Lautapelit.fi Eclipse: 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy

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In my wife’s own words, I can tell if a game is good if she keeps on coming downstairs to the game from her at-home job to take turns all day long. Eclipse provided such an experience for her, despite her initial misgivings. Color me surprised. With that being said, when I first became aware of Eclipse : Second Dawn for the Galaxy a few years ago, I already had Twilight Imperium IV in my collection. However, given how long that game can be, I decided I needed a “short” 4x game to scratch the itch whenever the urge to play such a game came about without needing to commit an entire day to it. I was forced to choose between The Silver River and the 2nd version of Eclipse at the time, and in the end went for the Silver River due to the significantly lower price point and the somewhat innovative idea of fighting Space monsters. And I wasn’t disappointed in my choice in the least. When Eclipse: New Dawn For The Galaxy first came out in 2011, it was viewed by some as potential competition for the granddaddy of all space exploration games, Twilight Imperium. In the years since then, the comparison (if not the competition) has continued apace. That’s really not surprising of course, both games are about ruling space empires, exploration, research and combat. And both games are absolutely huge. With half a dozen different factions exploring dozens of different star systems and researching a simply enormous tech tree, Eclipse may not be quite the scale of TI but it’s no slouch in the scheme of 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) gaming. A Second Dawn The aim of the Second Dawn of the Galaxy is simple, build up victory points by means of expanding your empire, researching technology and winning battles against NPC ships and player factions. After X rounds, the player with the most victory points is the winner. As a game, Eclipse can be quite overwhelming to look at, but it’s really a series of very simple actions and the truly complex aspect is the strategy required to win.

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Wiki Official Rules | Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Wiki

Influence - You can add an influence token to a system next to one of your own. You can also remove a token from one of your systems if you think you might have overreached yourself.

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Again, this is a very streamlined game. It flows! But still takes about 2 hours for a two player game, more for more players. Still not as long as the other Big games out there. For anyone familiar with first edition, the biggest change might be something that’s not actually related to the game play. In these big games, the set up and put away time can take another hour on top of play time. No longer. With each faction’s pieces in a separate box and each box carefully set up to fit together, it can take only a few minutes to start play and not much longer to put away. There’s been plenty of poetic waxing about setup and teardown in the hobby. It’s clearly a topic on the minds of players, with companies such as Folded Space and LaserOx providing consumers with a rich swathe of custom storage that promises easier playability. That matters for these epic sprawling experiences because being able to play the game is the first battle.

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Is there a solo mode? | Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Build – Spend some of your build points to add to your fleet or build a space station to improve your infrastructure. Later in the game you can build a monolith (a la 2001: A Space Odyssey) which gives a boost to your victory points. Move – Exactly as you might think, you can move your ships a given number of systems (depending on their speed) to fortify your own space or invade others’. This new edition features new components and thoughtfully revised content, incorporating material from former expansions to create the best possible updated version of the game. Rules: Eclipse is a "4X" game where players will command a human or alien species that explores, expands, exploits, and exterminates their way to victory. Over 8 rounds, each player will select actions to achieve their goals, carefully managing resources, engaging in epic battles with one another and the Ancients that lie in wait. Only one will guide the galaxy toward the second dawn. Eclipse is an epic game in every sense of the word offering a space opera in one sitting. It will create adventure and story that will live on with you and your friends, until the next one!

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Combat, while it still uses dice to determine hits and outcomes as is traditional, nevertheless manages to offer up something new in allowing a good advantage to the Defender in battle situations. Moreover, it is especially nice that while it is more typical in other games to have players trade hits and damage at the exact same time, in Eclipse, if you manage to destroy an enemy ship first, they will never even get a chance to fire at you!