OUR REVIEW

Multitude of races in the galaxy

ECLIPSE

An Empire for each race!

What’s in the box?

The game is stored in a very big box, which is pretty much filled to the brim. There are hexagonal star system, plastic space ships in different colors and sizes, technology tiles, tiles representing parts of a space ship, colored wooden cubes to represent population or production, playing boards for every one of the races and for technologies, colored combat dice and a few more parts. All parts are made of very sturdy cardboard of good quality, only the boards for the races are of rather thin cardboard.

What is Eclipse?

Eclipse is a development game with elements of conflict, in which each player sends out a race to explore and settle the galaxy. In this the game closely resembles well-known and beloved favorites like Civilization or Twilight Imperium, but there is a huge difference: Instead of a playing time of twelve of more hours for a game, here a game, even a game with the full complement of six players, only takes a little longer than three hours. This is a huge difference. Even when lots of people still think it is too long, you can play it in one evening after work, while - on the other hand - I don’t manage to find players for Twilight Imperium, not even at a Games Marathon.

What amount of complexity is discarded in favor of the much shorter game?

There is a variable star map put together from hexagon tiles, exploration, several classes of upgradeable and expandable space ships and last but not least a combat system with even more colored dice that in Risk. As regards to complexity the game is in the same range as Agricola and Through The Ages. There are also many strategic and tactical decisions during a game, and, finally, due to the random appearance of technologies each game is different and there is no permanent optimum strategy that will work in each and every game.

How big a factor is chance in the game?

There some elements of chance in the game, for instance in the revelation of galaxy tiles. Or the where and when of available technologies! Or which victory point tiles you receive for combats, and, obviously, the rolling of dice to decide conflicts. I for myself am rather unwilling to play games that are completely devoid of chance element and so have no problems whatsoever with this game. So far, I have the impression that a roll of dice does not decide victory or defeat. On the contrary, there is an excellent catching-up mechanism if you cannot expand your empire at the start of the game, because the fewer systems you control the more actions you have at your disposal.

How does the game work?

The game is played over nine rounds. Each round comprises four phases, which each player implements completely before the next phase starts. The main part of the game happens in the Action Phase. There are 12 wooden discs in each player color, the so-called influence discs, on the board. In turn you can take one of your discs and put it on one of six possible actions:

Explore - This action allows you to turn over a new star system adjacent to one of my own systems or one of my space ships and to rotate the worm holes - the entrances to the system - to your liking. This creates either a direct access to your neighboring player or can block this player. Systems near the center of the galaxy offer more and potentially more valuable planets, but are also guarded by Old Races with a higher probability than planets in the outer regions away from the center. You can instantly exercise influence over a newly revealed system by placing another influence disc on it. Very often you are rewarded with a Discovery tile, which is worth two victory points or gives you another advantage. When there are planets in the system now you can transport population from your player board to the planet if you have still one of your two colony ships available. Planets that are settled with population yield resources according to the planet’s color.

Influence - Some systems only offer one discovery tile or only one single planet. With an influence action you can take back up to two influence discs from such planets or relocate them to free neighboring systems. As an additional advantage you can turn over two colony ships and use them again.

Research - The Research Action allows you to buy a technology tile. You pay for such a tile with the pink resource Science. There are three fields of technology on the player board and you can deduct a discount when you have already explored technology in this field. Technologies bring important advantages in different phases of the game. On some planets you can only place population if you have explored the corresponding technology. There are also additional components for space ships, which make them faster or more powerful in conflicts, or additional influence discs. As technologies are randomly entering the game and sometimes a technology is not available until the end of the game, Research is often the first action in a round.

Build - With the Build Action you can construct up to two space ships or structures and pay for them with brown resources (building materials). The space ships are only necessary for conflicts; structures are Star Bases with Fighting abilities or Monoliths for victory points or Ring Worlds in order to accommodate additional population.

Upgrade - Each space ship and each Star Base is depicted with a construction plan on the race board. Depending on the race they can differ already at the start of the game. The Upgrade action allows you to add up to two parts to your construction plan, which improves all newly-built ships from now on, but is also available in retrospect in all ships already constructed. There are basic components that are available to every player from the start, for instance laser cannons for damage or improved systems for which you must have explored the necessary respective technology, for instance targeting computers.

Move - With each movement action you may move up to two space ships. The built-in propulsion system of a space ship allows movement over one to three hex tiles. Should you encounter an opponent - which never happens unintentionally / randomly - for each opponent one space ship is put on hold for the combat phase and only additional ships can continue their movement.

Each of those actions can be chosen more than once, but the first player who does not chose another action is given the starting player marker for the next round, which gives him the opportunity to be the first to select a technology. When a player, who has passed on actions, is attacked he can react with Build, Upgrade or Move by spending additional influence discs, but only gets half of the advantage.

When all players have passed on actions the Combat Phase begins. In each hex, that is occupied by more than one party combat actions are implemented until one side retreats or loses all ships.

Depending on how the ships are equipped all ships have an Initiative Value. Ships fire their weapons in descending order of their initiative value and roll dice for each weapon. Only a Six is a hit, dice results can be changed by with targeting computers or made more difficult for the opponent with shields. A Six that you rolled directly is always a hit and a One is always a miss. When a ship retreats this is an action replacing attack and it can take hits until it is the ship’s turn again in the next combat round. Of course you can install armor plating that can absorb hits and regenerates after the combat phase. This conflict/combat phase plays rather quickly and very often you can keep the chance factor to a limited margin by your ship design.

For participating in a combat you may - in relation to defeated opponents - draw one or more victory point tiles, but keep only one. In the course of the game therefore the tiles with higher values of three and four are diminishing and the less valuable ones remain.

After the combat phase we come to the Upkeep Phase. Depending on the number of influence discs hat you took off your player board to implement actions or influence planets you must pay a certain sum of money to the bank. For all resources there is a track which you fill completely with your population cubes at the start of the game. Every time when you, for instance, populate an orange planet, you place the rightmost cube from this track on the planet; this reveals a higher number on the orange track which means higher income. 

You can offset your current income against the payments for influence discs and pay or receive the difference. IF you did too much or if your empire is too big costs rise exponentially, and if you do not have enough money (orange resource) you must either abandon systems or can exchange brown or pink resources at a rate of 3:1 for orange ones. When all that does not suffice, you have doomed your empire.

Only when you have paid for your influence discs you are credited with the other resources by moving the respective cubes at the edge of your player board. So in this game there is a clear distinction between income and wealth, which works very elegantly and efficiently.

Finally, there is a Cleanup Phase in which players take back their influence discs used for actions, turn over their colony ships and new technologies are drawn for buying.

When nine such rounds have been played the game ends and you count your victory points. For each occupied star system you score victory points, and also for advancement on the technology tracks, for combats, monoliths you constructed and discovery tiles. In our games the winner usually achieved a score between 40 and 50 victory points and the result was rarely close.

The rules are structured very cleverly, the always take the Human race for a basis and therefore the differences for other races can be explained on the race cards using just a few symbols.

What always stands out in this game is the extremely clever and well-thought out realization of the game. This starts already with different shapes for the different tiles in accordance with their function, or that the three resources are always depicted with their color in a circle for prices and income.

All games that I played were always very fast-paced, because one’s turn comes quickly in each round and the hated downtime does not dominate the game. For me, Eclipse is already a classic which I will love to play again over many years to come.

Christian Grundner

Players: 2-6

Age: 13+

Time: 120+

Designer: Touko Tahkokallio

Art: Ossi Hiekkala, Sampo Sikiö

Price: ca. 60 Euro

Publisher: Lautapelit 2011

Web: www.de.asmodee.de

Genre: Complex development game

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: cz de en it fi fr pl

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Good rules

Pretty components

Moderate playing time despite complex mechanisms

Compares to:

Civilization or Twilight Imperium as regards to concept and topic

Other editions:

Ystari, France; Lautapelit Finland;

My rating: 6

Christian Grundner:

Eclipse offers great fun to play within an acceptable time frame and attractive, very well-planned components as well as elegant mechanisms; it will be very often laid out on my games table.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 1

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 1

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0