I am counting 7 two-player scenarios, 3 three-player scenarios, 3 four player scenarios, epic scenarios for 2 to 8 players (which however require two copies of the game), as well as four game variants, including a quickstart variant and a low maintenance game. The backside of the counter only displays a ship, while the front contains all the details, including: Type, Class, Attack Strength, Defense Strength, Hull Size, and Group Number. I think that suffering through the dullness of this early stage several times may have gotten us off “on the wrong foot” with Space Empires, and contributed to the high player attrition rate. The game then follows a very simple Sequence of Play with the first player being determined based upon how much each player bid for that right during the previous Economic Phase or, if not one bid, the player that previously went first will continue to go first. In a recent game, I had a spread of planets, sort of in two arms, stretching from my Homeworld to the perimeter of my local space with minerals nicely distributed around the Homeworld and along my planetary lines; that allowed me to smoothly and rapidly develop.

This is easily a great game that is only held back by a somewhat cluttered playing field during the peak of game battles. In Space Empires 4X, up to 4 players engage in space exploration, colonization and combat, while developing technologies to design new ships or improve their existing ones. Space Empires is a game in the finest tradition of 4X space games - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate.

You can move each unit 1 space at a time up to the limit determined by your Movement technology level (which starts at 1 space per Turn). Fleet Size Bonus: At the start of a combat round, if a player has at least twice as many combat capable ships as their opponent, that player receives a +1 Attack bonus. After leaving the Lost in Space hex, the counter is removed and the hex remains empty for the rest of the game. The number in the lower right with an "x" is your unit Hull Size and indicates how many hits a ship in the group can take before being destroyed. C” Class Units Fire – Moving along to the “C” Class units, Yellow again fires first due to the superior Tactics tech rating.

Owing to the smaller hex size , the game is consequently able to squeeze in more space real estate, with an otherwise unheard of number of places to explore. The size of the map, victory conditions, and starting resources depend on the number of players and on the scenario players choose at game start. There are eight types of technology, from ship size to terraforming and from exploration to tactics, each of them with a different CP cost. Because I myself do need to face the reality that despite having a different paint job, most of the 4x games in my collection are fundamentally similar to each other in many respects.Free time for gaming is such a precious commodity that players will not squander a minute of it on something that does not “grab” them on the first play-through. The only tricky part (which tripped ALL of us up, at least once or twice) was keeping track of which ship groups belonged to which technology level.

Hull Size also determines the maintenance cost of the ship, the amount of technology that a ship can utilize, and the construction capacity needed to build a ship at a Ship Yard. Hice mi primer pedido y la experiencia fue muy buena, la atención buenísima, resolvieron mil dudas que tenía, siempre contestaron mis whatsapp y correos.The total Attack Strength of 4 (3 inherent + 1 Attack tech) minus Total Defense of 2 (2 inherent only) produces a “To Hit” number of 2. Construction Point (CP): Your Homeworld and your Colonies (planets) produce Construction Points, which are used in the Economic Phase to purchase units, maintain your fleet, and develop technologies.

Be warned that this rule can lead to seemingly counter-intuitive retreats, which are perfectly legal: an enemy fleet CAN retreat towards one of your colonies if that square is at least the same distance from one of the retreating party's colonies. When a Colony ship moves into the hex where a planet is located, it can immediately land on that planet and start the process. But, even with Advanced options, I find the Combat resolution process to be simple and straight-forward.

This is nothing more than a personal preference, but I don’t really like games where each player is off on his own track, even part of the time. They’re extremely difficult to kill so if one happens to drift into your home system, fasten your seat belt! The side that has the greater number of combat-capable ships may Screen a number of his combat-capable ships equal to the difference in ship counts.