Adding Expansions

I was initially just going to write about Terraforming Mars, and how the expansions gave the game a lot of variety in techniques to play/win the game. Someday I'd like to see a game where players had so many varietal ways of choosing how to play, no single game could ever be the same strategy. But, we should probably discuss the nature of expansions first.

One of the challenges of games is adding expansions - covering board games this time around.

Different types of expansions

• More money: Additional revenue streams for a successful game
• Bigger: Couldn't fit the "full" game into the base game
• Ooops!: Fixes for a game's mechanics

Finding more money from a successful game is not the worst thing. What could take the same designer a year or more for another completely new game (without a guarantee of greatness), an expansion might only be 3 months of design & test time. These expansions usually feel more "tacked on", as if it was an afterthought. The base rules need to change in order for new mechanics to work properly, or it feels like the expansion should be a different game altogether. (For example, Turmoil for Terraforming Mars has voting and a ruling council - not matching any of TM's basic game structure.)

Occasionally you'll see games that need patches to address core gameplay issues. Trading card games run into problems with massive discard, or maybe an engine where an opponent simply doesn't get another turn. A game like Eclipse (1st edition) orange missiles were such a dominant endgame, they included anti-missile tech in later expansions as well as weaker missiles with extra battle-speed components. (It still didn't necessarily "solve" the orange missile problem, just added possible counter-measures.)

Sometimes there are games that are some big in scope, it would bombard the players with too many mechanics or concepts...or increase the cost of the base game to become too big of a risk for a casual buy-in. Everdell is an example of a game that was designed to include expansions - made clear by board expansion arrangements that fit together as a puzzle around the core release.

Downsides of expansions

Might not be found - the publisher might only make 2000 copies. In 5 years time, all of those copies have been purchased, but the publisher doesn't want to get stuck with a remainder...they don't print it again. Base game might see reprints, or had a larger 5000-count print run, leaving a lot of copies without the extra fun. Companies will sometimes follow-up years later with a "big box" version, with all the components and expansions. Feel like re-buying your base game?

Some expansions might rely on other expansions for their gameplay. As the publisher, they're stuck adding more components (just in case they don't have the earlier one), adding extra rulebook parts (and needing to match consistency), or ignoring the other expansions as if they weren't necessary (removing interesting gameplay interaction).

Where does that leave us?

Oh man, some expansions really make the games complete. Race for the Galaxy (card game, first 3 expansions) show how things can come together...but they were forced to add extra components. Terraforming Mars (Colonies (more interaction), Prelude (fixing a slow start), Hellas/Elysium (variety for replay) are solid additions, whereas Venus Next (TR for focusing on Venus slows down the overall endgame) and Turmoil (Voting blocks and events also slow down the game) start branching into inconsistent areas).

That said, I feel like expansions are 50/50. Someone might want to play a game, but only play expansions 1 & 3, and someone else might 1 & 2 - maybe it means that game doesn't come to the table. At the very least, one or more of the players don't get the experience they hope for at game night. Maybe the "big" version of the game is too much for a new player, meaning the expansions don't even come to the table. (And the experienced players feel like they're playing an incomplete version.) I still haven't gotten the airship expansion into a Scythe game yet, years later.

Eclipse Strategy Tips

The quick overview: You have 9 turns to gain the most victory points.

Your total VP at the end of the game is based on these factors:

• Controlling systems (1-4 VP each, as stated on the hex)
• Reputation draws (every battle gives you a 1-4 VP chip) - each race can have 3-5 chips.
• Science tracks (if you max out a row, you get 5 VP for that row)
• Discovery tiles (2 VP, instead of being used for their power)
• Monoliths constructed by players (3 VP each, expensive and easy to target)
• Race-specific victory point goals
• The current person who has the Traitor card (think hot potato/musical chairs)
• (Expansion only) - Alliance bonus/betrayal, limited Development bonus

 These are just the victory points though - to win, you only need to have these at the END of the game.

Methods of Winning:
These are the general methods in how you gain the various VP listed above.

1. Exploring (primarily discovery tiles)
1. If you explore Tier 3 hexes, they typically have less Ancient Ships (board-generated enemies), less resources, less victory points, but more likely to have discovery tiles.
2. Discovery tiles can boost your economy quickly, kept as 2 VP, or get you early ship components.
3. It is important to read over planned bankruptcy - at the end of each of the 9 turns, you have to pay money equal to the amount revealed by the discs you have spent. The more discs you spend on taking actions or claiming systems, the more you will have to pay at the end of the turn. If you cannot pay enough money, you reclaim discs from the board until your money income+existing money is equal to or greater than the taxes you need to pay. This can be to your benefit, to reclaim those discs you spent to take the discovery tiles. (If you have existing material or science you may use those to avoid bankruptcy, but it's not mandatory. Material and science income cannot be used.)
2. War (reputation draws, discovery tiles, controlling higher VP/better economy systems)
1. Early combats will get you better quality reputation draws on average. (Bigger battles give you more draws to choose one from.)
2. Fighting hexes with Ancient Ships - these hexes are generally going to have better resource production, as well as VP draws, and earlier discovery tiles.
3. Technology (science track VPs, and in rare cases Monoliths)
1. Science gain is primarily a multiplier effect on action discs, beyond providing VP at the end.
2. Ships and ship upgrades rely heavily on science purchases to wage better war.
3. Economy bonuses - Advanced Economy, Advanced Labs, Advanced Mining, and Orbitals make your systems more productive, without the cost of extra discs. Advanced Robotics gives you a cheap extra disc - similar to an economy bonus, as well as giving you more flexible disc allocation.

Disc Management
It is EXTREMELY important to be able to take 3 or more actions in a turn. If you spend discs to hold systems that only grant you one planet for a population cube, you will find yourself with un-upgraded ships, little ability to explore, and no economy to support taking more valuable systems from Ancient Ships. (Imagine this turn - build a dreadnought, upgrade a dreadnought, move a dreadnought, have a disc leftover to take the system...that's 4 actions.) Planned bankruptcy can free up your discs, without spending action discs to do so with Influence.

In the last few turns of the game, if most of your discs are tied up holding systems, it means you have less action discs to respond to aggressions. Consequently, if an opponent has tied up their discs, even if they are strong, they can't respond easily to your threats. Having the existing money or money income to take 5 or more actions in the final round can be very important to winning.


Exploration Combat Odds

• Tier 3 hexes will have less planets to settle, a high percentage of discovery tiles, and a low percent of Ancient Ships.
• Tier 1 & Tier 2 hexes are about 50% Ancient Ships - if you see three Tier 1 hexes out there already without an Ancient Ship, you're very likely to see them on future Tier 1 explores.

Choke Points (Explore)
It's tempting to rely on how you explore and how you angled those hexes, to control how others can attack you. In the first two-thirds of the game, choke points will work to funnel player attacks against you into a limited number of hexes. Once the Cloaking technology or Wormhole Generator shows up (and is affordable), those choke points will become less useful...and all of those discs you spent being defensive there will not be as useful.

It can be common for games with newer players, where players only connect to each other through the Galactic Center. This usually reduces the amount of player versus player combats, as the only person who can attack or be attacked is the person controlling the center.

War & Technology
Key early technologies will carry you through the first half of the game.

• Improved Hull makes your ships last longer - a cruiser or dreadnought with two improved hulls are essentially immune to a single Ancient ship.
• Plasma Cannon makes Ancient Ships 1-hit kills, for the low energy cost of 2.
• Positron Computers can give you the slight speed edge, as well helping you hit more often - but still not as good as an early Improved Hull or Plasma Cannon.

Late technologies are necessary to take on players or discourage them from coming for you.

• Neutron Bombs are almost mandatory for killing enemy population cubes.
• Anti-Matter Cannon does 4 damage in one hit, enough to kill most ships. In the expansion, they add a splitter, allowing the 4 damage to be spread over multiple ships.
• Plasma Missiles trump faster ships, but only in quantity - computers are mandatory!
• Star Bases often trump fast ships, and have the space allotment of a cruiser.
• Cloaking (expansion) and Wormhole Generator techs are the red flag for possible aggressive behavior, even if you buy them to stop others from getting them.

"Rock-Paper-Scissors" Ship Builds
Unless you have a lot of science or upgrade actions available to repel or initiate combat against another player, your ships will typically have either be a rock, paper, or scissors build.

• Fast ships trump armored ships (computers and good cannons mean over time, they win more often, and the opening round can wipe out the opponent's most effective ships due to speed)
• Missiles trump fast ships (missile ships require missile & computer parts to make sure they hit hard on that opening salvo, but then lack room for more armor or lasers)
• Armor+Shields trump missiles (negate missile-computers, making the only set of missiles mostly ineffective, but the armor and shields will take up most of your ship)

You can use this idea to pick easier targets for you, as well as identifying how much of a threat a specific player is to your ships. In rare cases, you can upgrade your ship to have an even match-up, or ideally the match-up that favors you.

Final Point
Managing your discs is so extremely important it needs to be repeated. If you get down to only being able to spend two discs each turn...in 2 turns you have 4 actions, while a person with 3 discs per turn would have 6 actions - essentially a free turn compared to you.

How does my love affair with Eclipse die?

There are several main reasons why you give up a favorite or cherished game...here are some ideas.

1. You've played it so much, there is nothing else to learn or appreciate
2. It turns out there is only one way that anyone should play the game
3. You find a new game that you love more
4. Your friends tire of winning/losing/playing the game all of the time
5. You tire of your friends who will play the game

Eclipse has a really fascinating system for keeping interest. Every game is subtly different, due to when/if certain technologies show up, which systems are found, and what discovery tiles are revealed. There's a gambling nature in each of those cases, where you feel like you might get lucky in how things come your way...and you cherish those feelings so much - it lessens those memories of those other times, where things were normal.

Even in the games where it isn't going your way, there's that nagging feeling of those golden fields from the games of yore. Games strive for that sweet spot - it obviously can't happen every time, but it needs to happen *just* enough.

There's a game that my girlfriend picked up, seeking a good 2-player game. A Few Acres of Snow is an interesting game, where each player essentially builds their deck and plays it out according to their needs at the time. One person plays the British, the other French...deciding who wins the war in early North America. It has a sense of flavor for the history of that time period, which is awesome. Sadly, when looking up a rules clarification on BGG, it turns out there is one and only one strategy for the game, and it generally means that the British win. I read through it, displeased that it existed. Oh, the problems of static games. Imagine if there was a perfect opening for white in chess...only we're just not smart/computational enough to see it.

There were games before Eclipse. My friends and I have a long tradition of Settlers of Catan (more specifically, Cities and Knights). Race for the Galaxy and its expansions took over more than a couple of game groups. Through the Ages took out Le Havre. But by and large, the "perfect" game comes along rarely. More rarely, that it comes along to wipe out an existing perfect game.

Friends - they drive games the most. You can play some games solo, but that's usually not the motivation when desiring to play a board game. At Spiele, I found vendors were pretty much interested in doing demos for groups of friends. 4 people, great! My cynicism is that there's a chance that at least one person in the game will feel that it's the perfect game, and will champion it to the others (as well as picking up a copy, of course). Maybe that friend is tired of the favored game coming to the table. Someone recently told me a story of a friend who ONLY wants to play Power Grid. They sit down to decide a game, and the only game that he will play is that one...the group usually concedes out of politeness, but he'll find himself looking for a new group eventually.

Or sometimes you tire of the group who will play the game. Maybe you need new blood, or you become exhausted dealing with a certain player's style - whining, bickering, politicking, analysis-paralysis, etc.

For me, it'll probably be #3 - maybe that's what everyone should hope for. A better game can be hard to imagine, but maybe someday...

Eclipse, Rise of the Ancients.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, Eclipse is amazing. Lots of replay. The expansion, Rise of the Ancients, came out last December...right as I was leaving for a wintery Iowa Christmas.

It felt like a tough proposition - Eclipse, a 4-hour game, during a week of family gathering...most games are short stints where people can jump out and jump in, depending if they need to wrap presents, go shopping, help cook, etc. It was played nearly every day, sometimes twice. Let's talk about the expansion!

Sometimes expansions to board games change the strategies of the base game so much, that there can be a huge disconnect. Or rules changes, that break up poorly thought-out play balance issues. Fortunately, RotA exists primarily to add more content. New races, more discovery tiles, more hexes, some variants, and the ability to play up to 9. Maybe a little bit of anti-missile mechanics, but minor.

The expansion adds 3 unique aliens, as well as the "humans" of the expansion...basically the other side of each alien card. I'll try to limit myself to just the facts...followed by some tips.

Alien Overview
The Enlightened of Lyra (aka, the Shriners) - they get points for building and holding shrines at the end of the game. There are mini-rewards for building clusters of shrines, but one of the coolest parts is being able to spend unused colony ships to re-roll combat dice.

The Exiles (Orbitals of Death) - skip star bases...your orbitals are your starbases. Sadly, no combat speed and only 3 upgrade spaces mean that they won't be half as cool. To make up for this, you start with a rare cloaking technology - they have to block your ship with 2 of theirs...which means pinning you is a lot harder.

The Rho Indi Syndicate are chancers. They have faster combat speeds like the Orion Hegemony, and they have a built-in -1 shield which doesn't take up space. They lose out with Dreadnoughts - can't build them. They start with star bases and Gauss Shield, but it's unlikely they'll waste another precious ship space on their small ships for Gauss. They raid and pillage the best though - 4 ship activations every time, instead of the 2 for the other aliens (or 3 for humans).

The Magellans are the generic race of the expansion - maybe the best alien race to play. Their ships and actions are stock (except for Influence, which is slightly worse). You can turn unused colony ships into any resource; ship part (and spent) discovery tiles are worth 1 VP for you, instead of nothing; you get a free discovery tile the first time you get 4 discoveries in the same row; and you start with the 6-Energy Fusion Source. Amazing.

Tips & Strategy
The Shriners and the Exiles are tough to love. Both encourage defensive turtling strategies, which is extremely tough to pull off. Offense has its advantages in Eclipse - being able to decide where and when something is going to happen is huge. Losing the shrines or orbitals means a loss of VP and/or production, making those systems especially valuable for those folks trying to thwart you.

The Rho NEED combat, hopefully every round. If they find it, it's a pleasant game in the top finishers. If they can't find combat, they are in last place. With all of that movement capability, it pays off to have a fleet that can move. If you can move 4 ships into every battle, with just one influence disc, it gives you incredibly flexible tactics. After awhile, with a hefty armada, you can bring in a swarm of ships into each major combat (minimizing your losses).

The Magellans have some benefits that really encourage a scout/bankrupt style for the Tier 3 hexes. Ideally, every Tier 3 hex you explore has a discovery tile on it. The return is pretty good...if you discard it, you'll get a VP in addition to the perk. How does this play out? Explore 4-5 times in the first several rounds, with the expectation of not keeping any of them beyond your home planet at the end of the round due to planned bankruptcy. You get to use your colony ships for materials or science. Seriously, this is an easy thing to do. You sacrifice one, maybe two turns of the 9 that you get to explore Tier 3. Everyone else is losing discs to settling hexes, making modest inroads on a developed economy.

Other races can do the same Tier 3 sweep, but Magellans pay off a bit better with their resource-generating colony ships and VP for discarded discoveries. To counter the sweep, explore around those players, and limit their turns 3-5 expansions to their bad Tier 3 areas. Their economy is going to be dicey, depending on what discovery tiles they get. Because they aren't settling, they will have more discs handy...difficult to attack, but more likely to not get first pick of technologies. You can also try to counter their sweep of Tier 3's, by doing the same thing. Tough to pull off as well, but if they aren't hitting Tier 3 hexes with discovery tiles...it is probably richer for you.

I probably have at least a couple more discussions about the game. Maybe next time, I'll even cover design. ;)

Follow-up: Eclipse (pre-expansion), and general discussion of game duration

I wrote about Eclipse last year, and promised a follow-up article. (Link.) This is extremely delayed, and has been sitting as a draft for too long. I'll do a real follow-up about the expansion...soon?

Since that article last May, I've probably played 2-3 games a week. It's blocked out the sun, in terms of other games.

The elegance is nice, and hasn't dulled the overall appreciation of the game. Each of the alien races (except for maybe the Eradani) feel interesting, different, and balanced. The Eradani start with two less tokens, a ton of money, and 3 fair technologies. Two less tokens is painful though - you start eating your free money from the start, and you'll hemorrhage the whole game. The biggest deficit is at the end, where you have to stop playing actions because you're out...and others keep going.

Big, 6-player games can result in player combat (and betrayal) almost immediately. (I think I was hit turn 2, once.) We've had discussions on betraying people early so you don't get stuck with the -2 at the end of the game...obviously someone will betray again before it's over. Probably.

2- and 3-player games are a bit less diplomatic. Most of the points are known, and 1st place is likely going to see a couple of incursions in round 8/9.

As you explore, you get some degree of choice of how explored tiles are placed. Fencing off your area is pretty strategic, until someone grabs the expensive wormhole technology, and then you fall to pieces. Likewise, exploring in a way that cuts people off from attacking you (except through the galactic center) means that the Galactic Center is a public target - everyone can reach it, but only one at a time.

Oh, Galactic Center. It's there in every game. Slow, bulky, minorly defended Galactic Center. Your early games, it probably doesn't get hit until round 7 or 8.  If you're ambitious, maybe as early as round 5-6. It marks a turning point in the order of the universe - it's a juicy target and a super-highway to other players. Gloves are off.

Depending on the players, you might see a lot of ships crashing rival systems. While I haven't seen a player-wipe yet, it'll happen someday. What usually happens is player A takes a high-value system from B, and then C could choose...attack B, or attack A...and A has more points. Which leads us into...

Game Duration
As players, we generally accept how a game ends. There's no question of "what happens tomorrow?" Eclipse ends the game at an arbitrary 9 turns. Settlers of Catan says 10 points. Through the Ages when you run out of cards.

In the case of Eclipse, ending at 9 turns is important. You spend the first half of the game, setting the stage for the second half. What necessary technologies show up, who gets them, where the resources pop up, and how bad/good luck is distributed...with that in play, you make the best of what you can. Honestly, anything past 9 hits the "eternal strife mode" where no one gains ground...much like Risk games of old - player wipe would be the only solution.

Game Review: Eclipse

A space game! I love space games. 2-6 players is good - one of my game nights hits the 5-player mark, which limits the number of games available to us.

This was first produced as a Kickstarter game - sadly I saw it after it closed, and didn't get one of the few first-runs that made it into stores. The second printing is supposed to come out in April/May 2012.

My first feel of the game was that it was Through the Ages in space, which would be perfectly fine. Everyone has a scorecard that tracks their space civ - your bank of Science, Materials, and Money. It also keeps your blueprints for your 4 different ships/battlestations, as well as the technologies you've bought.

We played a 4-player game, all of us being humans. There's an option to play alien races with different powers, but we stuck with the basics for the first game.

It's a dense game, but good. There's a space map that is built as you explore - certain stacks of tiles go for the inner, middle, and outer rings of exploration. A map is useful for explaining locations of planets and ship fleets. (It's 2-D, not a brain-buster.)

Each player takes a turn, in clockwise order. You take one of your order markers and put it on an action on your scorecard...exploring, researching, updating your blueprints, moving markers around, building ships...etc. Sometimes you'll also put an extra order marker out from your scorecard onto the table, to take control of a system. Each marker uncovers more and more Money cost - if you settle a bunch of systems, you might start with quite a deficit, just starting the round!

You spend Research on picking up new technologies...finding better ship technologies (important for battles), reducing costs, finding more order markers...that sort of thing.

You spend Materials on building your military fleet, as well as some of your economy devices.

At the end of the round, after everyone is done passing, you gain Materials/Research/Money based on what you've developed. (It's a nicely elegant system.) Start player moves to the person who passed first...which can be a tempo decision in the early game, to get a better pick of the technologies. The game ends after 9 rounds of play...it took 4 novice players awhile to finish our first game, but we all had fun. Maybe we could have skirmished more, but fair for the first game.

This is definitely a game I want to add to my collection. The mechanics are nice, the game play is interesting, and the system is fairly unique. It's not a casual pick up game...but for one group of gaming friends, I'm betting it will be a regular on our occasional Thursday game nights.

(I'll do a follow-up of the games beyond the initial plays.)