Eclipsed

I played a 3 player game of Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy last night. It took just over 4 hours to get to the end, but despite this the game definitely left me wanting more, in a good way.

I’ve started gaming more regularly with a couple of friends and we’re slowly working our way through some heavier games in our collections. Eclipse is one of those games that really requires all of the players to have a good grasp of the rules before sitting at the table. I’ve found that video explainers are the most effective way to do this and would recommend the videos by The Game Locker where they run through all you need to know to get started.

Look & feel

First off, the game has really good table presence. We were playing with the large mat that is available and it sets up the play area nicely. The miniatures that come with the game are pretty decent too, and add a bit of unique flavour with each faction having their own ship designs. The player boards are nicely laid out and the artwork for the faction that you are playing is well done. We all played as Terrans (humans) to keep the game symmetrical and a bit more straightforward. The influence track is intuitive and easy to understand, and the same can be said for the 3 science tracks also. The game was surprisingly less complex than I had expected, and I think credit to the graphic design of the overall game. There is quite a bit going on between the hex tiles, player boards, and technology tiles and the design of the game never gets in the way here. Great work here by Jere Widenius (that is the designer credited on BGG, so hopefully I got that right).

The game comes with plastic trays for each player that hold all of their miniatures, cubes, etc. and the top cover of the tray is where you manage your different resources (Materials, Science, and Money). The circles of cubes are very nice and offer a very simple way to track your own progress, but also glance at other players to see how they are fairing also. The markers for each resource are a little clunky, but do the job.

The influence discs that are used to track actions on your turn, and to show control over a sector are nice to handle and easy to manage. And the combat dice are bright, colourful, and nice to roll. All in all the game presents quite a tactile experience that definitely adds to the enjoyment for me.

Gameplay

This might sound funny, but despite the game taking 4 hours to play, it actually zips along at a nice pace. There wasn’t much player interaction early on in the game, so you could plan your turn while somebody else took theirs knowing the board state wouldn’t change dramatically when your turn came around.

The game took 4 hours in total and is played over eight rounds. So that’s 30 minutes per round. With three players that means we were averaging ten minutes in each round. But you can take multiple turns per round (I’d say it averages out to about 5), so you’re looking at around 2 minutes per turn per player. That’s not bad at all.

Eclipse is a 4X game (4x = Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) so effectively on your turn you are doing one of these things. Exploring uncharted systems of the hex map. Expanding your faction into these systems, and then exploiting any resources that you might find there. Lastly, is the exterminate part, which was the one area of the game that didn’t feel as intuitive as the rest, but is the part of the overall puzzle I think I am most interested in diving into in the future.

The explore, expand, and exploit aspects of the game felt pretty transparent and in that way were easy to plan and predict to a good degree. There is an extra detail to the exterminate aspect of the game that I really enjoyed. The ability to customise your fleet by researching new technologies and upgrading blueprints. This brought some asymmetry to the game that wasn’t present initially due to the fact that we all played Terrans. One player uncovered a hugely powerful weapon technology early on and outfitted it onto their small, cheap interceptor class ships. This gave myself and the other player a huge incentive to not explore towards these highly dangerous ships until we had advanced our own ships adequately. Advancing your fleet is really enjoyable, but also quite strategic in nature for the later parts of the game. Do you go with a balanced fleet, a highly agressive fleet, or a defensive minded one?

I’m still laughing at how annoyed I got at a latter point in the game. I misjudged how many ships I should send into a battle (I still think the probability was in my favour) and with some poor dice rolls on my side, and some devestating ones on the other, my ships were destroyed and my plans for the last two rounds completely scuppered. The irritation mainly came from the fact that chance had ruined my chances 3 hours into a game, but in hindsight I knew there was some risk there, and would have been better off avoiding the conflict in the first place.

Thoughts

Despite the 4 hour play time Eclipse: Second dawn for the galaxy is a great game. The game presents the player with a thoroughly enjoyable tug-of-war between over-expansion and under-development. The former leaving you essentially bankrupt and resourceless (for a time) and the latter leaving you lagging behind your rivals. Definitely a game I will play again (hopefully soon) and would recommend.