Exodus: Proxima Centauri

EvEvanstar5.9

(Revised edition) The game is often described as a cross between Eclipse and Twi Imp. From Eclipse, it gets the upgradable space ships mechanic. From Twi Imp it gets a system of playing action cards where you use the primary, and then any player can pay cubes to use any of the secondaries available. The tech tree is imported in style from Clash of Cultures, although it again looks to Eclipse by making lower level technologies provide not a requirement but a discount for the higher level ones. The unique things about the game are that planets can be shared by multiple players, and endgame points for holding the planet go to most cubes on that planet, or shared in a tie. The movement rules are interesting, every hex has a number 1 to 6 on the edge. You take number tokens and log in the moves of each of your ships and simultaneously execute. I thought this was a really fun way to do movement, and bluff your opponents at the same time. I loved how your borders were somewhat fluid, and sometimes fleets would accidentally meet in space and have conflict. This mechanism was met with utter hate from my playgroup unfortunately, and was a major barrier to getting this game played. Unfortunately, the process of gathering and assigning the movement tokens is a bit complicated and fiddly. A better implementation of this system might have kept this game in my collection. I had heard this system got removed and replaced in one of the expansions, but by that point my group was categorically against trying this again. Combat is rolling dice, and if you get destroyed the ships are easily reconstructed, allowing for a decent comeback if you get blown to pieces. A flaw of the game might be that the game deeply rewards players for winning in combat. The most punchy player can become a runaway leader by virtue of lucky die rolls, or by picking on weaker fleets. All non-combat points are limited by what's printed on the board and remaining alien tokens. This is perhaps just the nature of the game. Cubes also have a strange component limitation. Players have a limited number of cubes despite that cubes are used for both charts and as people on planets. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :nostar: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :star: Multiple plays stay interesting :nostar: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::star::star::star::nostar: Raw enjoyment

BaBalleflassstar7.0

Has it all and wont overstay its welcome as long as you have a semi-aggressive group