Firstly be aware that when you open the rules for this game you should not be afraid of the 100 page rules PDF. Neither should you print the whole thing, for this onster file actually contains three versions of the rules. It has Basic, Standard and Advanced rules all in the one file.

The game itself is is all about building a space empire and developing planetary industrial and technological levels until you reach the Victory level.

The game board is built from hexes. Each player starts with a hex that contains thier home world and six hexes around that representing the space near the planet.

As the game progresses you will start investigating the empty spaces next to the hexes you have already on the table. You move a scout ship into the empty space and then draw a hex from the available pool. these hexes contain a number of different things.

It may be just empty space, another planet, a bunch of asteroids, a worm hole or even a special join hex.

The empty hexes are just wasted space. The extra planets you find are suitable for colonising and eventually building extra tech and industry levels. The asteroids and resources. The worm hole hexes come in matched pairs so if you discover the red one, and one of the other players finds the other red one, you can use the wormhole to jump your hips onto his red wormhole hex, allowing attacks. The special hexes, make you joins your set of hexes up to another players hexes, meaning you push your little set of hexes across the table to join up with your opponents hexes.

You can build ships of different types, which ones depend on the planets tech and industrial levels and the resources you have available. The transport ships are build then parked on an asteroid hex. This effectively sets up a resource for the planet giving it more build options.

There are a few levels of combat ships. Colony ships allow you to settle unsettled planets.

When your ships come across other players ships they fight. Bothe sides roll a number of dice, if you have bigger ships you get more dice. 6's are hits and the opponents remove that many chits from their fleet. Some ships have shield levels, each shield level counts as a chit for the purposes of combat. Thus if you have a ship with 2 shields the first two hits of damage the ship takes remove the shields, the third one would remove the ship itself. Combat continues as a series of rounds until one side is destroyed or retreats. A nice touch with retreating is that you have to leave 1 ship behind as a sacrificial covering force.

The turns include a number of phases one of which is building the industrial or industrial level on the planet. Another phase lets you build ships if you have the resource potential.

To so summerise, this is space a exploration and colonisation game with a good dose of military combat action to keep things interesting.

I have only described the basic rules. In the standard and advanced rules further levels of complexity get added including card play, racial differences, and detailed fleet combat.

The game is a free print and play product so if the theme appeals even a little bit I suggest you download the game and take a look to see if it really is your type of thing.

Well done!

I agree with the Résumé - go and print it! Bar none!

You truly appreciate it when (as stated) you are able to move those hexes without actually screwing your layout (as I often did with plain paper cuts while testing the Basic rules). When you follow author's instructions and glue a magnetic tape to the sides of the hexes, they will hold together and move as one (I have yet to build a set of mine to try this feature out).

I would correct slightly the Wormhole thing. As per the Rules the Null- wormholes are set aside in the beginning. True, when you discover a Wormhole hex with your Scout, you place that Prime- wormhole under it. But the other Null- pair of the Wormhole will be put by the dice roll. You first decide which player's region will hold it (dice roll) and then to the extent of which side of his Home World the Wormhole will be (1-6, marked on every Home World hex). And finally the Null- partner of your wormhole will be placed as the last hex in that line.

I never really liked the whole magnet solution since I found it difficult to get the polarities right. If the hexes are of thick enough stock, I think the segments you build before the join hexes come up should be easy to manage. Originally I punched my hexes using a hammer and a chisel and it was pretty fast to get them all done, however at the time the quality of my stock and the glue I had available really sucked. This is one game I plan on reconstructing in the future once I get my cutting robot functional and I can create some hexes out of heavy material, like masonite or thin plywood if I can find it.

I was very interested in the game, especially after hearing FNH's podcast on it. But the time for a game is estimated at 5 to 7 hours - that is a really LONG game. Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to find people willing to stay at one game for that long. Anyone else have this problem?

It's been a very long time since I last played and I only played two 2 player games, and they were pretty quick from what I can recall. They were the basic game I think. Then again, I kinda suck at these 4x development type of games: I got my butt handed to me pretty easily both times.

Have not finished my Demo game (another topic here in Sessions) because I only tested the game flow in there (and was Solo anyway).

But I would say try the Basic Game with a friend and you will see. You may be better off with a hex-printed sheet of paper to write the hexes in rather than cutting them all out when you just want to try it. Would be faster that way and in the end in the unfortunate case that you do not like it that much, you would not have invested so much time into actually preparing it.

I guess the Basic game will not be that long as you basically just upgrade your planets, produce Units, explore, settle new colonies, potentially join the map with an opponent and possibly fight. I would say two hours, three maximum (if you are learning the game).

Getting 50 Victory Points is not that hard, as you start already with 20 and for each new Industrial level you get 2. That is - raising your initial Colony to 6-7 gives you 10 (you are at 30) and some additional colonies can get you those remaining 20 (3 colonies growing up to Industrial level of 3-4).

OK - well maybe I'll give it a go...

Where do I find the link to download this game?

Thanks!

Get it from ... http://interformic.com/is.html

loveorchards,

did you already?