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Galaxy Trucker – The Big Expansion
Overview:
I’m going to make the assumption that if you’re reading this you have probably either played Galaxy Trucker, or at least know about the game and how it works, so I won’t go into detail about the idea of the game itself. The Big Expansion contains 6 additions that can be added to the base game in any combination to make the game harder or more interesting. The object of the game remains the same though in that players are trying to reach their destination and make as much money as possible with the winner being the one who has the most at the end of the three rounds.
Components:
I have been playing with a prototype version and so the finished article will obviously have superior quality components. Suffice to say that the components will need to match with the base game, which had excellent components – thick card tiles, good quality stock cards, fun alien and astronaut pieces, etc. Included in the Expansion are pieces for a 5th player, new double sided ship boards (Types 1A and 2A), a new type of alien, some bonus adventure cards, a deck of Rough Road cards, a deck of Evil Machinations cards and a load of new tiles including new types of ship component.
Rules:
I only have a printed copy of the rules but I assume the quality of the printing for the rules will match the base game. The rules are once again well written, with humour interjected throughout. Unlike the rules for the base game, however, I would say they are more logically laid out to make it easier to reference things later.
Gameplay:
The basic premise is still the same as in the base game – players build their ships up out of the pile of components simultaneously and then travel through space attempting to get to the destination in one piece and maybe even pick up some cargo on the way. I’ll go through each part of the expansion to explain what it adds:
Fifth Wheel:
These are the rules to allow a fifth player in the game. It isn’t just as simple as adding another ship board and little ship marker for the player, however, as many of the cards have been designed with 2-4 players in mind. When playing with 5 players most adventure cards slightly change the way they work. If a card would normally affect only one player it can now affect two players instead, with the second player getting a slightly reduced bonus or slightly reduced version of the attack, etc.
For example, if Pirates attack and the first player defeats them and takes the bounty, they still continue on and threaten the rest of the convoy and can be destroyed again and more bounty claimed. However, after being destroyed once they are slightly weaker, so that any player shot at by them doesn’t take one of the large laser blasts, and if they are destroyed for a second time the reward is one credit less.
Likewise with a planet card, a player may land on a planet that someone else has already landed on, but they receive one goods cube less than they would normally. Only one planet in total may be landed on for a second time.
Other adventure cards work similarly. Also, at the end of the round the first two players in the race receive the reward for finishing first, with the player who is third receiving the reward for 2nd place, etc. Also, the two ships with fewest exposed connectors both receive the bonus for having fewest exposed connectors.
New Components:
There are many new component tiles and I will briefly discuss them here:
Cyan alien life support – a new life support tile for cyan aliens. These are special aliens that have a unique function, which is chosen by the player from a selection of 5.
Combi-tiles – these are tiles that have a combination of functions from the original game, e.g. cargo storage and batteries together, laser and engine together.
Bi-directional Cannon – this is a double laser that needs powering but they are split so that the two barrels face different directions.
Luxury Cabins – these hold only one human astronaut in them and if this astronaut is still alive at the end of the trip a reward is paid.
Stasis Chambers – these hold four dormant astronauts who do not count towards the total when counting up the amount of crew on board. When any crew are lost (to slavers for example) they can be woken up and used to fill empty cabins as long as there was at least one human astronaut awake to revive them.
Reactor Furnace – if placed next to a battery component these can be used whenever a player receives goods cubes to throw one into the furnace and recharge the battery component.
Indestructible Plating – This can withstand any kind of hit (including large meteors and heavy cannon fire) unless it hits on a side with an exposed connector.
Cannon booster – When placed next to a cannon this can be used to boost the strength of that cannon when counting up strength. It requires power to use it and causes the cannon to be destroyed afterwards but adds an additional +3 strength (halved if pointing sideways or backwards).
Shield booster – When placed next to a shield this can be used to boost the strength of the shield so that it can protect against large meteors and heavy cannon fire. This requires an additional power to use.
Engine Booster – When placed next to an engine this can be used to cause the ship to go into hyperdrive, either when an adventure card is revealed or when any parameter of your ship is checked (e.g. when it is your turn to check laser power against an enemy). This costs a power to use and causes the ship to jump to hyperspace, missing the rest of that adventure card and the next adventure card before returning. The engine used is destroyed.
When playing with 5 players all the tiles are used but with fewer players some tiles are removed (25 for 4 players, 50 for 3 players and 75 for 2 players).
Rough Road Cards:
This is a slightly updated version of the free expansion that was offered around a year ago and is downloadable from the CGE website.
The cards are essentially global effects that are in play for the entirety of a round. Players decide beforehand what level of difficulty they would like and before building will draw that many Rough Road cards and read them out.
Some cards may affect the building procedure; others may mean more adventure cards are used, or that certain cards are more deadly, etc.
Examples are cards like Piercing Projectiles which means that if a laser blast or meteor destroys a component it continues and hits the next component as well, potentially destroying a second component or Dead Zone which means one particular column of the ship does not function (lasers do not work, batteries have no power, cabins have no crew, etc.)
Evil Machinations Cards:
The evil machinations cards are essentially adventure cards that each player can insert into the deck of cards to be used for the current round.
Each player is dealt four cards at the start of the game and before the building begins for each round the players choose one card from their hand to play. These cards are put into a pile and kept to one side until after the building is done.
Once the ships are built the deck is prepared by having the Evil Machinations cards shuffled into the middle half of the adventure card deck.
When these cards come out during the course of the journey they are treated like regular adventure cards and their effects are read out and affect every player, including the player who added it to the deck.
Some cards can cause players to lose money during the first round before they may have any. For this reason it is now possible for players to go into debt. Players can take a loan token which gives them 10 credits. To pay back the loan they must return 12 credits to the bank at any time. A player cannot win if they have any loan tokens at the end of the game.
New Ship Classes:
There are two new ship classes available, class 1A and class 2A.
Class 1A is unusual in that it cannot be missed by meteors and laser fire. Any roll of the dice will hit at least one row or column of the ship. It is also different in that it can be orientated in any direction. A player may change what is the front of the ship during building if they like. However, during the final spot check before launch the direction is set and cannot be changed. Any engines that aren’t facing the back at this time must be removed.
At the end of the round any player who is the only one to finish with their ship in that particular orientation gets a creativity bonus that is equal to the bonus for the best-looking ship.
Class 2A is unusual in that it is actually two separate ships. A player’s starting tile is not used and when building they can start on any space in each ship but must then connect each tile to another on that ship.
When determining engine strength each ship adds up it’s engine strength separately and the lower value is used. When determining crew and cannon strength the total from both ships is used. Batteries can only be used on components in their own half of the ship. Goods can be distributed and switched between the two halves when they are obtained. When losing goods, crew or battery power they may be taken from either half but if one half is left with no crew it must return home.
There are other little rules and exceptions when using class 2A but I won’t go into detail here.
Both of the two new ship classes are also uninsurable, like the 3A class.
Bonus Adventure Cards:
There are a few new adventure cards, which can be added to the decks. These have various effects including the possibility of getting a replacement part for a piece that has been lost during the round.
Review of gameplay:
I’ll talk about each item within the expansion separately and give my thoughts on it:
Fifth Wheel:
The one problem I’ve sometimes had at my games club is when we fancy playing something and then a fifth player comes along. That would rule out Galaxy Trucker unfortunately. Not any more, thanks to the Fifth Wheel part of the expansion.
However, after playing with five players and implementing all the new rules about extra players being able to gain benefits or suffer consequences from things I actually think I would just prefer to play with 4 or less. It’s not bad and I can appreciate the effort of trying to incorporate a fifth player but I just feel that it makes what it is essentially a quick and fun game into something a little more cumbersome where you have more housekeeping trying to keep track of who will be affected by what, and with what strength, etc.
New Components:
These are great. Fact. Extra components are always useful although it can sometimes be difficult to fit everything you want into the ship! Now that I have added these tiles to the rest of the tiles from the base game I see no reason to ever take them out and not use them. The fact that you need to remove some tiles in games with less than 5 players actually makes things interesting as well. Sometimes certain types of component can be a bit scarce and so it makes the shipbuilding a bit more frantic.
Rough Road Cards:
In the rules it recommends using two or three of these per round. I would suggest starting with just one and seeing how that goes because they can be pretty brutal, especially if combined with some of the other parts of the expansion. They are great fun though and can definitely help to make the game more of a challenge if you are an experienced player and often come through the base game relatively unscathed. The fact that they are revealed before building means that they can be planned for somewhat but it’s not always easy to do so.
These cards could also be used as a handicapping method, so that experienced players are subject to their effects whereas newer players aren’t. That helps to solve one of the problems that I’ve had with this game when playing against relative newcomers.
Evil Machinations:
These are also great fun and can make the game more challenging. They can make it a bit more tactical as you will know that a certain card is coming up and can plan for it accordingly. One of my favourite tricks is to play the ‘Get Even’ card where it helps to be at the back of the pack and then deliberately choose to start at the back.
They can slightly overwhelm the game though, especially if you are playing with 5 players as this means there will be an extra 5 cards in the deck each round. Considering the first round is only 8 cards normally that is a significant increase.
New ship classes:
I like having the extra option of the new ship classes. They definitely make the game a little trickier and so again could be used as a handicapping measure.
The fact that they are both uninsurable makes things very tricky, especially if combined with other parts of the expansion and especially since Class 1A always gets hit by things.
Class 2A is difficult to use because both ships are small and both need all different component types. There isn’t a lot of space so it makes building a tricky prospect. For experienced players I think that is a good thing though.
Bonus Adventure Cards:
As with the extra tiles I think these are great and now that I’ve added them I see no reason to remove them.
Overall:
As mentioned I think the game is best with less than five players but at least there is now the option to play with that many.
I think the rest of the parts of the expansion are all excellent though and add something new and interesting to the game.
In the rules it has a method of determining what parts of the expansion to use in a given game and I think that is very helpful. Having played the game with five players and all of the new bits I thought it had a little bit too much going on at once so I would definitely recommend adding some bits but not others in each game that you play.
That is the beauty of this expansion though. You don’t need to add everything at once. You can pick and choose what you fancy using that day. Don’t want to use the new ship classes? Fine, just stick with the Evil Machinations and Rough Road cards. Think the Rough Road cards are just a bit too rough? Stick to the Evil Machinations and maybe the new ship classes. The choice is yours!!
Scores:
Components: 8/10
Rules: 10/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Fun: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
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Posted Fri Oct 10,2008 08:31 pm
