I love it when Tom moves away from Sam before he compares it to TI3. I just had flashback of Sam going 'Don't ever call it (Eclipse) TI3 lite' or something like that
This review renews a wish that I've had for a long time. It's friggin' time for Fantasy Flight to develop and/or release Twilight Imperium 4th Edition. That would be the only way to kill TI3.
Patrick Acton TI3 has long been my favorite game of all time. But it is becoming dated. TI3 is awesome because of the epic space battle and technology theme that other games, to date, have failed to measure up to. The miniatures are esquisite, the art is (still to the day) the standard by which all other games try to live up to, and the shear epicness of it all just warms my nerdish heart. But I long for a TI4 because there is still so much room for improvement. In particular, flaws include combat system that feels clumsy and dated, way too much errata, expansions that feel pasted together, and a board set up that often discourages combat. All of these can and should be fixed. I don't live too far from FF headquarters. Maybe I should chain myself to the building until FF agrees to get to work on this?
Patrick Acton Oh, there are plenty of areas for improvement. The way VP are earned has a lot of problems that disconnect from what people are spending hours actually doing. And a lot of games involve people building ships and then turtling next to another empire without any way to break the stalemate. And like many FFG games that involve a lot of buildup to battles (Civilizaiton, Runewars), the battles themselves are resolved without anything resembling tactics. I adore TI3 for its ambitions, but it shows its age during gameplay.
I thought this game had a lot of promise but a couple things soured it for me. But what it does do, is absolutely murder the Starcraft board game. It's kind of the same system but works a lot more. BUT...the things that soured it: Map setup screw- Same problem that Twilight Imperium has where it's a long game and someone can lose right from the start by getting screwed during map construction. You must collect VP tokens from planets and other players get to place your tokens during setup. You can easily get taken out of the game if others are fickle and place your tokens all on the exact opposite ends of the map making it virtually impossible to get the winning amount in time. Likewise, someone can have the game handed to them when others put their VP tokens close to their starting area. Warp storms- HATED them. There are 4 warp storm barriers that block movement between 2 map sections. They are also set up by players during map creation and there's nothing keeping one or two players from being completely hemmed in a the start. Every turn, every player gets to move one of them one space. That means they're not going to be drastically shifting around so if they screw you at the start they're going to keep screwing you. You can't even use them as a way to gang up on a leader since he gets an equal chance to move them. They really should have designed their movement as a catchup mechanic where the person in last place gets to move them, or some kind of bidding system. As they are, they're so bad I want to play without them BUT you can't just take them out because so much of the Chaos faction is built around them. Faction imbalance- The Eldar were far and away the most powerful faction. They get a ridiculous teleport ability that lets them send units all the way across the map in a game where fast movement is vital. You would think that thematically they would be the high mobility, fragile race that they are so they wouldn't be as good in a stand up fight to balance out that crazy mobility. But that's not the case. Not only are they just as good in a stand up fight as the other factions, they're BETTER than them more often than not. It's crazy comparing them to what Space Marines or Orks get and thinking they're all balanced.
Picked it up. Loved my first game. 3 Player however. Downtime though there I felt my time was used in planning my next moves. I often have 3 players at the table and this probably will hit the table instead of Eclipse In that situation. Components are just incredible.
They got the battle system from CITY OF REMNANTS from Plaidhat Games, which used dice plus miniature plus cards that you could play from your faction deck, that also had to build during the game by buying different kind of cards. Check that out :)
I KNEW IT! from the live play I totally thought the down time would be brutal on this one. For a game that is basically a fancy version of 40k risk I see that as a huge drawback.
This seems like an interesting tabletop gaming experience. It really feels as though they tried to put together several types of games at once. The combat system has the feel of an actual GW minis game with the simultaneous roll of a handfull of dice ( very simplified and watered down), while at the same time you get to use a deck building mechanic, and I also get a kind of 40k conquest vibe from the switch to the card flopping that comes after the dice get rolled. It seems like FF threw everything at the wall to get something to appeal to several different types of gamers at once. This proves dangerous many more times than not, but from the looks of things, FF did a great job as usual. Thanks for the review, guys. One last question...Do you think 40k conquest has been as well accepted by die hard 40k minis players as you two enjoyed it, or are the miniatures guys just too encroached in their game to ever give an LCG a real chance? Once again, thanks for the review!
Zeetro They aren't even the same genre. Forbidden Stars is just a conquering game. A cool looking one, but that is all it is. TI3 is politics and research and economics and exploration and, yeah, a bit of conquering in there too.
Nicholas Palmer Well, most of that stuff you mention--politics, research, economics--only winds up affecting either combat directly, or affects production (which is 95% about building ships for combat). The laws passed, the techs researched, the things you spend your money on--it's all pretty much about boosting your resources cranking out more ships and getting bonuses to those d10 rolls. There are many paths in TI3, but they all do converge in that one area.
Sam Healey TI3 is a space opera. This isn't. Just because it's set in space doesn't make it necessarily comparable. For all those that agree with Tom, watch your throats. Sam's coming for you!!!!
To the tune of a certain well-known song... "I want my TI3". I haven't played it enough to want TI4 and this game doesn't appear to be in the same territory apart from being in space.
So I have the beta and have played it a dozen times, give or take. I totally agree with both of you here - less players is better. However you didn't really compare it with what I think is its biggest influence - Starcraft TBG. How do you think it compares to that?
I'm torn about this one, really like the components naturally and I like the depth of the combat but I'm really nervous about the downtime. Also I'm worried if a player can be forced to fight a two-front war in a 3-player game and be effectively eliminated. I really wish that there was another venue for interaction in this game besides combat, such as intrigue or diplomacy, that would also make the TI3 comparison more viable in my opinion haha.
Croc1513 pretty much. Barely any time to develop because you're going to be in each other's face quickly. I agree with Sam -- downtime increases massively after 2 players. Going to need simultaneous turns or something because watching that live play was....."brutal".
Thank you for another in depth review! Would you guys say this game replaces the Starcraft Board Game? Do either of you still have Starcraft in your collection?
I disagree about being bored when the other players are fighting in 3 & 4 player games. You gain alot of good info when observing a fight and not taking part in it. What cards which player is going to play in certain situations etc.. i'm sure as time goes on it'll just be second nature to know what someone is building their decks around however while learning i've found every battle interesting. You get to see the cards the player has been buying and can adapt your build around it if you need to, before even engaging in battle against either player. I have played one 4 player game and two 3 player games so far, with another 3 player game scheduled for tonight :)
I am very much on board with this. I am baffled by comments that the board is ugly, I think the art is amazing and the game play looks very interesting with the orders system and combat alike.
At last, I got it. Just a question : during a battle, I don't roll any morale. But I do play a card giving a morale. Can I use the card event or can it only be triggered by a dice ?
I'm new to board games, at least strategy ones, I've played Warhammer on PC for years though. I've ordered the game but I'd like to replace some of the underwhelming flag models with some proper Warhammer miniature figurines. Can anyone suggest some cool appropriately sized models?
That is a bit sad. Was really looking forward to it and love the mechanics and stuff. But, the downtime is going to be a bit of a issue. Hopefully they can do a second edition or expansion.
If you take away the cool building types the 5th and 6th player then add a dice element to StarCrafts combat system you get this game. They are more than just similar this is a re-design. I have my suspicions that Tom has been encouraged not to compare them. FFG doesn't have the blizzard license anymore they have this games workshop license so I understand this re-design but just call a spade a spade.
I look at this game and see an interesting card/dice game + chrome. If I could just buy a card/dice version, it'd be an easy buy. Instead I'm just like, meh. The units aren't even units, they are just flags.
Don't see what everyone is bitching about. The board and components all look awesome. 40k is grim and great in terms of theme. Gameplay looks fun. Only thing that bugs me is the usual dice tower mistakes, which are forgivable
I'm pretty disappointed, basically I was hoping for something grander in scope, or at least in presentation. The player boards look like what I'd expect from a 40k game, but the tiles just don't bring the awesome. Too bad. This is the one game this year I was really looking forward to.
Oh thank you, I had no Idea! I was here already thinking "I can't believe FFG made a blunder like that AND it made it past the editors into the final game" ;)
Ben Foster I think you should take a look at GW themselves if you want to see brand exploitation and price inflation: www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Assassinorum-Execution-Force If it wasn't for FFG, I would never have a 40K universe game less than $250-$300! (Canadian). At least Forbidden Stars looks like a good game as well.
Yea, the gameplay just doesn't have any hooks to draw me in. Simultaneously simple and bloated. I was hoping that a $100 msrp 40k space conquest game would offer either grand strategy or operational simulation.
Thanks for the game review... though I too am NOT a huge fan of the Warhammer system, I found this game almost too impossible to resist... plastic miniatures... great board art.... tiled map boards? COUNT ME IN! Keep up the good work, as always... Do you think that, following up on Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Island... there might be a new "Forbidden..." something (city, town, marsh, spaceship... etc) ???
