you, you aren’t the traitor anymore).

Having heard all this. Will you be my trading partner? It’s still a good deal. 3-4 turns (usually) of extra money, minerals or science? Your choice. Just don’t expect it to keep the borders secure, or to serve as a reason to skimp on upgrading.

Exterminate

In the end game, ships aren’t worth points. Hexes are worth points. Battles are worth points. (Of course, battles you lose probably aren’t worth much). A new technology is often worth points. But not ships. Or cash on hand. Unsurprisingly, that means the last turn usually has everyone fighting a monstrous battle. (The typical exception? The throneworld owner if it’s a chokepoint … he doesn’t want to attack out for fear of inviting reprisals, but nobody dares attack his entrenched position).

There’s really not much to say about this. You want to be in the position of exterminator, not the bug. If your opponent has a few out position ships, pin them and fight there instead of fighitng on your turf. Much less embarrasing to lose. Prior to the endgame, taking (or just bombing) an enemy system shifts the front away from you. That’s where you want it.  If you are being attacked, take a few extra actions (even those that threaten bankruptcy) to keep the pressure on. If you manage to win all your battles but have to remove a system or two, that’s no worse than having them destroyed, and you denied some VPs to your opponents. And if you lose a system, well, then you didn’t go bankrupt, did you?

The endgame is also a good time to take an early move action to pin ships that might invade. (Early on is great if you can win or threaten to win the battle, but sacrficing ships on T9 is practically free).

Blinding Yourself with Science — The Technologies

I suspect new players try to grab a few too many technologies, and spread out a bit much. Getting one track complete (with maybe the odd needed technology to shore up a problem) costs 8 actions (7 if you start with a technology) and doesn’t require much science investment if you get them roughly in order (~40 science over 8 turns). Still, you want them sooner rather than later. Also, getting a roughly even spread of technologies and spending out every turn isn’t necessarily the way to go. Consider saving up for a turn or two (or converting) to grab one big game changer, especially if you are behind.

Don’t overdo it on ship upgrades. You can’t ignore them completely, but those effectively cost 2-3 actions each. Worse yet is to buy the ‘intermediate’ technology, upgrade, then buy the advanced technology and upgrade again. Sometimes you have to, but specialize. Often I prefer to have one (or maybe two) classes of ships that I focus on, only upgrading the rest when I have spare action. This saves a few actions.

Gauss Shields (GS)/ Improved Hull (IH) — Either (or both) of these let you quickly upgrade your cruiser to be a match for an ancient, with two cruisers being a likely win. Most races can buy these on T1 without needing to trade. Not that you should, necessarily. But it’s an option. IH gets a slight nod because it also works against neighbors without computers (wheras the GS doesn’t matter). The more advanced shields are nice, and sometimes needed to counter heavy computer based designs, but they are situational.

Weapons — You are going to need a better weapon. There’s usually a race for Plasma Cannons (orange dice). Plasma Missiles (PM) are well known. Anti-Matter Cannons (AMC) aren’t much better than Plasma Cannons (since they cost so much more, and require a power upgrade). Both of those aren’t incremental upgrades … they are game changers. PMs give you initiative. AMCs obsoletes many IH-based designs, which are a common early build. AMCs secondary advantage — they free up space for more defense or computers.

Power — Unless you go the PM route, you will either need to upgrade your power or be limited to a basic drive + PC or one advance. Typically these ships have IH/GS to take up space. The nice thing about an early power upgrade is that you can spend two spare actions improving your sources and then be ready to take advantage of many different upgrades. Nice and flexible, but you sacrifice immeadiate threats.

Drives — The advanced drives help initiative, and give multi-hex movement. The movement lets you do two things. It practically forces your opponents to put at least a token defense on their border systems. (Do you really want to defend your home system? Knowing that you now don’t get the initiative bonus). It also means you don’t have to worry so much about having non-adjacent chokepoints (against different opponents). This is highly situational. In a fluid map, these are great. In a “Ring 1 choked” map, these are inferior to computers (with the caveat that this initiative bonus doesn’t take up a slot like a computer, just energy). Putting even fusion drives (2 hexes) on Dreadnoughts can force all of your opponents to react.

Computers — The non-basic computers give you initiative and a bonus to hit. The problem? Without a power source that’s bonus to hit is only an Ion Cannon. There’s an interesting coordination problem. If you and your neighbor’s neighbor both have good computers, he’ll want to research shields. But if only one of you have computers, shields are wasted space against the other. Ah, the upgrading conundrum. PMs + Positron Computers will decimate fleets, but what do you expect from two of the most expensive technologies in the game? Don’t whine about the promoted pawn….

Neutron Bombs — The bombs turn a single interceptor into a system threatening genocide. All for no upgrade cost. A great buy.

Starbases — Great ships, you’ll probably want this, maybe not right away. Rules Note — You can build multiples per hex. But once you’ve build them, they are stuck. So I try not to build more than 2, and keep the rest unbuilt for emergencies.

Advanced Mining/Economy/Research — These are great to buy on a turn where you aren’t expanding, to shore up your resources. I’ll usually get the one that’s on my main track (unless it doesn’t really help). Don’t grab this if it delays your game changing technology, but usually a decent buy.

The “Disc Gainers” Advanced Robots (AR) & Quantum Grid (QG) — AR is a fantastic early buy that will pay off almost immediately, and may be worth trading the last few points of science. The extra action lets you expand, or stockpile a bit of extra money each turn (to convert or make a deep run of actions). QG provides a huge “Sitzkrieg” advantage and lets you delay. It can be a gamechanger, or just an economic boost, depending on your targets defensive setup. However, Quantum Grid’s cost (16/8) makes it tough to get early. (I’ve seen T6, though, which gives it a decent payout).

Nanobots — Saves a few actions, if you are producing heavy minerals. However, in the early game you are often better served by buying two cruisers (or CR + INT) instead of 3x interceptors. Discounts are always nice.

Orbitals — In my opinion, you have to be truly hurting to justify purchasing these. If you got a bunch of one-world systems, I suggest building two cruisers (instead of orbitals) and taking a better system, then influencing/tactically bankrupting your old system.

Monolith — Unlike resources, VPs can’t often be created out of thin air. Monolith technology is a potent threat, but remember that your two monoliths have to contend against your opponents two dreadnoughts, which cost less.

Artifact Key — In the late game, you can often use this as a ‘free’ research. You spend ~10 Science to get 10 science (if you have two keys … and you start with one). Or you can convert 10 Science to 10 Mineral. And you get a VP or two. If you have 3 or more keys, this should be an automatic purchase.

Wormhole Generator (WG) — This should be a game changer, but I’ve found that it often isn’t. On T8 or T9 it does let you threaten your opponent, but typically they can just use the defender’s advantage to build a few random ships once you invade. And in Sector III, even the ‘half-connection’ requirement may be problematic. But, in any case, around T5 (if not earlier) you should look to see how you and your neighbors can use this, and whether they are on the bottom (“Nano”) track, since only people who hit that heavily are likley to buy it.  The WG is a potent threat against someone who has loaded up a chokepoint, which is yet another argument in favor of virtual fleets.

Loving the Alien — The Races

The Terran Factions — The Terrans start of with balanced home systems, decent reserves. Their racial benefits are trading at 2:1 (instead of 3:1 or worse) and a 3rd movement action. Humans shine in midgame (and later) offense, and can suffer poor tile draws pretty well. They take a bit of finesse to play well, but they aren’t bad at all. If they are the enemy, you can play your normal game, but watch out if they get drives. You’ll want to build some interceptors because they can make audacious attacks.

Descendants of Draco — The Draconians can spread fast, through ancient ships, but they can never get access to their discoveries. Still, those are great sectors. The explore two, keep one power is excellent, and means your sector III worlds should be prime. But expect all of the aliens you don’t protect to be destroyed, and you’ll be down a few discoveries. Draco, in particular, should expand into good systems, grab easy discoveries, build cruisers in Sector I, then on turn 3 or four move into the throneworld, research a key technology and upgrade. They convert their extra resources (and discovery or two). If they are the enemy, then you’ll need a bit extra oomph, since you’ll have to fight aliens after you crush them. Sometimes. But usually when that happens the aliens aren’t that much of a deal.

Eridani Empire — The empire’s huge stash of money 3 starting technologies may not be enough to overcome the two-action disc deficit. Various strategies are being bandied about but I don’t have a good grasp on them.  I’m going to try and play them soon, but I suspect they are just weak. Only pick them if you are going first, and even then, consider humans. If they are the enemy, hope they spread out too thin? Also, they are a prime target for sitzkriegs, since they’ll have to pass an action or two earlier, so you can build up near them and invade late in the turn.

Orion Hegemony — In my opinion, the best race. The Orion advantage is tempo, tempo, tempo. They start with a cruiser that’s roughly equivalent to an Alien and have the equivalent of 4 upgrade actions on their ships (not to mention a bit of extra power). You can consider exploring Sector II or I early on, and if you find a (single) alien building a second cruiser and attacking. (It’s probably still best to start with Sector III, just to keep those out of other hands). The Orions are legitimate threats against the Throneworld a turn earlier, which is a bonus discovery and a ton of resources (for as long as they keep it). In addition, the get a 5th VP slot. Even if you do get beat down later on, you’ll have a chunk of VP. If they are the enemy, do not let them get a chokepoint on you, and connect to them where their starting cruiser isn’t.

Planta — The Planta start out great. Those hyperthyroidal weeds will claim an extra large chunk of the galaxy and (with any luck) a few extra discoveries. Their ship designs are functionally better than most (at the beginning), effectively starting with a slighlty improved power source and computers! Don’t take marginal systems, or you’ll be spread too thin. But the Planta have several issues that make the endgame problematic for them. Their ship designs don’t improve well, and have terrible initiative. Planta often get Plasma Missiles to compensate the initiative. They’ll often be a target of choice (since they get an extra VP per hex) and opportunity (weak ships). So consider investing a bit more in ship upgrades. And don’t forget Planta’s annoying ability to take a turn to explore Sector I and then your neighbor’s Sector I. That can really ruin their day. (And a rules note — everyone has Neutron Bombs against the Planta! Don’t expect them to remember for you!) If they are the enemy, wait for their initial burst of energy to flag and then hit them hard.

Hydran Progress — Despite BGG’s love for the Progress, I consider them merely OK. The “Two research per action” can be great, but it can be a trap. They only have 3 VP slots and an ambassador, so if you betray them (or Vice versa) they might wind up losing a point (if they draw a low tile) instead of breaking even. As a progress player, I’d be sorely tempted to expand normally, save up my science, then buy a game changing technology ASAP. That’s probably how they should be played, and I’ll admit they could do quite well with that. That’s not how I’ve seen them played to date. Further research required.

Mechanima — The third build is OK. The third upgrade is pretty good, actually. The cheaper building costs aren’t bad, but are offset by your mineral poor starting position. Get some minerals, stat!

Random Tactics and Advice

• Take full advantage of Tactical Bankruptcy (if you would go negative on money, you can pick up disks). Unless you get great tiles, this should be a turn 1 plan (except for Eridani …. hm, another problem they have).
• If you are playing with people like me, it’s a race to hit the Throneworld. Consider moving in as the first action of that turn. (Note — not if you are connected on Sector I). Remember you can move/build then upgrade.
• A preemptive pass for first player is fine if you saving up for one key technology. Passing and praying? OK if you need a bit of luck. If people keep doing that to you, then build up a fleet next to the person passing, or start a sitzkrieg. I don’t typically mind being last, but in that case save up for a gamechanger. Still, it can hurt.

Summary

Eclipse, on the first play, strikes a lot of people as empty. You explore for a few turns, build up your defenses, then it explodes in an orgy on turn 9. But, viewed as a race for the throneworld (and technologies), Eclipse has a surprisingly short opening and endgame, and is roughly 7 turns of mid-game. That’s a great ratio. Yes, when people lose they tend to lose hard, and you can be shoved out of the game by some bad tile draws or a horrific few rolls of dice. But for a 2-3 hour game it’s not horrible. There are decisions to be made, risks to be balanced, and trade offs to be assessed. As our group has played more the games have seen more early attacking, the traitor tile shifting around, maneuvers, sacrificial attacks, move-upgrade attacks, and forking plays. The galaxy’s topology changes the game. It’s not a perfect game, but it has decisions all the way through.

Starship Merchants Bridging the New World’s Eclipse

That pretty much sums up my last week of gaming.

Starship Merchants — I’ve played three games and I enjoy it. I wrote a session report for my first two games, my 3rd was a 2-player affair that ended before the Mark IIIs showed up. I do worry (as at least one other poster has) that the 2 player game has a decent first player advantage. Yes, the second player can see and react but a) the first player will win a final run declaration (if the game is a dead heat) and (more importantly) b) the first player can see the available market and know which card he’ll buy if he only gets one ship. I think these apply in the 3+ game, as well, but it’s a lot more fluid, I think. Still in the honeymoon phase, though.

Bridge — Apart from crushing the weekly weaky club game again (seriously, the only good night game conflicts with my game night), the unit had an individual game with 22 tables. Sadly, at least 10 of those tables were atrocious, so it was a pot shoot. (Any individual event is, but if it were roughly the strength of a sectional event that would be one thing. This was “people who don’t know rebids after 1C-1H.” One of my better partners went down in a cold 3N … but at least realized her mistake). Actually, I’d do that again, as I think individuals are good for the game. I like the more obscure formats, and I’d like to see multi-session individuals (culling the field after each session). I think the ACBL should have one prestige individual event a year (not that I attend nationals).

Eclipse — Still enjoying this.

Mundus Novus — Cute. I’d play it again. Pleasantly indifferent.

Eclilpse Thoughts

After a trying (and rant-worthy) vacation travel story that saw my ~10 hours of flights turn into ~22 hours of travel, I splurged and bought Eclipse. So far I’ve played three games, two training games with the son and a 3-way fight. I’ve also lurked around a few other games (Eclipse is in constant rotation at SABG).

Right now I’m enthusiastic, and I hope Eclipse will garner significant play time. I just printed out an (unofficial) solo variant to get a fix in.

The rules are online, and there are plenty of mechnical reviews. Here are some thoughts.

It really only takes ~30 minutes per player. That’s huge. Twilight Imperium (even the new version) outstays its welcome. Eclipse leaves you wanting more. Arguably a touch short, but that’s much better than too long.

Mini-turns mean little downtime. In other games, when it’s not your turn you leave the table, but here it goes ‘action-action-action’ fairly quickly. Combats don’t resolve until the end of the turn, so there’s no real break. Several players had actions that took no longer than saying them (then the next player goes on while you mechnically do it.) “Researching Neutron Bombs.” “Upgrading to Improved Hulls.” “Building a Starbase and two cruisers over there.” Exploring (with a disc revealed) and sometimes upgrading take a bit of time, but for the most part the downtime is all player driven.

I like the flexible action sequence. Passing first gets you player order, but doesn’t totally lock you out. You can still take some limited actions (move, build and upgrade, but only one unit each). And each action you spend costs more and more money. This also means that you can overspend to move a fleet into position by overspending and hope to recoup your money via conquests (which will increase your income in the nick of time).

The spaceship upgrading and technologies fascinate me. I lost Monday because I had the right technologies and the action to upgrade my ships, but I’d miscalculated the energy and space calculations and botched it…. fleet destroyed. There are lots of little details to this system, and even for the relatively small ships how you get your armada from the starting shape into endgame position strikes me as a delicate balance. Technologies come out randomly (although I believe there are more of the cheaper ones), so there’s no “optimal” order of purchases. Outfitting Tier 2 Components (be it Engines, Shields, Computers or Weapons)  then upgrading them costs 3 actions (assuming you upgrade all your ships). Do you want to spend 3 more actions going to Tier 3? What will you leapfrog? What will you ignore?

Lose the battle but win the war. After finishing our game I watched the neighboring game as Ben committed his entire fleet against the Throneworld … and get annihilated. He went on to win the game. You have to love that.

And I haven’t even gotten to the Aliens. Lots to explore here.