Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 7, 2010 19:20:49 GMT -5
Quickly: a fun yet long game that lives up to it's roots in most ways.
Summary:
This the the boardgame version of the classic Blizzard Real Time Strategy computer game Starcraft. Players take on the role of one of the classic Starcraft races (Humans, Zerg or Protos) and battle across the galaxy for command points.
Each player picks a race to play. There are two copies of each race each with a different leader. Each race has specific special abilities as well as a special victory condition they can strive for. Once races are picked players make the galaxy. This is done by each player placing two planets down on the table. Planets are divided into multiple zones with each zone providing either Crystal, Gas or Command points. Players pick one of the two planets they placed as a starting planet and place down a starting set of units as determined by race.
The rest of the game is broken down into three stages. I'm probably getting the specific names wrong but that doesn't really matter. First is the planning stage, then the Acting stage and finally the regrouping stage.
During the planning stage players pick between a set of three different tokens (they have two of each) and place these on planets they wish to take actions at. The different actions are Mobilize, Build and Research. What's most interesting here is that the tokens placed form a stack so if a player places a token over yours they will get to do their action before you as actions are played out in LIFO order. During the action phase players, in turn order, flip up one of their tokens placed during the last phase and act it out.
Mobilize is how you move troops and attack. You play a mobilize order on the planet you want to move too. You move your token to the area of the planet you want to move to and then move units. Each area can only hold a set number of units and this number can only be broken when attacking. After moving units if there are any other players units in the area a battle is fought.
Build: this lets you build things in a very specific order. First you build units, miners and transports. Then you build upgrades to your base. Lastly if you don't have a base on the planet you can build a base. Paying for these things is done in a rather interesting way. You move workers from your playboard onto your various planets to harvest the resources from them. You can only harvest as many resources as you have workers and/or planetary areas with resources. There is also the option to strip mine an area eventually making it useless to all players.
Research: this gives players an event card, some combat cards and lets them buy a Technology upgrade. Event cards are saved until the regrouping phase where a player can play one out of any of the cards they received during the Action phase. Combat cards are used during combat, and technology cards are also combat cards but ones that need to be bought to be put into your combat deck.
Combat: this one isn't going to be easy to explain so I am just going to gloss over it. The attacker breaks the fight into multiple skirmishes so that each enemy unit is engaged by at least one attacker. Left over units become support for the front line units. Players get some combat cards (in general 3 for the attacker and 1 for the defender). Players then choose cards from their hand to play on each skirmish. They can play at most two cards on each skirmish. The second card played must be a 'reserves' card and has a special symbol. Most of the combat cards contain pictures of units and two sets of numbers, a low set and a high set. The rest of the combat cards are special cards that modify the combat in some way. The way it works is that if the picture on the card matches the front line unit in battle then you use the bigger set of numbers. If the power of the unit beats the opposing units health that unit is destroyed. Only one round is fought. If any defenders survive they keep the area and the attacker has to retreat.
The Regrouping Phase: here you do a bunch of clean up and check for victory conditions. You check to see if players have lost control of planetary areas, you see if players have gained control of new areas, you play one of your event cards, you award command points (these are given to players who control the command areas on the planets), you check for normal victory (which is when one player gets 15 command points), you check for special victory (each race has it's own way to win), you get your workers back and then the next round starts.
The Good:
The bits in this one are just awesome. There are a ridiculous amount of miniatures. Each race has it's own set of troops and the flying troops all come with flying stands to help them stick out. The cards, art and chits are all top notch. This is one of the most impressive Fantasy Flight games for it's time. What was also nice is you didn't have to clip the ships as you did with Twilight Imperium. I really like the way the Planning and action phases play out. The way the actions happen in LIFO order really ups the strategy level on this one. I love the way the workers and resource harvesting work, this really makes the game feel like an RTS with your workers running back and forth to various planetary regions to help you pay for your upgrades. It's definitely a fun game that I've yet to find a 'winning strategy' for.
The Bad:
My edition of the game came with the flying bases attached and not all of them have made it through transport and a few have broken off during play. A friend has a copy of the game and his came with stands that were separate so it seems FF has fixed this issue. This is a long one. Like 4+ hours long. Plan on this if you are setting up a game of Starcraft. The combat system is a bit fiddly and hard to explain. It's really hard to judge how a fight will end when you enter it. Sure they can give you averages but the way the combat decks work it never seems to be a sure thing. Even though the game is set up to favour the attacker, the 3 times I have played the game most players seem to play defensively until the last couple of turns. I think something to encourage attacking even more would be nice. There are so many variables in this game that it's pretty much impossible to figure out what you 'should' be doing the first couple of plays. For example it will take at least two games with the same forces just to figure out what techs you may or may not want and whether or not supply upgrades are worth it.
The Ugly:
I was never a big Starcraft the PC game player. Sure I played it but I don't remember all the units and such now. I guess if you are a huge Starcraft player you may be disappointed in some of the things Fantasy Flight had to do to balance the game. This is especially true during combat where you need to pair off units that just wouldn't face each other alone in the pc game.
Overall:
I really enjoy this one. To me it reminds me of Twilight Imperium Light. It's a simpler game with a lot of neat rules. The biggest problem though is that you will need an afternoon to play it, especially once players learn to stop the opponents from achieving their special victory conditions. The one beef I have heard from Starcraft fans is that it's not very accurate to the game once you get into combat. Personally I think this can be forgiven as game balance.
Summary:
This the the boardgame version of the classic Blizzard Real Time Strategy computer game Starcraft. Players take on the role of one of the classic Starcraft races (Humans, Zerg or Protos) and battle across the galaxy for command points.
Each player picks a race to play. There are two copies of each race each with a different leader. Each race has specific special abilities as well as a special victory condition they can strive for. Once races are picked players make the galaxy. This is done by each player placing two planets down on the table. Planets are divided into multiple zones with each zone providing either Crystal, Gas or Command points. Players pick one of the two planets they placed as a starting planet and place down a starting set of units as determined by race.
The rest of the game is broken down into three stages. I'm probably getting the specific names wrong but that doesn't really matter. First is the planning stage, then the Acting stage and finally the regrouping stage.
During the planning stage players pick between a set of three different tokens (they have two of each) and place these on planets they wish to take actions at. The different actions are Mobilize, Build and Research. What's most interesting here is that the tokens placed form a stack so if a player places a token over yours they will get to do their action before you as actions are played out in LIFO order. During the action phase players, in turn order, flip up one of their tokens placed during the last phase and act it out.
Mobilize is how you move troops and attack. You play a mobilize order on the planet you want to move too. You move your token to the area of the planet you want to move to and then move units. Each area can only hold a set number of units and this number can only be broken when attacking. After moving units if there are any other players units in the area a battle is fought.
Build: this lets you build things in a very specific order. First you build units, miners and transports. Then you build upgrades to your base. Lastly if you don't have a base on the planet you can build a base. Paying for these things is done in a rather interesting way. You move workers from your playboard onto your various planets to harvest the resources from them. You can only harvest as many resources as you have workers and/or planetary areas with resources. There is also the option to strip mine an area eventually making it useless to all players.
Research: this gives players an event card, some combat cards and lets them buy a Technology upgrade. Event cards are saved until the regrouping phase where a player can play one out of any of the cards they received during the Action phase. Combat cards are used during combat, and technology cards are also combat cards but ones that need to be bought to be put into your combat deck.
Combat: this one isn't going to be easy to explain so I am just going to gloss over it. The attacker breaks the fight into multiple skirmishes so that each enemy unit is engaged by at least one attacker. Left over units become support for the front line units. Players get some combat cards (in general 3 for the attacker and 1 for the defender). Players then choose cards from their hand to play on each skirmish. They can play at most two cards on each skirmish. The second card played must be a 'reserves' card and has a special symbol. Most of the combat cards contain pictures of units and two sets of numbers, a low set and a high set. The rest of the combat cards are special cards that modify the combat in some way. The way it works is that if the picture on the card matches the front line unit in battle then you use the bigger set of numbers. If the power of the unit beats the opposing units health that unit is destroyed. Only one round is fought. If any defenders survive they keep the area and the attacker has to retreat.
The Regrouping Phase: here you do a bunch of clean up and check for victory conditions. You check to see if players have lost control of planetary areas, you see if players have gained control of new areas, you play one of your event cards, you award command points (these are given to players who control the command areas on the planets), you check for normal victory (which is when one player gets 15 command points), you check for special victory (each race has it's own way to win), you get your workers back and then the next round starts.
The Good:
The bits in this one are just awesome. There are a ridiculous amount of miniatures. Each race has it's own set of troops and the flying troops all come with flying stands to help them stick out. The cards, art and chits are all top notch. This is one of the most impressive Fantasy Flight games for it's time. What was also nice is you didn't have to clip the ships as you did with Twilight Imperium. I really like the way the Planning and action phases play out. The way the actions happen in LIFO order really ups the strategy level on this one. I love the way the workers and resource harvesting work, this really makes the game feel like an RTS with your workers running back and forth to various planetary regions to help you pay for your upgrades. It's definitely a fun game that I've yet to find a 'winning strategy' for.
The Bad:
My edition of the game came with the flying bases attached and not all of them have made it through transport and a few have broken off during play. A friend has a copy of the game and his came with stands that were separate so it seems FF has fixed this issue. This is a long one. Like 4+ hours long. Plan on this if you are setting up a game of Starcraft. The combat system is a bit fiddly and hard to explain. It's really hard to judge how a fight will end when you enter it. Sure they can give you averages but the way the combat decks work it never seems to be a sure thing. Even though the game is set up to favour the attacker, the 3 times I have played the game most players seem to play defensively until the last couple of turns. I think something to encourage attacking even more would be nice. There are so many variables in this game that it's pretty much impossible to figure out what you 'should' be doing the first couple of plays. For example it will take at least two games with the same forces just to figure out what techs you may or may not want and whether or not supply upgrades are worth it.
The Ugly:
I was never a big Starcraft the PC game player. Sure I played it but I don't remember all the units and such now. I guess if you are a huge Starcraft player you may be disappointed in some of the things Fantasy Flight had to do to balance the game. This is especially true during combat where you need to pair off units that just wouldn't face each other alone in the pc game.
Overall:
I really enjoy this one. To me it reminds me of Twilight Imperium Light. It's a simpler game with a lot of neat rules. The biggest problem though is that you will need an afternoon to play it, especially once players learn to stop the opponents from achieving their special victory conditions. The one beef I have heard from Starcraft fans is that it's not very accurate to the game once you get into combat. Personally I think this can be forgiven as game balance.