Hailing frequency open? No? Too bad, because I'm going to tell you all about Gale Force Nine's foray into the world(s) of Star Trek. Will phasers be set on fun? Or will it beam you away? Cody investigates. www.boardgameg...
Funny story. I got to play this at gencon with the cardassians (Which are my favorite ST race) First planet I explore, BOOM Bajor. I had to colonize it. I laughed for a good five minutes at that.
Ha! I was in total suspense waiting for your reaction. Glad to see you liked it! We had a similar experience, a bit of a slow burn at first as we learned the rules and how the system worked, and by the end of it we thought it was GREAT! Totally loved it! Can't wait to get the expansions. Interesting thoughts on Fleet Captains as well. It's just a s fun, but in my opinion Ascendancy seems less fiddly and has fewer rules. But then FC has more theme baked into it... It's settled, I'll keep them both!
You had me fooled! I was getting that sinking feeling he is going to not like it... I was all "Awh..." Not to say that I need Cody to like the games I do but we like a lot of same titles and get a kick out of that. Ascendancy will have a happy space next to Fleet Captains. I think the sweet spot will be with 3-4 players but I really look forward to seeing how fluid NPC faction like the Borg are added in. I like how the game gives you tools to gently want to play as the Romulan or Klingon faction would play. Also the ability to, on rare occasion, go FULL TREK and play 5-6 on a massive board gets me pretty excited. Thanks for the review pal! Board Game Review Entertainment at its finest to be sure!
Thanks for the review. I have been wanting a Star TREK (not TRACK) game for a long time. Your review really excited me. Looking forward to watching your reviews of the expansions for this as well as your review for Star Fleet Captains. Oh... and how about that Power Girl card? Man.
Ha! I really love this game quite a bit. I love Fleet Captains, too, but haven’t played it in a while. I haven’t done a video review id that one. Maybe some day.
Cody! Big question. In theory I love 4X games, but in reality I hate the 4th X when everyone just blows up everything on the board. In Eclipse, you spend hours building your civ, tech tree, and economy like a perfect sand sculpture. I love that. Then everyone realizes "there is no next turn", abandons their system, and kicks everyone's careful work into the ocean. What's the end of Ascendancy like? The Doomsday Machine?
That hasn’t been my experience with STA. In eclipse, Everyone knows it’s the last round, so that’s gonna happen. Here, endgame feels a little more organic. Just going guns blazing is not necessarily going to get you that last point or two. Also, you may want to check out Space Empires 4X - more of a war game so the fighting is baked in.
A Star Trek game where the JJ Abrams universe isn't included? Count me in! You managed to sell me on it with the 'creating something' comparison to the Civilization games. Thanks Cody.
First time I played it, we made plenty of errors, like not enforcing the "table edge" rules, and I forgot to mention that you got a command chit for building a starbase, and that ships in star lanes block warp. So we ended up with each faction building their own little mini-galaxy with no interaction until late in the game, even managing to use up all the planetary disks. Finally we called it since the Romulans were producing the most culture so they would churn out the necessary Ascendancy tokens first and win, sitting with a pile of ships at the one point where they connected to the Federation. Pro tip: Don't play it wrong, or it ends up a bit boring.
I think I'm going to buy this game - I'm this close..... I would just like to know from your point of view whether the randomness of events and dice rolls affects the gameplay in a negative way as what I've been seeing in other reviews. As someone who also really likes BSG your opinion would mean a lot - thanks!
I originally thought they only included the new faction ships and stations etc. but the fact that they include more planets is a big win! :) thanks for the review!
Thanks for this review. I would normally not look twice at any spandex brigade themed game (StarTrek) but the look of this game caught my eye. I'll keep a careful eye on Gale Force Nine. Maybe they could in future release a similar title but with a better theme. It could have been much worse though. It could have been starwars.
Semantics: the word trek is a rare example of Afrikaans words making it into English. Some other examples being bushveldt, commando, laager, spoor, rooibos ect. And I can assure you the right pronunciation is exactly like the English word track. And if you can manage to roll your "r" like in shakespearean english you'll be spot on.
Falconius, this is indeed a great game and I hope you get a chance to play it at some point. I must confess, however, than I am deeply concerned about your health. I would advise you to seek out a mental health professional as soon as possible, so that you can get back on the road to recovery and embrace all things "star" in the future. Give my love to your mother.
Friendly banter aside, I'm being very, no, extremely serious here. Ever since I've been sucked into a certain sci-fi universe I've found it difficult to enjoy the mainstream stuff. Too little dakka-dakka, too much heresy. I'll risk exterminatus to admit though that I would love to see a board game version of Homeworld.
It would be between Star Trek Ascendancy and Fleet Captains. Ascendancy is a Civilization building game that does a great job with the Star Trek theme, but Fleet Captains feels more like episodes or movies from Star Trek. Gun to my head, Ascendancy is the better game - though I have not played with any of the expansions.
@@TheDiscriminatingGamer Thanks, Fleet Captains has been on my wish list for a while and I think it would stand a better chance of getting played at my house. Frontiers has been tempting because it can be played solo, given none of them are short games that may be the only way any of them gets played for a while. I really appreciate your reviews and your response thanks!
Hey Cody. Are you seeing the expansions? No other major reviewer is giving them coverage and two more, being Vulcan and Andorian, were going through beta testing at gen on 2018...
The Discriminating Gamer Seems to be a polarising game. Makes me want to play for myself or live in hope that reviewers revisit the game or review expansions. Keep up the good work :)
I love how the game feels like Trek and the little ships are great, but the downtime between turns destroyed the great early-game momentum for us after three turns, and that is only with 3 players. Imagine expanding that 10 minutes between turns to 15-20 because now, it's 4-5 players. Play time wasn't an issue but the downtime was and killed it for me.
Mitchlav There is some downtime, for sure, but it never bogged down for us. I felt like, generally speaking, it had a good flow. I imagine it would be a bigger problem for players with AP issues.
@@TheDiscriminatingGamer Thanks. Does it hold it's own as a good substitute for Twilight Imperium? I'm looking for a space epic game and can't decide between these two.
@@LeeroyPorkins Nothing beats TI4. That game is in a league by its own. However, at six players (which is the best player count) it can take around 6 hours. STA is not nearly as long so you'll probably get it to the table more often.
How are you able to finish games in 2-3 hours? I've played like 3 sessions of Ascendancy (all with 3 players), and have yet to have a game clock in at under 4 hours.
The Discriminating Gamer You're surely mistaken. Anyone not liking at least some aspect of Star Trek must be from another galaxy, or possibly a cabinet member of our current president.
Man I can't disagree with you more! I LOVE star trek and 4x games, but this one just drags on and is way too random. The planets you discover can be really lousy or really good but nearly impossible to take, and the events or hazards can simply destroy your ships all the time for no reason. When building a production node requires 2 production etc, you have to wait a long time to get a return on that investment, which just slows the game way down. The first 2 hours at least is everyone turtling on their own corner of the map. When you finally do connect to other players, if you have a trade agreement it helps you a LOT over other players. I've played twice and won both times as Romulans because I can drop a huge fleet, move it all the way across the galaxy, and 1 shot most enemies on a single turn (first strike OP). Each game I came close to losing because one player happened to have 1 more culture node than I and so they would just win by time limit essentially. I really wanted to love this game but it is just not that good for its length.
I can understand how there is some downtime, but overall I really enjoyed this 4x game quite a bit. I can also understand how the first few games might be slower, but I think once you appreciate the flow of the game, it really comes alive. IMHO.
"Hyperspace lanes"? What are these things sir? What is Hyperspace anyway? I don't think that Star Trek has any "Hyperspace"... Isn't that from some strange fictional Wars in the Stars?
