Gale Force Nine Star Trek Ascendancy

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition got me hooked on 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) games, but at ~8 hours it's difficult to get to the table and intimidating to non-gamers. Enter Star Trek Ascendancy! It takes about 1 hour per player in the game, but you can reduce this once you know what you're doing and use some variant rules. And even disregarding length, it's more fun than TI4 in my opinion. This is largely due to exploration (arguably nonexistent in TI4), which gives you the experience of exploring the galaxy for the first time. It's kind of like Betrayal, where the map generates randomly as you and your rivals explore, with random thematic events happening at the new systems (some helpful, some painful). Especially in the early game, this exploration provides a fun randomness and excitement to the game that gets people hooked, even those that don't like longer, heavier board games. And, even though this randomness can impact who gets an early lead, the other aspects of the game (like negotiation between rivals and good strategy) even things out. This also makes every game different - you can't rely on 1 strategy for each faction because the map will be different, your opponents will be different, etc, forcing you to change things up on the fly.The combat is simple but fun. The asymmetry between factions is very well thought out and balanced. The technology upgrades are not as good as in TI4 but are still a great part of the game. And if you are a Trekkie, you'll love this game even more.I'll give my two cents on what expansions to get, if any:- Base game limits you to 3 player ONLY, so if that's a good number for you there's no reason to buy an expansion, at least before trying it out for a while.- If you really want to do 1 or 2 player, then get the Borg expansion. There is an unofficial rulebook on BGG that fixes the confusing rules. They add a terrifying aspect to the game with any amount of players!- If you want 4 or more player, get either the Cardassian or Ferengi expansions (or wait until June/July 2019 for the Vulcan and Andorian expansions to come out). If your group likes combat, get the Cardassians (my favorite of the 5 factions). Ferengi are enjoyable but have a totally different mechanic - they are completely dependent on trading with rivals for most of the game, so they are not nearly as combative.- All other add-ons are not critical, but you might find yourself wanting them all sooner than later!- If you have access to a 3D-printer, I'd strongly recommend printing yourself a new insert, especially if you get any of the expansions. I designed one that is free to download on Thingiverse called "Star Trek Ascendancy Optimized Insert" - it makes it WAY easier to setup and cleanup the game.I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do!

Components:4.5 of 5 UPDATE (5 of 5) All game components are well made besides one exception. The ship's, nodes and weapon/shield markers are a good quality plastic resin with no noticeable imperfections. The cardboard cutout parts and system discs are well designed and cut with the exception on a few warp tokens. For whatever reason, some of the warp tokens labels are lifting up (it was not done in the removal process). All cards are printed neatly and are well designed. Ordering on the day of release (October 30th, 2016) the Promo Exploration cards were included!!! The rulebook is a good size and organized well.UPDATE: I emailed [email protected] about damaged tokens with Pics, they sent me replacement warp tokens. A+++ Support.Gameplay / Mechanics / Balance:5 of 5. Each race (faction) has a completely different set of advantages and one disadvantage. Each race also has a set of advanced technologies they can research, which further grant advantages and some even are a great counteroffensive (like rendering Romulan Cloaks ineffective). You would think some might have too great of an advantage, but if that's the case you may just need to put your advantages to better use. All in all the game is well balanced and offers a lot of replayability due to a massive number of Exploration and Advancement cards.Personal Experience:5 of 5. If all players know the rules somewhat well (what each turn consisted of) a game can be as quick as 2.5 hours or as long as 4+. Our first game was 4 hours (not including setup and pickup time) and that's with us checking the rulebook every round or so to make sure we're doing it right and we ate a pizza. This game is fun, some people complain about downtime, but I think it's important to watch what the others do as it can affect your following actions. Like you might want to explore, but you really should build up defenses (we all lost our home worlds to each other). I highly recommend this game if you like strategic board games.

This is the best Star Trek Boardgame so far, second in line is Expeditions for Landing Parties / Away Teams. You get the feel of running your government / faction.Exploration and Building is better than Star Trek Catan which is confusing and has less replay than the excellent original Catan (Sorry Klaus).Great Cards. Thou keep to mostly TNG art and dont include so much TOS as its TNG based. Overall nice figures and pieces. Easy and intuative to understand tiles and system.Sooooo many pieces just like Firefly ship game... so make sure to sort in advance, and have plenty of space to play. I encourage the quick start rules in the back to reduce play time. Assume +30 to 60 minutes per player in the game.GF9 as usual blunders on the Rules - just like on the amazing Firefly starship / trading game. They always cover 95-99% of the situations, but fail to cover that one or two things you need. In this case it is not always clear on how Sublight works, how Ascendancy actually works, or how taking over a non player star system works. It is clear how combats work, and how to win the game via annihilation of the enemy - as well as by simply building up enough tokens to win. Just murky un clear rules.The game needs a NEW RULEBOOK, just as much as it needs all the expansions to leverage the most fun.I was disappointed that the extra Starships and the Faction specific non-chit Starbases are "webstore extras" directly from GF9.

The game is great with friends, just know it is 1 hr per player. So this can take a while if everyone is playing for the first time. But there are a ton of cool references, even non Trek fans can play easily, and there are expansions for the game that adds more playable races.