-------------------------------

WARNING: SPOILER! If you don't want to know the details about the upcoming expansion before it is released, please read no further!

--------------------------------

Interview with Cyril Demaegd (Ystari, french publisher) on Tric Trac TV (in French, posted on Apr 18th): http://www.trictrac.net/index.php3?id=tv&inf=tv_flash&ref=11...
He talks about "The Gathering Storm" and the 2nd expansion.


For those who don't understand French, here you have a summary of the interview:

- 5 players, a new starting deck.

- He said that there aren't that many new cards, but they do have a great impact on the pace of the game and the way it is played. For example:
Improved Logistics: development, cost 3, 2 VP
Settle: May place a second military/non-military world (settle twice in one turn)
[Thanks to Brendon Russel for the text on the card: "Does not use any powers from the first world placed, do not draw a Settle bonus card for the second world"]

- Some worlds with explore power, including:
Deserted Alien World: cost 1, 2 VP
+1 explore (look)

- 4 new starting worlds:
Separatist Colony: cost 2, 1 VP (starting world 5)
+ 2 explore (look)
+ 1 military
[I couldn't read the text on the card!]

Ancient Race: genes windfall, cost 2, 1 VP (starting world 6)
starting hand 3 cards

Damaged Alien Factory: alien production/military, cost 3, 2 VP (starting world 7)
discard 1 card to produce

Doomed World: cost 1, -1 VP (starting world 8)
+1 explore (look)
can be discarded to place non-military world (except alien) -- just like the Colony Ship

- New 6-point developments:
Terraforming Guild:
2 VP / windfall world
2 VP / Terraforming card (including this one)
Settle: draw 1 card after settling
Produce: produce 1 good on one windfall

Galactic Genome Project:
2 VP / genes world (normal, windfall)
3 VP / Genectics Lab
Consume: 2 genes -> 3 VP

-*Probably* short- and middle term objectives, between 3 and 5 bonus points, face up from the beginning.
Some possible examples: 1st to get X military power, or the 1st to get a power on each phase.
Also, endgame bonus for those who have the most *something*.

-2nd expansion centered in the battle between the Empire and the Rebels
Imperium Seat: 6-point dev, can attack Rebel cards
Rebel Alliance: 6-point dev, can attack Imperium cards
If you don't have Imperium or Rebel cards, you can't be attacked.
edit: Wei-Hwa Huang said (in Comments) that "None of those three statements is completely accurate..." I'll take the blame, cause I needed to guess a bit here - but only here

- One expansion has around 30 cards, the other around 50.

- Solo rules, maybe drafting...

- When asked about the release date, he said that as far as he knows it's going to be "before summer", but the precise date is up to Rio Grande Games [but I don't know when the interview took place]


edit(s): formatting, wording, some more information

Great scoop indeed!



It's hard to read, but I think the text on the card is something like this:

"Does not use any powers from the first world placed, do not draw a Settle bonus card for the second world"

I'm glad to see some news on Gathering Storm. I'm most interested in those new starting worlds, as the original 5 get a bit dull after a while! 10 worlds in total will be a nice variety! Still no firm date though, right?

Lots of explore power worlds out there it seems. Good news for Seti, that's going to make it one of the best 6 devs, I would have thought (it's pretty good already)

Doomed World would be good with Lost Ark Species World in the opening hand.

Damaged Alien factory's interesting. Alien military production is powerful, I suppose which is why you have to discard a card to produce.

Improved Logistics looks very nice for a military player especially. Would make for ineresting play in 2 player. Theoretically if develop/develop and settle/settle are called, 6 cards could be played in 1 turn

Terraforming gets fleshed out, I wonder if Uplift and Imperium will be as well, or if that's for the 2nd expansion.

I like the sound of short/mid term goals. Makes you have to think about things a bit more. Do you make the play that sets up your engine best for the long term, or sacrifice your development slightly in order to gain a few points in the short term? Hopefully it won't force people's play in one direction though, although I can't imagine it would with the amount of playtesting.

2nd Expansion sounds interesting too. I wonder how "attacking" is going to work.

Nice scoop! Hopefully this means they're on the fast track for the expansion.

I'm glad to see the 'discard a card to produce' mechanic introduced, I'd been batting an idea like that around, and now it may be possible to 'cost' it for other purposes.

A reduced starting hand for a gene windfall seems more than fair - and you can bet what the first move of THAT player will be.

Imperium/Rebel attacking sounds like "optional PvP" to me. There will be some players who simple refuse to play the cards which can be attacked - ever. I wonder how that will affect the game.

Terraforming Guild looks crazy for the military player who's perpetually stuck with a ton of windfalls.

Same for Improved Logistics - seems very geared towards the mlitary player.

So far I like what I see!

Cyril Demaegd said that there will be some good cards for the genectic strategy in the 1st expansion, but that it will get real a boost in the 2nd. I imagine he's talking about, respectively, the Galactic Genome Project and the Uplift cards.



He said that the developers had this idea once the base game was already out, to address the "no interaction" complaints. I do like it, too.



According to him, you can also win by playing old-style



Another comment from him: the players can agree on whether they will play a "fighting" game or not. If they want a "normal" game, they only need to remove certain cards from the deck.

sounds good. I like the idea of conflict being restricted to certain cards, so you can choose to take the risk of conflict, but can avoid it so long as you dont touch rebel/imperial cards.

So how does attacking imperium / rebel cards actually work?

You'll have to wait at least another six months for the answer to that question.

Unless we can, hmm, *persuade* Tom Lehmann or Wei-Hwa Huang to come over and drop a line...

How much GeekGold do you have left?

None of those three statements is completely accurate... ;-)

Oh, it's also worth mentioning that the cards shown in the video are images from my prototype design; I was surprised to see those instead of the actual production cards.

Rebel and Imperium cards are vulnerable to attack, only if your opponent gets the proper development?
Doesn't seem so bad. If you draw and discard Rebel Alliance early on, you can feel confident that your imperium cards won't be attacked. At least for quite a while :-) The Rebel/Imperium "war" doesn't sound like something that will happen every game since you'd presumably have to be playing a military strategy AND end up with the right development. Sounds like an interesting mechanic, but I can't imagine it will be something too complicated.

These short term goals sound interesting though. I don't think they will define how you play, since if you draw a combo of really nice cards you'll want to play them regardless of whether they fulfill goals or not. If your cards don't synergize that well with each other, you may at least be able to grab a short-term goal with them even if you can't make an entire strategy out of it.

Compare to TtR where some players barely draw any tickets and just take the longest routes they can and occasionally block their rivals, and then the players that have a sprawling network of short routes that connect dozens of cities and complete several tickets... Yeah, the short term goals kind of reminded me of tickets.

30 cards? Is this right? The price seems a little steep for a 30 card expansion, IMHO.