SpaceCorp discussion thread

Miniature Market is listing SpaceCorp as "New Arrival", for $52. I'm leaping to the conclusion that either means they have 20+ copies on a shelf, or they've been alerted that GMT is shipping them their order.

Noticed this thread was lying dormant, and wanted to resuscitate it, if only for a little bit.

Picked this up from my FLGS, started reading the rules last week. Just playing through my first solo session now.

Hm. I’ll start with a comparison to High Frontier. I remember, 3 or 4 years ago, zinging with excitement to get High Frontier to the table, getting it, and then struggling with it for a month or two. I downloaded alternate rulesets, played several aborted games solo until I was finally able to get about halfway through a game. I realized, at that point, that High Frontier was a much simpler game than it looked. Nonetheless it emphasized doing a lot of little chickenshit math operations to get there. Worse, it replicated a deadly attitude, native to the designer, that the spark of imagination and wonder that actually, proveably, motivates us to travel between planets and asteroids is for saps, and should be replaced by a logical desire to turn a profit by performing nonstop chickenshit operations on Mars, counting rocks and water units, instead of, say, as the manager of a Burger King here on Earth, counting equal numbers of burgers and napkin holders. I stuck with it for a while and then sold it at an actual profit, thus winning the game.

My sinking feeling about SpaceCorp is that I realized very quickly that 1) this is a blatantly simple game, replacing the multiplication tables in High Frontier with simple addition and subtraction, 2) that, nonetheless, it contains exactly as much chickenshit as HF (especially in the solo rules), and 3) finally, because I impulsively paid MSRP for it, I will never sell this off at a profit.

I’m not sure I’m going to be able to convince my partner to play this with me, but am trying to reserve judgement until I get a multiplayer game in.

Anyone having different impressions? Or similar ones?

I'm probably going to watch the Heavy Cardboard playthrough to get a sense of whether it appeals to me...

I played the Mariners scenario solo and it was . . . pretty ok. Didn't knock me out. Likely not the best way to assess the package, but I was expecting more complexity. Looks like a lighter title than I had anticipated. More Settlers than Terraforming Mars.

Had that Butterfield card thing going like it does in D-Day at Omaha Beach. No one else does it that way as best I can tell.

Update -- After sleeping on it, I think Battlestar Galactica Starship Battles and Talon 1000 are going to be first in line on game night. SpaceCorp has left a pretty "soul-less euro" impression on me. The thematic elements were non-existent and the gameplay, in spite of a 28 page rulebook, was trivially simple in the solo game. Here's hoping it's a little more interesting in multi-player.

Got a two player in last night, with several interruptions, just up until the end of the Planeteers phase. Significant improvement over the solo game I'd played and aborted that afternoon. I can see the game this wants to be, and I like it. Once you get going, the gameplay loop is tight and fast, and there are always one or two decisions to be made along the way.

There are some problems. There was a runaway leader in our game, with an unassailable position. She explored a lot, and happened to get great payouts. It seems like a nice thing to get profit planets, but the opportunities to exploit them are few and far between, such that they're a disappointment to reveal. One-time exploration payouts are just significantly better.

Exploration was okay, with occasional fun surprises, such as finding an Alien Artifact on Io. Again, not much of a payout with that one, so ultimately disappointing. Possibly this all resolves itself by the Starfarers section, but by then we had been playing for a few hours, and felt as if we had set up and played two games sequentially, rather than having played one game, and we didn't want to learn a whole new game by that time.

I can see the whole thing getting pretty samey after a couple of plays, There's just not that much variety there.

Still reserving final judgement, but I really wish I had waited on this one. It'll be selling cheap on the aftermarket soon enough, I bet.

I had a first complete play of this about 2 weeks ago. There wasn't much that I liked about it other than the progression of expanding the scope of the universe. The engine building is very mathy. There is no real interaction except the usual "hey you took the spot I was going to take next round". The milestone points or whatever they are called felt like the milestones in Food Chain Magnate but were less interesting. In FCM you get a special bonus, not necessarily VPs, for being the first to reach milestones. SpaceCorp you just get VPs. Randomization changes up your options based on the cards in the market and the tiles that are discovered. I would decline a second play. For such an interesting topic, space exploration & settlement, the game is completely dry and mechanical.

To be fair don't judge it based on the first board either, more rules come in and you can buy advancement cards or whatever the research upgrades are called on the second board. The first board should be very fast.

I'm starting to think I paid full price for a five pound dud.

First off, I've yet to get a multi-player game in, so this is based on a full solo play. I do generally hear that multi-player is way better than solo, so one of these days I'd like to assess that.

The progression through the game with very little carry-over between eras is interesting, and unlike anything I've ever played. It's basically a three game mini-campaign played in one sitting. And the eras do feel distinct, even if they are simply building rules upon the previous era. But judging the whole game based on just the Mariners era is probably a mistake. The solo game is random as fuck (opinion based on one play), and I'm not sure it has much legs. It's not a bad way to learn the rules, though, since the rules differences are relatively small.

I think I'll enjoy playing it multi-player once I get a chance, but I suspect ultimately this game will be forgettable. I do think the three eras, with board state wipe, kind of turn things on its head for what I expect out of game, and maybe experiencing that was worth the price of admission. Anyhow, need to get it to the table, but too many other things are in front of it.

I've started reading the comments now that I've played (wanted to hold off before I played) and it's apparent there's more to the game in the later parts, just from the questions being asked. I think I'll play multiple-player by myself next if need be, because I won't get a chance with my buddies soon. That should give me a better idea.

I may ask Tony Romo what I should do next.

Sagrilarus wrote: I may ask Tony Romo what I should do next.

The problem is that you'll get the answer about three seconds before you have to act on it.

(IMO Romo is the best football commentator our there today, by a wide margin)

Ok, so kind of out of left field here. I just read Throwers review of 1066 Tears to Too Many Mothers where he makes a passing mention of the cards, their appearance and their contextual information both within the rules and as flourishes to theme and setting. A look at those cards is really impressive, even if you're not a Medieval Warfare guy (which I am.)

The thing that completely kicked the legs out from under me in my one solo play of Spacecorp is that there is absolutely ZERO material that supports the setting or thematic elements of the game.





This may be the greatest game since sliced bread in competitive play and in later eras, but let's face it, those cards in the second photo have about as much flavor as Candyland cards.

So, this is probably irrational, but I'm going to sit down with this game looking at it as a chore that I have to get through, in order to determine if it's worth holding onto. This is coming from a guy that usually doesn't give a damn about components, but I think GMT really dropped the ball on the layout of this game. Here's hoping I enjoy it, but frankly, it appears to have about the same level of concept and complexity as Settlers, and the space setting ain't exactly thick on the water.

Anyone want to talk me into playing this?

I guess one thing I'd say about the cards, which aren't pretty, is that the functional information is easily accessible, which is important given that they must be read from both the offers and in others' tableaux.

I also wasn't that engaged with a quick spin around the solo game. I played one two-era (for lack of time) 3p, which was not bad.

jpat wrote: I also wasn't that engaged with a quick spin around the solo game. I played one two-era (for lack of time) 3p, which was not bad.

I just promised my game group that that's what I intend to do tonight, sit down to a multiplayer game even if I'm playing all three hands. I figured if I threw that out in the group email I'd be shamed into going after it this evening.

Brought this to my last game night along with The Expanse (with expansion)...we played The Expanse. Sorry, can't help you, curious how your multiplayer goes this week. I'm lacking enthusiasm to bring this game to the table, and that may just be the death of it for me.

Ok, so I got a second shot at this and played against my buddy Sam, the Mariners era two-player. I just set it up three-player fully intending to play all three myself and Sam came to my rescue.

Not bad at all. It's about on the complexity of Settlers or maybe Puerto Rico. The turns rolled by and with two of us the first era took about an hour and 45. But that was from a standing start, we both guessed we'd knock it out in 45 minutes the next time, and we'll play Era 2 as well afterwards.

The game does not really attempt to sell the theme, it's more of a coat of paint. Water-based, not oil. I think they could have done more and there's a guy looking to goad GMT into making a new run of cards for it that would expand the size of the artwork, and I'd love it if they could squeeze in some flavor text.