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There is a lot of space out there….

Posted by Mike Ricotta

19 May 2011

Mike Ricotta

(ricottma)

United States
Norfolk
Virginia

Long time readers of this blog (now that’s comedy, it assumes that people read this blog and they would do so more than once…genius) have noticed I haven’t written anything in a while. This is because I’m lazy. Please direct complaints to the blogs title.

There are a lot of spaceship games on the old Hotlist lately. Is there some outer space craze I’m not aware of? Probably. Now I like space games. I enjoy a good game of TI3 (with the first expansion’s power cards). It has it’s problems, and isn’t near perfect but it can be an enjoyable way to spend a day. Right now I’d put High Frontier in my top 10. Great game about early space exploration. Don’t let all the science through you off, it’s not really that complicated. It is a game about planning more than anything. Space requires a lot of planning and thought it seems, can’t just go blasting off your rockets whilley nilly…

It appears that there are 5 space games coming out that I was interested enough in to look at. I even read the rules to three of them (I do love reading rules). I would say that only one is interesting enough to purchase without playing. The others I would like to try out first.

Two of the games are just space battles, the other 3 have some empire building in them. I do like to build a good empire.

Battleship Galaxies: The Saturn Offensive
Rules aren’t available but that won’t stop me from spouting on. So this is by Hasbro and has some nice looking ships. All good and plasticy. It claims to be a distant cousin of battleship (Like the kissing kind? Did Battleship meet Battleship Galaxies at a family reunion? Is it like Sorry and Sorry Sliders?). From what I can tell the similarity is that when you roll to shoot another ship you roll two dice to get a letter and number combination, the target looks at its stat card to see if that combination is a hit. Perhaps it is like Starship Bingo? B7? Anyway, the minis look cool, the idea is OK, not everything Hasbro makes is bad. But, even if it is a great game the Heroscape distribution plan scares me. It’s been rumored/speculated that there will be endless expansions and new fleets for the game (provided it is fairly popular). That isn’t great news as I am fairly cheap and enjoy owning 100% of a game.

Verdict: Try before Buy

But what if there is a good sale? Provided it is a good sale I’d pick it up…

Eclipse
Another one I haven’t seen the rules on. The link in the forum post seems to be dead. The name and cover art are fairly awful though. Seems like there should be some douchey sparkly vampires. (I’m so original in this blog it hurts) I have read a bit on it though. So it seems like they wanted to add Euro-game malarky into my space ship fun. Not a good sign. I really don’t care for role selection (I tolerate it in TI3, barely). The biggest sin in my eyes is all the stuff they did to make the game “balanced”. Sure run-away leaders happen in some games but it appears that Eclipse tries to hard to contain it. The bigger your empire gets the less efficient you are. Earning VPs from combat becomes less efficient. Stuff like that. Finally the tech tree isn’t a tree at all! In fact there is a random bunch of techs available to purchase each turn. Not my favorite plan. Ohh and there are non-aggressive ways to win….lame. The final nail in the coffin is the $100 price tag. To rich for my blood….

Verdict: I’d try it if nothing else was going on

But what if there is a good sale? That would have to be one hell of a sale.

Battle Beyond Space
Another space battle game. Good for up to 4 players! Short play time! So far so good. Diceless combat…dang, we were so close. I like dice, I like dice in combat. It makes sense to me, combat is never so 100% predictable. But wait, there is a huge glob of randomness, you never know how far your ships are going to move! So, how it works is you have two ship types, fighters and capitals. On your turn you draw a card that tells you how far your fighters move. They move that far exactly, no more no less. Then you can turn them up to an amount on the card. Then they shoot! Capital ships can move however you like, up to the limit on the card. I just don’t know here. I really like the ideas but I’m not sure I’d like how they play out. I think I’d like a little more control over what’s happening. Something just isn’t exciting me here, I think it’s the lack of control and the lack of dice… On the other hand for a quick 4 player space fight it sounds fun
…
Verdict: I would really want to try it…

But what if there is a good sale? Will my wife find out?

Ascending Empires
Now here is something different. A space empire game that uses “flicking” as its main mechanic! Space ships are flicked across the board. IF a ship lands in the orbit of a planet it can colonize it. If two ships run into each other they both explode. Space battles happen if the ships are near each other. This is a great idea since it discourages just trying to ram the other guys ships around. AND there is a tech tree (a real one this time). It’s got everything and flicking! I can’t really complain about this but I’ll try! The only downside is I’m not very good at flicking. I can see games going on to long since we all suck at flicking. Still, sounds fun!

Verdict: If it’s not to expensive, I’d still like to try it out. Make sure it isn’t a novelty that will wear out it’s welcome…

But what if there is a good sale? See above

Space Empires 4x
If you have been doing the math (I did say I would purchase one game unplayed) you may have noticed that I haven’t done so. So here it is, Space Empires 4x. The game I already pre-ordered (unless this has all been a big lie and I truly hate everything, seems likely, who knows?). So, why this game? First off it’s got everything I want. At the start of the game you know about ONE hex, your home world. Everything else is unexplored. To explore you simply move a combat ship into an unexplored hex and flip the chit in there. Perhaps you will find a planet, perhaps you will explode. Chits can have aliens bent on killing you, doomsday machines bent on killing you or a rare mineral find (sadly not bent on killing anything). So explore, build new colonies, so far so good. The tech tree here is a traditional tree, but the designer has promised that you won’t be able to research all it in one go. Sounds like you have to pick a strategy and go with it. Cloaking? Mines? Carriers with Fighters? Just plain big ships? Speed? It looks like a lot of viable strategy. I hope one doesn’t prove to be better then the rest (although the designer has declared that the game has been in development for 20 YEARS!). Combat seems simple enough, each ship has a letter, A fires before B and so on. Stuff that blows up can’t shoot back. Fleet strength is hidden from other players as it flies around the galaxy. The best part, the part that made me pre-order (besides that sweet sweet discount) is there is only one way to win…kill. Killing. That’s it.

Verdict: Pass…no wait…buy!

But what if there is a good sale? I’ll be sadBattleship Galaxies: The Saturn Offensive Game Set

16 Comments

Thu May 19, 2011 7:14 pm

Post Comment

Dominic Crapuchettes

(domcrap)

United States
Bethesda
MD

This overtext is brought to you by the abstract strategy game Battle of LITS and the number 20.

Hi.

(I decided to check out your blog because of an amazing advertisement I read on Darrin's blog about nothing.)

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 1:07 am
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Chris Campos

(kashre)

United States

California

Gotta agree with most of what you said, except that Eclipse looks cool to me. You can customize your ships! That's the coolest thing since sliced cheese!

But the art does kind of suck.

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 2:44 am
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Darrell Hanning

(DarrellKH)

United States
Jacksonville
Florida

Love women in action movies and shows. It all started with Diana Rigg, in the Avengers.

Quote:

The bigger your empire gets the less efficient you are. Earning VPs from combat becomes less efficient.

Not realistic? Too much of a game balancer?

See Rome - ancient Earth history.

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 3:14 am
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Mike Ricotta

(ricottma)

United States
Norfolk
Virginia

domcrap wrote:

Hi.

(I decided to check out your blog because of an amazing advertisement I read on Darrin's blog about nothing.)

Thanks for reading my rambling!

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 3:15 am
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Jonathan Ramundi

(Jotora)

Canada
Toronto
Ontario

Also see: "Core Worlds" and "Empires of the Void".

Edited Fri May 20, 2011 6:23 am
Posted Fri May 20, 2011 6:22 am
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Mike Ricotta

(ricottma)

United States
Norfolk
Virginia

DarrellKH wrote:

Quote:

The bigger your empire gets the less efficient you are. Earning VPs from combat becomes less efficient.

Not realistic? Too much of a game balancer?

See Rome - ancient Earth history.

The problem is (in my mind) that a small empire can do 10 things while a large empire can do 2. (These are guesses, I never got to see the rules) So what the game says is that the larger you are the less you can acomplish. Is this reality? Shouldn't a larger empire have more resources? Now if the other players make them a target of thier anger so be it. That is what happened to Rome...

The Combat part is almost worse. If you win a combat you draw some vistory tiles out of a bag (depends on how well you did) and keep one. You can then keep a max of 4 tiles. So on your fifth combat you draw your tiles and if you want to keep one you discard one from your hand. SO, if on the first 4 turns I blow up your scout ship and on the fifth turn I burn your homeworld down that final battle is less VP important then the 4 scouts....

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 11:20 am
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Mike Ricotta

(ricottma)

United States
Norfolk
Virginia

Jotora wrote:

Also see: "Core Worlds" and "Empires of the Void".

So much work to do...

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 11:20 am
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Darrell Hanning

(DarrellKH)

United States
Jacksonville
Florida

Love women in action movies and shows. It all started with Diana Rigg, in the Avengers.

Rome - as with every other large empire, before and after - experienced geometric growth in administrative overhead, as its empire grew at something more resembling a linear rate. Logistics, transportation infrastructure, span of control problems forcing the creation of additional levels of bureuacracy, graft and corruption - all of these factors and a dozen more make administration of an empire increasingly composed of conquered lands increasingly more expensive and problematic to maintain and administer.

As gamers, we think first (and often only) of the wars in which Rome was involved, but that is just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the problems it encountered as a growing empire.

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 11:50 am
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Jonathan Ramundi

(Jotora)

Canada
Toronto
Ontario

I suggest you read the rules of Eclipse then to better understand. Any explanation I could give won't do it justice (but I'm going to try anyway

).

One of the main concepts of the game is that the more your empire grows, the more expensive is becomes to run it. At the same time, the larger it is, the more resources it will (should) be able to produce to compensate.

However, because taking actions also requires money--with the cost going up exponentially (sort of) with each one--a bloated empire will find itself unable to perform as many actions (or at least not many more) than a smaller, more efficient empire.

Still, a larger empire, should at least be able to pay for more/more expensive things (technologies, ships) when such actions are taken. But, of course, it will be harder to defend, since your (limited) fleet of ships will be spread more thinly. It's a delicate balancing act players undergo throughout the entirety of the game. It's not just about how much you can conquer and how fast, you have to put more forethought into when and where to conquer, and also when and where to strategically retreat from if it means avoiding a high "upkeep" cost at the end of a game round.

Edited Fri May 20, 2011 7:09 pm
Posted Fri May 20, 2011 7:08 pm
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adebisi

(adebisi)

Finland
Espoo

ricottma wrote:

DarrellKH wrote:

Quote:

The bigger your empire gets the less efficient you are. Earning VPs from combat becomes less efficient.

Not realistic? Too much of a game balancer?

See Rome - ancient Earth history.

This isn't true. The bigger your empire is, the more resources you'll have. This means more ships, more structures, more science. However, the trick is that you have to develop your economy in order to build that big empire. Expanding too fast will just tear your administration into pieces.

In other words, the resources will limit the choices a small empire has, while economy will set limits to your growth.

ricottma wrote:

The Combat part is almost worse. If you win a combat you draw some vistory tiles out of a bag (depends on how well you did) and keep one. You can then keep a max of 4 tiles. So on your fifth combat you draw your tiles and if you want to keep one you discard one from your hand. SO, if on the first 4 turns I blow up your scout ship and on the fifth turn I burn your homeworld down that final battle is less VP important then the 4 scouts....

Don't forget the VP's you get (and your opponent loses) from conquering the hexes. They're a major VP source and your incentive to battle (plus the resources you'll gain access to). Naturally Homeworlds are worth more victory points than hexes in periphery. The VP tiles are just something extra you get from doing particularly well in battle, i.e., the more enemy ships you destroy the more tiles you get to draw. Hence, you'll have a higher probability to get better tiles from the bag.

Edited Fri May 20, 2011 7:24 pm
Posted Fri May 20, 2011 7:14 pm
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Touko Tahkokallio

(Touko)

Finland
Espoo

As Jonathan and adebisi already commented on the upkeep thing, I just add few other comments...

Quote:

The link in the forum post seems to be dead.

It is a big file and so it is better to save it on your computer first (by right-click on your mouse and choose save) and open it after that.

Quote:

The name and cover art are fairly awful though.

The representative image you see now is just a placeholder. I haven't even seen the final cover yet my self.

Quote:

So it seems like they wanted to add Euro-game malarky into my space ship fun. Not a good sign. I really don’t care for role selection (I tolerate it in TI3, barely).

Actually, there is no role selection (or other complications) in Eclipse like in TI3. You just choose your action as you like (and as you can afford). Perhaps TI3 is more euro then?

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts Mike!

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 7:38 pm
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adebisi

(adebisi)

Finland
Espoo

Touko wrote:

Quote:

So it seems like they wanted to add Euro-game malarky into my space ship fun. Not a good sign. I really don’t care for role selection (I tolerate it in TI3, barely).

Actually, there is no role selection (or other complications) in Eclipse like in TI3. You just choose your action as you like (and as you can afford). Perhaps TI3 is more euro then?

I gotta comment on this Euro thing. To me a typical euro game represents something that has a neat mechanic but is difficult to play right and the rules are hard to remember because that clever mechanic doesn't even remotely represent anything in reality. It's just something abstract with a pasted on theme.

In contrary, in Eclipse everything makes sense and you can make the right decisions, or at least avoid the wrong ones, with just your gut feeling. I'm not saying that the game would be ultra-realistic, as all games are an abstraction of reality to some degree, but it's not over simplified either. And it sure doesn't feel like Puerto Rico or Princes of Florence.

But we all might have different definitions for an euro game...

Anyways, your blog was an interesting read.

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 8:31 pm
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Mike Ricotta

(ricottma)

United States
Norfolk
Virginia

All right, I tried the Eclipse rules link again and this time it looks to be working...I will give them a rad (I've always wanted to anyway). You guys have been very persuasive and I am more interested in the game now that some of my misconceptions have been cleared up....I'd be more willing to try it now!

Posted Fri May 20, 2011 10:43 pm
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Frank Branham

(fbranham)

United States
Norcross
Georgia

Battle Beyond Space Status: In Production. Late July is current estimate.

Battle Beyond Space is an odd beast. (Designer here, so my bias is suspect.)

The big difference is that you control EVERYTHING that happens on your turn as you start your move. This goes a LONG way toward giving you a sense of control.

This is where the speed comes from. That and trimming down the number of decisions you get to make on a turn. In practice, the loss of actual control comes mostly from just what the other players do--BBS is a very aggressive game.

The loss is long term strategic planning. The special power and end of game victory points give you a hint of strategy, but it is still a far cry from that 4x game we are all lusting after.

Of course, none of the above is really going to explain whether or not you'll like it. The typical expression when explaining the rules to a new player is sheer disbelief that it is actually a game. It is, but it is a pretty odd collection of rules that somehow hangs together.

Edited Tue May 24, 2011 5:55 pm
Posted Tue May 24, 2011 5:51 pm
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