Star Trek Ascendancy in about 3 minutes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- Star Trek Ascendancy in about 3 minutes
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Designer,Aaron Dill, John Kovaleski, Sean Sweigart,
Artist,Katie Dillon, Charles Woods,
Publisher,Gale Force Nine, LLC
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Now, on patreon I normally do an additional written take on the game for patrons only. But as this video contains an inflammatory statement about Twilight Imperium, i thought i would share my 7 reasons i doubt i'd play Twilight Imperium again any time soon. The following is what elevates Ascendancy for me. But I also played Eclipse and Civ a new dawn this year as well, all 3 games have rocketed past ti IV for me. Anyway, my 7 reasons I now prefer Ascendancy.
1. Factions i give a crap about: Romulans and Ferengi are just more interesting to me than the random stuff in TI IV. Sure, im told there are novels and fiction, but honestly the whole setting feels back ended to explain the game mechanics
2. Actual exploration: Finding strange new worlds and random encounters might not be balanced some times, but its interesting and most importantly fun. Also, having Q pick up your ships and drop them on the other side of the board makes memorable moments. TI? No exploration worth a damn in that.
3. Win conditions that make sense: Gain cultural dominance, using a very visible and measurable system OR conquer everyone. That's nice and straight forward, and the game doesn't boil down to a series of fetch quests to have certain ships on certain types of world for one turn, as well as 3 of the same techs, or any of TI's bizarre objectives.
4. Combat is smooth: 1 ship class, compare weapons and shields, and then any fleet bonuses and you are fighting. Each player makes one set of rolls, not rolls for each of the 6 classes of ship you brought to the battle, each with its own upgrades. Now eclipse has wacky ship classes, but as thats the core of the game, that still works. But TI is half way between, fiddly without feeling like its a big part of it.
5. All the core game systems are simple: You get 3 resources, from the obvious nodes you build on worlds, each of which is used in really obvious ways. Combat, as mentioned is simple, and so is hegemony and pretty much everything else. It's a game that is only complex because its big, its not complex and then big on top of that.
6. No votes, no trades, no filibustering: What supremely killed TI for me in many respects was the sheer amount of down time created by having an open trade system as well as so many little things to negotiate, over objectives, vote cards, whether you get to refresh trade goods. Left alone, the game can just degenerate into dozens of tiny, time consuming negotiation sessions. Ascendancy has diplomacy, but its more of the "this world is mine, back off" and "Bobs running away with this, alliance to smash him" instead. more time playing and less time listening to folks make small deals.
7. Less than half the play time: By the time you've played a full game of Ascendancy, explored a galaxy, fought massive space battles and researched game winning techs, Twilight imperium is somewhere on its 3rd or 4th turn.
And stay tuned for later in the week when I will put out a strategy primer/faction and expansion review video on Ascendancy.
The exploration does indeed look good / interesting, and arguably was a major part of star Trek, more so than battles.
I don't think I'd ever want to play Ascendancy at 6p. TI4 and Eclipse really hit well at that count, which is why I think they stand in their own class.
I also think #6 in the list is really a playgroup "problem".
But, TI4 is definitely not a game for everyone. It's too long, and it can end in a bad time too often.
#6 can be, but its also allowed within the rules. And the way the victory conditions work leads to a lot of small trades.
Also, if i want to play that sort of experience, Sidereal confluence is 10 times the trading game TI is. And its fast paced and just neato
I've never been the biggest trek fan but this game does look pretty good. Cheaper than Eclipse and easier to get to the table than TI4. Thanks for highlighting this one I'd never gave it a second glance before
I'm a big fan of Eclipse and Ascendency and these games have very little in common beyond the space theme. Both are fantastic in their own way and worth owning.
Ok, but can we talk about how GOOD the voices of the different factions were at the beginning??
Why thank you. Those are all me. I was quite pleased with how they turned out.
I'm literally in a game store trying to decide if I want it this is a great video concept!
Ha, perfect!
Glad to see this game getting it's due respect. It's one of my favorites. It's streamlined so well compared to many other 4X games and the negotiations are the best because of the familiarity with the factions, it allows you to rollplay them which is a blast. Can't wait for the expansion videos!
Yes! I couldn't get over how simple the core systems felt and yet still worked. Compared to other games in its niche. And being a massive trek fan (ds9 in particular), the factions resonate with me a lot
I love star trek especially TNG/DS9. I also like startegy games. I might have to look into this. Totally playing as either the Federation or Cardassians.
This is my fave 4x space game by a country mile for every reason you outlined above, super stoked you enioyed it as much as I do
I genuinely had no idea this game was from New Zealand, not surprised though.
Absolutely love this game and can't wait to get my hands on the two new expansions (The Dominion & The Breen)
Great review as always! Borg are super harsh if they get an early entrance on you.
I'll be reviewing those 2 expansions soon. And yeah, gale force 9 are based up in Auckland.
Concentrated, intelligent, organised, interesting and helpful. Thanks
A Top 10 Game for me, it is sooo good, love it! Surprised you have voice actors in this video 🤯
Hahaha, no voice actors in the video mate. Just me talking as always.
All of your pros are spot on. Like you said the game comes alive at 4+ players, but also adds downtime which can be a big deal. Also, fairly often you’ll see a couple turns ahead who’s going to win and playing out those last turns might not be as fun. Overall though I rate it 8/10 myself. 👍🙂
All 4x games have down time issues, Ascendancy has the advantage of simultaneous turns early on though
@@3MBG Sure, but in many of those games you take a single action. Here you play complete turns, which could be a long wait in a 4-5 player game. Apart from the earliest turns where you could have simultaneous play like you mentioned (we try to build simultaneously throughout most of the game).
@Alexander Flink To me, that makes for less down time overall. Someone can have a plan for their whole turn and execute it. When its one action each time around, the board state has changed each time so people have to rethink. I think while it might seem worse, it actually results in less overall time spent waiting.
You churn out the best ST Ascendancy videos, hands down. I'm at Wellington. let's play! ;)
Ha, no plans for any games before christmas, also I tend to work on a basis of knowing folks pretty well before having them over. You play games with folks locally?
Is this the game where the Vulcan player has a rule that they're literally not allowed to lie? You mentioned that at one point on Twitter but I don't remember if it was this game
Yep, that's the one. I have a follow up video coming out in a few minutes that looks at them
I also recommend checking out some of the tweaks made in the fan rulebook, they are pretty good, especially the borg ones boardgamegeek.com/thread/2921105/unofficial-complete-rulebook-v30
The unofficial rulebook is awesome and very helpful for integrating the Borg into a game in a good way.
Also... There was a recent bgg STA forum post wherein one user suggested 4 house rules they use. These were 3 simple and 1 slightly more involved house rules for culture gains and node construction, advancement research, and weapons/shield upgrades/research.
We played a four hour/four player game Monday night using all of those house rules and I absolutely loved the change they brought to the game without unbalancing anything of note in our playthrough.
I highly recommend trying them.
@@jasono.6168 I'll go check those out. Im really impressed with the community behind the game from my recent foray into it. A lot of passionate folks doing good stuff to knock the rough edges off the game
Nice video... subscribed!
An amazing game!
Perhaps It's something they fixed in a rules update (or we were taught wrong) but I played this many years ago and had a bad experience. 3 of us tried to play the game normally, but one player built his star lanes away from other players and then connected them in a way that we could not connect to his systems. In effect he isolated himself and then proceeded to win the game. He never had to defend himself and there was nothing we could do to interfere
That sounds like the most dickish way to play the game. If anyone did that in a group i was in I would congratulate them on their win as soon as they did it, and then tell them to leave and not come back. It should be pretty hard to do as well, most systems have 3 connector spots. You really shouldn't have to house rule against that though, as its such an anti-fun tactic only a raging knob end would try it.
@@3MBG I think many systems have even 4 or 5 connectors. That might be more common in the expansions though, not sure. That said, it’s up to the players to try and catch someone pulling this stunt and quickly connect with them. It’s a 4X game, simply trodding along minding your own business until prepared isn’t an option, you often have to react fast to what your opponents are doing.
I think experienced players will know that, but someone could try that in a game with new players. And it would be a super dick move.
@@3MBG I think ”super dick move” is harsh considering that you might end up with lots of culture node spots through exploration while your neighbours are getting production and science. That’s just an invasion waiting to happen without many options for the defender. Being aware is key though, so pointing it out helps I suppose.
True. But i think that strategy at its core it antithetic to the idea of the game. I would personally add a house rule that if a homeworld forms a closed loop with no no rivals, that every world in that loop has 1 more connection only other players can use. yeah, thats going in my house rules set :)
I like hearing about star trek ascendancy but the price is outrageous 140 dollars at the game store can anyone recommend a cheaper 4X game'?
4x games tend towards being expensive, i suspect Ascendancy is cheaper than Twilight Imperium or Eclipse. But maybe not Arcs?
Where did you get your copy of this Jarrod? Keen as, but all the sites have such huge shipping costs. Any preferences for sites that wont cost an arm and a leg?
Would like to know too, hard ro find one decently priced
Its likely to come back into stock shortly, as they are doing a reprint. So availability might get better soon. I got mine direct from their head office in Auckland and i know the factory store there has a bunch of them.
@@3MBG chur thanks man
it was kinda trippy being up there at the factory store, so many copies of this, Dune, spartacus, firefly and all their other games on the shop wall. But no one elses games. Single brand stores are both cool and weird. Oh, and so many flames of war minis
@@3MBG will It have new artwork? Not a big fan of Real Life pictures pasted on board games
If anyone wants another good space 4x There's well .... space empires 4x lol