I do not know where to begin with this game, it is a deck building space game for 2 players with terrible production value, design and yet it is some how a fun card game to play! I have to start with what the f**k is with this rulebook? It makes no sense, barely covers some of the game topics and feels as if it was written in a language that no knows anymore! Lets just talk about the basics before I think about that bloody rulebook again;
Players: 2
Age: 13+
Time: 30 - 45 minutes
What is in the box?
1 rulebook which is fu***ng pointless to be honest
2 decks (10 starting cards per deck and a deck to build from)
Several reference cards
Planet cards (no idea how many)
Point tokens (with the most insane numbering system ever)
That is what you get inside the box and that is all you need to play
How do I win?
The game objective is super simple, destroy the other players home world! Once is is destroyed you win the game!
How to set up the game?
Firstly make sure you have the ability top understand rules that make no sense and give you little guidance! Okay make sure the two decks are separate, 1 deck is human and the other is an alien race I can not remember the name of, lets call them bobarians. Then from each deck find the 10 starting cards to form your starting deck, now good luck with this because it does not describe in great detail how you can find these 10! Luckily you are reading this and I can tell you that in the bottom left corner and the upper right corner of the card (landscape) you will see a star! There are only 10 cards with these symbols and these form your starting hand!
Now you have your starting deck you need to find your home planet the description for these is once again shocking! However they both have a matching symbol for your deck or just look for the Nazin and Sol planets and then give the human the sol planet and the other player takes the other planet. I think that is an easier way of telling you which one you need!
With the remaining cards from your deck (not the 10) shuffle these and then flip over 5 in a row to create your Empire Row, this is of course a stupid term and I will call it a production row as that is what it is. Place the remaining deck to the left of the row and you will use these to replenish the production row when you need to. This is called the Empire deck but I will call it your production deck. Now shuffle your starting 10 cards and who ever is going first takes 3 cards and the next player takes 5 cards. These seems a little unfair but that is the rules.
Now with the remaining planet cards shuffle these and make sure there is not an event or hazard card on top, if you stop and there is one shuffle some more until it is just a standard planet card on the top. Put these in a space as you will need to at some point place these cards in a row to create the Exploration row which is a fitting name unlike empire row.
Place all the tokens in a easy to reach location, now I am going to bitch about the tokens here, why does 1 have 5 on the other side? It should be 2 so that if you have 1 showing and take 1 more damage you can just flip it.... Not find a different token. IDIOTS! Make sure you leave space for a production deck scrap pile which is basically a discard pile and I will call it that, space for not 1 but 2 discard piles for your hand, this will make sense later. A exploration row scrap pile which I will of course just call exploration discard pile because that is what it is.
There we go we have set the game up and we are ready to start playing, Now I may get some of the rules wrong because the rule book is horrendous and it was really hard to understand how on Sol you play this game!
How to play?
Like I mentioned before these rules could be wrong because of how bad the rule book is, please feel free to leave comments on how you should play this game or how a rule should be!
Now I am going to tell you for a fact I am changing the rules slightly in this section to make sure they make sense, they will be easier to follow with the little tweaks I make but they will be basically the same rules.
First note: You need two discard piles for your hand, 1 for cards this round and 1 for cards from previous rounds. This is needed for certain card abilities and planet abilities.
On your turn you do the following actions in order;
Merge discard piles
Explore
Produce
Buy
Build space bases Attack
Perform planet abilities
Perform card abilities
Work out Command Points (CP) Reset your hand
This is a lot different to how the rule book says you should perform your turn but this way you will find it easier to follow.
NOTE: Some card and planet abilities might need to be used in a different phase such as attack or produce, it is worth checking these when you play them in case they need to be used in that phase, I have added two sections at the end just to remind you to check them then in case you forgot to use any as it is still your turn!
Merge discard piles:
Move all cards from the THIS TURN discard pile into the PREVIOUS TURN discard pile, this will give you an empty THIS TURN discard pile you will need.
Explore:
Only scout ships can explore if you do not have a scout ship in your hand you can not perform this action! If you have more than 1 scout ship you must perform all actions for the first scout ship and then move on to the next one.
1: Place the scout ship card in the THIS ROUND discard pile
2: See if the EXPLORATION ROW contains 3 cards if there are 3 go to step 4
3: Take the top card from the EXPLORATION DECK and put it in the EXPLORATION ROW
4: Place 1 value token from the pile on the bottom or the top (depending where you are on the table) next to this or any other card in EXPLORATION ROW, this 1 lowers the cost to buy this planet by 1 so if the cost was 4 it is now 3 for you.
5: Check that the top card on the EXPLORATION DECK is an event or hazard card if it is you need to action this NOW!
IMPORTANT EXPLORE RULES
1) If the EXPLORATION DECK is empty then you can still scout but you only get the 1 token to make a planet cheaper (if there are any left).
2) The tokens you place on the planet make it cheaper for you and only you, same goes for the other player, if you have 2 tokens on a planet and they have 3 and the cost is 5 you would have to pay 3 to buy it and they would only pay 2. 3) A planet cost can never be reduced to 0.
Event or Hazard card = If you have triggered one of these cards you need to read the text and action this card! If it says the player with the highest planet cost then you find out who that is and the card hurts them or gives them a bonus. Once the card is triggered if it is a one off card with no value then it goes into the EXPLORATION DISCARD pile. If it is a card that can be attacked (space pirates or so on) it goes into the EXPLORATION ROW, if that row is filled discard one of the cards in the row and replace it. If there is a tie on the event or hazard card then the rules do state that it is ignored, now we think this is s**t and you should just let it effect you both!
Produce:
Only space factory ships and certain planets can produce, if you do not have any planets that can produce or these ships then you can not perform this action.
1: Place all your space factory ships into your THIS ROUND discard pile
2: Take the equal amount of point tokens to their PRODUCTION value
3: If you are using these space factory ships to heal a planet then use the amount of tokens you have to remove that much damage from a planet
4: Take point tokens to the same value that your planets total PRODUCTION value
That is all you need to do for produce here is an example;
You have 2 space factories ships and take 2 points, you then use 1 of these points to heal 1 damage from your home world. This leaves you with 1 chip, you then add your planets production value and have 2 you take 2 more chips and this leaves you with a total of 3 chips or 3 PRODUCTION to spend in the next section.
Buy:
Here you spend the chips you just gained in the Produce section of the action above. You can either buy a card or multiple cards if you have the money from EXPLORATION ROW, EXPLORATION DECK or the PRODUCTION ROW. You can also use your production value to upgrade planet cards.
Buying from EXPLORATION ROW; You can buy any card from this row long as you have the required value, remember that you reduce the cost by the tokens you already have from the explore action on planets here. To buy a planet you pay its cost value and once it is paid you place this in 1 of the 2 spots you have for extra planets (you can only ever have 3 planets! Your home world (never gets replaced) and 2 other planets). If you already have 2 planets you can still buy one, however you must discard a planet that you own. If you buy a planet that another player currently as tokens on they lose these tokens and they are returned to the token pile.
Once you buy the planet your tokens you used to buy this and ones you may have stored on this planet are returned to the token pile.
Example = You want to buy planet x which costs 5, you have 3 tokens already stored on this planet from exploring. You have 3 production tokens from this round also, you take the 3 tokens stored on the planet and pay 2 more and by the planet. You place it in 1 of the 2 empty planet slots you have, you also note that the other player had 2 tokens on this planet and you return them to the token pile to. You put your 5 tokens in the token pile also and you still have 1 token that you can spend. Buying from EXPLORATION DECK; You can always buy the top card on the EXPLORATION DECK long as you have enough chips! There is no way to store chips on this card (not until it is in EXPLORATION ROW). If it costs 5 you must have 5 chips and then you take the planet and place it in a empty slot if there are none empty discard a planet card. Once you have bought it you need to put the chips back into the token pile. Buying from PRODUCTION ROW;
This is a little bit different because of how you can place chips on the cards to pay for them over your turns.
If you have enough chips to buy a card you can of course take that card and it needs to be placed in your PREVIOUS TURNS discard pile, you then of course return the chips paid for the card to the token pile. If you do not have enough chips to buy a card you can place them on the card for later turns so you can build the value up over time to buy them. There are some issues with this, if the card for some reason is scrapped then you lose all the chips on this card! This can break your heart to be honest :( sad times.
Upgrading planets;
Each planet can be upgraded, all you need to so is pay the cost again and you can flip it oer, this usually increases the production value and the population. IMPORTANT NOTE: You can not end your turn with any chips, they need to be spent or placed on cards in PRODUCTION ROW. If you do end your turn with any that are just floating around in your play area these need to be discarded.
Build space bases:
If you have any space base cards in your hand you can now place them directly on to 1 of your 3 planets. They cost nothing to place and basically make the planet harder to destroy and will take incoming damage. Attack:
Attacking is quite a simple yet complex element in this game but it is one of the most important elements you need to get your head around. I was left a little confused at first but here we go!
Attack value = Most ships will have a value in red with a lightning bolt symbol, this is the attack value. Some planets also have this.
Fleets = When making an attack you need to group your ships or ship into a fleet and declare which target each fleet is going to attack.
What you can attack;
1 = Enemy planets
2 = The enemy PRODUCTION ROW
1) When attacking an enemies planet you must attack them in this order;
A: Any bases on the two outer planets
B: The outer planets C: A base on the enemies home world
D: The enemies home world
If your fleet contains a ship that says it ignores enemy bases it then of course delivers direct damage to the planet. If you assign a fleet that could provide enough damage to destroy a world and they only have 1 outer planet your second fleet can be sent to enemies home world.
2) When attacking the enemies PRODUCTION ROW you can not attack TECH cards, every 1 attack is doubled. If you have a ship with 3 attack it would deliver 6 damage to a card in the PRODUCTION ROW. The enemy player can not defend agasint this attack and you must equal the cards cost to destroy it, once destroyed it goes into the PRODUCTION DISCARD pile. Damage here does not carry over and you must make sure you cause enough damage on this turn to destroy the card! Other wise it is a waste, if there are several cards you wish to destory make sure you assign 1 ship (or more if needs be) to each card and they have enough attack to destroy that card.
Defending;
Now after you have declared all your attacks against planets (not the PRODUCTION ROW attacks) the enemy player can defend. It is up to them if they wish to do so, if they do they need to assign ships from their hand with attack values to counter your attack. For example; You send 1 fleet with 3 attack against 1 outer planet and the enemy uses 1 ship with 2 attack to defend that means 2 damage is blocked but 1 damage is carried over on to the planet.
If the enemy player does defend any ships they use are scarped and go into the PRODUCTION ROW discard pile never to be seen again.
Damage;
When attacking planets damage is first assigned to any space base assigned to that planet. If any ships ignore bases it of course goes directly on to the planet it self.
To destroy a base or a planet you need to reduce its population value to 0, basically think that its population is a damage counter. If a space base shows 4 population it means that it can take 4 damage before it is destroyed, same goes for planets.
Use the tokens and place them on the planets or space base to keep a track of how much damage they have taken.
Once a planet is destroyed it goes in the EXPLORATION ROW DISCARD pile and if a space space is destoryed it goes in THIS TURN DISCARD pile.
Hazrad cards;
If an hazard card is in EXPLORATION ROW you can assign a fleet to that card to destroy it, unlike attacking enemy planets you need to make sure you have enough attack power to destory it on this turn as the damage does not carry over to the next round!
If you can destory it and go for it you then need to assign the same amount of damage to one of your space bases, planets or home world it must all go on one target (if you pick a space base remaining damage carries over to the planet) and then you can take the card and flip it over. If it is a planet you can place it (if you already have the 2 you can discard 1 and place this one) or you can discard this card into the EXPLORATION DISCARD pile.
Perform planet abilities:
Check your planets and use their abilities now, these can differ from healing themselves to allowing you to destroy cards in the enemies PRODUCTION ROW. Just read the cards ability and apply it.
Perform ship abilities:
Just like above each ship might have an ability that can allow you to perform some sort of action, applies these now.
Work out CP:
If you play different ship types (Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer, Frigate, Titan, Doomstar, Colony ship, Scout and Space factory) you gain command points;
2 Ship types = 1CP
3 Ship types = 2CP
4 Ship types = 4CP
5 Ship types = 6CP
6 Ship types = 8CP
Store the CP and during your turn you can spend CP in the following ways;
1CP = Gain 1 token towards your PRODUCTION ROW
1CP = +1 Attack value to a fleet during the attack phase
1CP = Discard a planet from EXPLORATION ROW, the planet can not have enemy players tokens on it
2CP = Same as above but can have enemy players tokens on it
2CP = Discard a hazard from EXPLORATION ROW
Reset your hand:
All cards including any that you did not use (so make sure to use them all if you can) are put into your THIS TURN discard pile. You then need to draw 5 new cards for your next turn. If you can not draw 5 cards then merge both discard piles together and shuffle them, once shuffled draw your cards.
SPACE BASE RULES = You can only have 1 space base per planet.
TECH RULES = You can only have 1 tech per planet, I recommend that you use the tech abilities at the same time as you do the planet abilites as they are assigned the same. If a planet is destoryed with tech attached it is sent to the PREVIOUS TURN discard pile.
Okay these are not 100% the official rules for the game, these are tweaked to make the game more playable and easier to play. They are not far off the official rules, if you want to play the official ones you can use the rules above to better understand them.
Honestly the rulebook for this game is baffling if you have never played the game or seen anyone play it, it just throws you in the deep end and hopes you can swim.
Final thoughts
The artwork on the box made me excited to play the game, it looks like an in depth game with lots of fighting. You open the game and the first thing that hits you is the fact the cards are not designed to last. You can just tell they will take a battering quickly.
You then get to the rulebook and you find yourself confused by the rules and how the rulebook is written. So far not great you have sh***y cards and rules that leave you beyond confused.
Then you take out the decks and realise that they are both the same deck just with different designs, you then notice the fact they have gone symbol crazy! The cards are very blah there is nothing special about them and when you see the fact the planets are hexagons but you can only every have 3 in total you think what is the point in that?
You have a game that is not going to last, makes no sense, the theme is pointless and you feel betrayed by the art work on the box!
Then you play the game and spend a lot of time trying to figure out the rules and if you are playing it correctly. After several rounds of confusion you start to understand them and eventually you realise that the game is actually okay, it is not brilliant but it is a decent little game.
The main issue with this game is the fact it is a decent little game but it is just covered in s**t. You have far too many issues to start with to just get the game out, play it and enjoy it. If the rule book was an actual rule book that made sense it would help the game out a lot. If the decks were different and not the same deck that would help the game out and add more to it. If the cards were designed without all the useless crap on them and the symbols kept to a minimum it would be better.
There is just a lot that is wrong with this game that ruins it for me.
5/10
