While
playing Eclipse I thought of how Star Trek Deep Space Nine (DS9) shares
parallels with Eclipse. DS9 is located near the planet of Bajor and
travels sometimes require use of a wormhole. What made DS9 unique was it was
the first Star Trek Show to focus plots character development and story arcs
due its stationary setting. This key feature allowed producers and writers to
introduce a fantastic string of prominent reoccurring characters, my favorite
character: Elim Garak, a "plain and simple tailor”, exiled Obsidian
Order spy who plotted to murder a Romulan Senator to force the Romulans to ally
with the Federation against the Dominion was key to the Federation winning the
war.
Secondly, DS9 transformed the Ferengi people from
slithering, bungling fools with S&M energy whips in Star Trek:
TNG to a respectful race with culture and customs. No longer were the Ferengi
comedic rough shot. Though, Quark and
Odo interactions remain some of the most comical scenes among all of Trek.
As such, I
will utilize my review of Eclipse using a Ferengi’s most trusted and sacred
source of economic theory and practice: the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
Rule of
Acquisition 34: Peace is good for business and Rule of Acquisition 35: War is
good for business
Eclipse is
2-6 player game played over a series of nine rounds. In the game during
peaceful conditions or by avoiding fighting, victory points can be gained by
upgrading one of your three technology tracks, opening diplomatic
relations with other players and by controlling space hexes via
influence tokens or discs. Under war conditions victory points are earned by entering
into battle, killing opponent’s ships, and by destroying ancient ships. The
victory points are earned by drawing from the reputation tile bag for entering
into battle or by taking over a space hex. The space hexes score victory points
at the end of the game when a player controls them.
Rule
Acquisition 141: Never Pay Retail:
Eclipse is
an expensive game weighing 2,680 or almost 6 pounds, but there is value
with the price tag. My gaming group likes buying board games by the pound. The heavier the better! If you
like heavy board games this game is for you. Agricola, Le Havre, Railways of
the World are all fun games and quite heavy.
Upon opening the box, I thought the player mat sheet was actually a punch out
sheet! The two-sided ginormous player mats do appear
confusing with a lot going on, but after going over the rules and playing a few rounds
the player mats become intuitive.
Rule of Acquisition 22: A wise man can hear profit in the wind and Rule of Acquisition 45: Expand or Die
Rule of Acquisition 22: A wise man can hear profit in the wind and Rule of Acquisition 45: Expand or Die
I am not
going to explain the rules in entirety; however, I will briefly highlight
the different actions to share the favor of the game. On the player mat there
are three tracks: Money, Science and
Materials. Player's can take the following actions on their turn and expends
one token from their available actions:
1. Explore:
New space hexes are placed on table to create a modular board. Exploring is a
way to expand production of money, science, or materials through conquering a
planet. Occasionally, "ancient ships" will be discovered. Upon
destroying the ancient ships a player can view a secret tile and either take 2
victory points or a special benefit. It appears, from my experience, early game the benefits are
more advantageous and late game the victory points may be a better
deal. Following the ancient ship battle a player may place population cubes on
the planet of a corresponding color to increase production. Exploring and
Conquering a planet in effect requires use of two action tokens (also known as influence discs).
2.
Influence: Move influence discs on the board to hexes without an opponent
present or remove influence discs from the board to place back on your player
mat. The latter options is a way to reduce upkeep costs at the end of a round
the number of actions taken has an associated cost. However, keeping
the influence tokens on the board has two distinct benefits: required
to increase resource production and controlled space hexes are worth victory
points at the end of the game. Additionally, influence allows you to
place additional cubes on the board after you have placed your maximum of three.
3. Research:
This action is important! Research allows players to gain technology to
increase the effectiveness of their ships in
battle, research reduces the cost of future technological upgrades and completing research tracks can be worth
victory points. In addition, research allows for players to upgrade production
capacity and to produce victory points through use of the build action. What is
interesting is each round new technologies become available by random draw and
they may also disappear when players purchase them.
4. Upgrade:
Players have access to simple ship upgrades: shields, weapons, targeting, etc.
After players have researched technology they may perform better upgrades to
their ships.
5. Build:
Construct ships for defensive or offensive purposes, space docks to increase
defense, orbitals to increase production, and monoliths to score additional
victory points.
6. Move:
Move through wormholes to other hexes. To engage in battle move ships into
other player's controlled hexes. Battle engagements result drawing reputation
tiles or victory points. Destroying ships increases
the probability of drawing a higher victory point; however, players may
only keep one victory point.
Rule of
Acquisition 85: Never let the competition know what you're thinking
and Rule of Acquisition 236: You can't buy fate
The basic
flow of the game takes place during three phases: Actions, Battle, Upkeep and
Clean-up Phases. The ingenious of Eclipse is players may take one any of the
available actions on their turn and play continues to each player has passed.
Even after a player has passed, weaker versions of actions may be taken as a
reaction to another player's action. The tension in Eclipse results from
wondering when the opponents will strike and how many actions to take on your
turn. Increasing your number of actions increases the upkeep costs. Is there
enough cash-flow to support the number of actions taken?
Yes, players can buy fate in this game. Research and
Technology Upgrades are key to your ships performing better in
battle. These upgrades are vital because during battle ships have a
better capability of destroying other players ships and/or ancient
ships resulting in better reputation tile draws and expanding your empire.
Battles take place with rolling D6: 1 are always a miss and 6 is always a hit. The
upgrades affect the dice rolls by altering hit points and damage.
Rule of
Acquisition 218: Always know what you're buying
A debate has
circled our table during research purchases: Is it better to buy smaller cost
technologies to receive discounted prices on future technologies or is a better
to spend your entire tech budget for a expensive upgrade, but with kick-ass
benefits. Our last game a player was able to mop the table by having strong
ship upgrades early in the game. More
playtime should resolve this question.
Rule of
Acquisition 76: Every once in a while, declare peace, It confuses the hell out
of your enemies
Entering
into diplomatic relations with another player is a way to declare peace and
open trade relations in a loose sense. By this agreement a player take one of
their population cubes and diplomat and hands it to another player. It is only
worth one victory point, but it immediately increases production of money,
technology, or building resources. Last game I declared peace with a
neighboring opponent, but was still pinned between two players. It reminded me
of the Princess Bride, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."
There were too many fronts to defend!
Rule of
Acquisition 16: A deal is a deal....until a better one comes along
Players may
break diplomatic relations and attack previously allied players. Better find a
good deal because this action comes with a hefty price tag: The traitor card
worth negative two victory points. That player holds this card until another
table at the table commits the same treacherous act.
Rule
of Acquisition: More is Good....all is better
As
previously stated, the game ends after nine rounds and the player
with the most victory points wins. Players by default have room for up to four
reputation tiles or less depending on whether diplomatic relations were
entered. Diplomats occupy the same space as a reputation tile. This game has
multiple tracks to victory and equals depends on what your fellow players are
working on.
The
introductory game of Eclipse can be played with all human races and the
beginning game stats are exactly the same. Meaning players start with the same
amount of resources. In our second game, we played on the reverse side of the
player mat to play with the aliens. Each alien race has a specific competitive
advantage. Examples include starting with more money, being able to research
two technologies with one action, being allowed to place influence tokens and
population cubes on hexes with ancient ships, etc.
Our group
enjoyed the alien side due to the asymmetrical start conditions. However, the
random fashion of exploring new space hexes poses a larger problem on the alien
side. A bad space hex draw may trap your production of money, technology, or
building resources at a low production level. In
one recent game I could not make
enough money to take additional action. I am diverging once from the Ferengi
references to make room for another epic quote. While playing Eclipse, I
started to think of the classic Space Balls dessert scene:
Skroob: Tell
him to comb the desert. Do you hear me? Comb the desert.
Col Sandurz:
Are we being too literal?
Dark Helmet:
No, you fool. We're following orders. We were told to comb the desert, so we're
combing it.
Dark Helmet:
Found anything yet?
Trooper with
Afro Pic: We ain't found shit.
There are
times while exploring new space hexes I felt like, "We ain't found
shit!" There were times I when I really when a planet which produces more
money. Eclipse forces players to exploit currently what a empire is good at
doing. Instead of focusing on a futile attempt to increase production of money,
technology upgrades or battle become an option.
Also, worth
mentioning is the rules on exploration. Exploring a new space hex allows player
to select one the following: inner, middle, or outer ring hex to explore. There
are limited amounts of outer ring hexes, which prevents players from becoming
too isolated and promotes player conflict. Wormhole technology allows players
to bend the rules to allow players to move more freely on the game board.
Finally,
Rule of Acquisition 19: Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
I'm
competitive and not happy when I lose. No worries it's not my fault that I
lost. Luckily, I don't dwell on losses very long.
Some
complaints at the gaming table: "Everyone spent the entire game building
up forces and only one massive battle during round 9" In the next game
forces were built up and battle never took place. In the third game, forces
were built and quickly utilized. With such a small sample size, there is
inherit variability in game play; however, some players are left unhappy
because their plans were interrupted during the game.
Thumbs Up:
Quality Game
Production with epic sized game board and loads of plastic ships
Action Phase
is filled with vital decision options
Second guessing:
Is defense or offense a mistake or the right strategy at a given time.
Fun
exploring and deciding your empire's fate
Thumbs Down:
Down time
during between actions and games have lasted between 3-4.5 Hours.
Players
building fleets and not battling
Post
thoughts: After playing Eclipse I want to break out my copy of TI3 I have not
played in a while. It has been sitting in the hall closet for two years at
least. And I leave you with, "Mr.
Sulu, set course to GeekBoardis, War Factor Nerd"
Eclipse is currently available for purchase.
Eclipse English Rule Book
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