The set up was taking a bit ok time so DK, Sylon and myself helpfully went outside and played Kubb (a old Viking game) - the first game was a win to DK and Sylon, so I called on Steedo's boy to my side, reasoning that his youth and spatial awareness from years of academy football training would help to bring victory to me. Unfortunately the boy didn't knock a single pawn over .... And DK and Sylon won again. To save me from any further humiliation in garden games we went into play Eclipse.
So Eclipse is a classic 4X game, where you have to create an economic engine to paid for fleets, research and exploration ..... and battle! We all had the same race (humans) so a totally level playing field for us. I started and decided to explore - unfortunately I found an attacking ancient so binned it and effectively lost a move .... Steedo ran into the same problem and the others were either luckier or did some research.
The challenge of the game is to get an engine going so you can pay for expansion, research and ships - but there is never enough money as the more you expand the more it costs. Certainly the issue that Sylon, Steedo and myself had was that we couldn't get the orange planets which pay for you to expand more .... Snake-eyes strategy seemed to be one of avoiding contact with the other civilisations (coward). Sylon when on his usual (might not be ..... but he does seem to rush in sometimes) attack things before you have fully buffed up your ships with researched upgrades. DK did some exploration and the jammy git came across the "morph shield", which cost nothing to power up, gave -1 to hit, +2 initiative and regeneration .... Which when coupled with improved Hull made his cruisers almost unbeatable. DK also got his economic engine for the game running - allowing more research and building.
As the game progressed Sylon was eliminated, by the evil DK and his bloody super cruisers, Steedo was his usual weaselly self by stealing my systems while I was busy trying and failing to reduce DK's lead. Git. Snake-eyes was hiding in his own little part of the Galaxy. DK was busy just collecting systems.
TL - Early game, TR - Mid game, BL - my fleet going head to head with DK's super ships (I did manage to destroy one), BR - end game DK's ships and the treacherous Steedo's red ships in my space!
Final scores 40 for DK, 32 for Steedo, 24 for Snake-eyes and myself and 11 for Sylon.
The game played well but was rather long (2.30am finish), but this was partly due to Steedo knocking over a glass which then appeared to explode over the table and a brief discussion around Brexit. Hopefully we will play this again within 7 years, but there are a couple of things to think about are the player boards, which have lots on them and are easy to knock so you don't know what was where. The board does require a large table, as systems can go off in all sorts of directions. The catch up mechanism didn't seem to work in our game with himself and Sylon (eventually knocked out) out of the winning the game with at least a third to go. Finally the "morph" shields were just too powerful when coupled with extra hull and improved weapons. Sylon said online other groups had only allowed one or two of its options - but Steedo said he was going to get rid of it.
Morts
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