Space games

I'm looking for some recommendations or input on a few games here, maybe not technically wargames but they have chits at least. Sci-fi games in particular. I own Exodus:Proxima Centauri and am not a huge fan of the game, I'd like to see a little more actual production development I guess before we smash fleets together and some exploration or differences between the ships other than one gets to throw more dice because it bought an upgrade. TI3 I haven't played but know some who are fans so I don't see a need to buy that as its somewhat available to me. Eclipse I also haven't played but I'm not big on space games that don't involve destroying your neighbors or acting hostile by default.

So on my list are:

Space Empires 4x
Imperial Stars 2
Moonbase Alpha
Star Borders:Humanity or Aliens

Two player games go far with me and I really like Twilight Struggle, Hannibal CvR, and Sekigahara. SE looks perfect but I'm a little scared at the length, I have a hard time selling a game over 4 hours to my groups. The others are all two player and range from 30-90 minutes. Not a fan of short games either, anything under say 30 minutes and I'd rather just play one longer game in general. Came across Imperial Stars through one of the threads here and found the others after reading up on that one.

The great one to get is, of course, OOP.
Imperium (GDW) was my intro to space fighting, fighters, battleships, cruisers, ass kickers but it's a 2 player game.

My favorite is also OOP. Ascending Empires is great, but you have to accept the "flicking" mechanic.

Ascending Empires is probably the best overall, packs a lot of AT fun in to 90mins.

GDWs imperium has a better back story and is probably more immersive than most of the more modern hex and counter space games.

Star Borders Humanity is probably a better strategy game than Imperium but has a rather generic setting. Plays around 30mins per scenario and comes with 7 scenarios. I think the boxed edition is over priced though, in the UK this retails at £42 which is more than Ascending Empires or something like Wiz-War for some flimsy paper maps and one sheet of counters. I will post a review of star borders to this site later on today.

Twilight Imperium 2nd ed. I've not played 3rd but 2nd is a good game. It is essentially a distillation of ideas from the milton bradley gamemasters series in space with political, card playing and technologies systems thrown in. Takes around 4-5 hours to play in my experience but is a good straight up space slug fest with lots of politicking.

Space Empires 4x is really lame in my view. Its too symmetrical and boils down to get biggest economy and wait until other players fight first before mopping up. Theres little to no neauce to it at the strategic level. Secondly you have to keep the identities of your ships hidden which means keeping all the off board ship chits upside down and never knocking over stacks on the board. Its really fiddly and time consuming. It is however a pretty pure recreation of 4x pc games on a hex and counter board. Its length will depend entirely on how aggressive the players are. If you all sit around waiting for someone else to start attacking it will take an age (probably much more than 4 hours).

Space Empires was really designed to be a 2 player space block game. If you think about it that way it really works with lots of hidden info, ABC combat, rock paper scissor military technology. It does n't work as a 3+ player game for the reasons the Duke mentioned and other reasons. I'm optimistic the app will be good.

Ascending Empires is great fun. Does the same thing eclipse does in half the time with twice the fun.

Ti3 is my favorite game of all time but I don't recommend it to people unless they're will to accept a steep learning curve and long play time.

I'm also trying to decide what my next war in space game will be too. From what I've read, many of the objections to Space Empires: 4x are solved by its Space Empires: Close Encounters expansion. The expansion adds fleet markers and fleet boards so you don't have to deal with stacks of chits on the game board. The expansion also adds differing empire advantages to make each empire faction feel less asymmetrical. The expansion also adds more tech to make it possible to customize your ships; its cards and alien cards also appear to add much to this game and reduce the complaint that it feels asymmetrical. I've been trying to trade for a copy of the base game and the expansion for awhile--I haven't had any luck yet. But, I already own Eclipse so I wonder whether I even need another 4X space game?

Imperial Stars II is a really great game. I think they undersell the length, pretty sure my games have clocked in around 90 minutes. Still, even if the game does only take an hour I don't think that should detract from it. Every decision feels important, exploration always feels satisfying (something too many space games neglect), and the 4 different maps make the game feel completely different. One map might have you looking at navigating an asteroid field, wondering how you can get to your opponent or how to use the asteroids to better defend yourself. Another map might have you zipping around gravity wells, wondering how your opponent got to you so quickly. Super game, can't recommend it enough.

Stellar Conquest is probably the "original", and it's really dated but feels like "Space Empires 4" (PC game) to me a lot. It actually pre-dates Games Workshop's Imperium by a couple years IIRC. Cheap too, from my last check, years ago.

Now, if you want lighter fare, Tiny Epic Galaxies looks really fun. I almost backed it, then I realized I'm a brokedick.

But if you want to play ~tomorrow~ then check out Galaxy's Edge. It's a really quick, but pretty fun little 4x style game:
superflycircus.blogspot.com/2010/12/gala...tellar-conquest.html

Carpe Astra is a very slick little game too, and does what you seem to want, in a lightweight package.

I'll go to my fucking grave saying TI2 is FAR superior to TI3 in a great many ways, not the least of which is that there is far more conflict that doesn't involve ~talking~ about conflict at Senate hearings.

Got to go for now. Need to sleep.

Ah...can't believe I forgot this one:
DISASTER LOOMS! (with the 2 expansions, founder's pack and most ESPECIALLY the Corp's + Ceo's pack). The rules are really bad, but they revised them in PDF form and you can download them. Also, there's some misprints in the base game, and the Corps/CEO pack fixes them. Long and short is that it's a really different take on 4X, from the perspective of global disaster requiring exodus, and companies compete to get people off-planet. It's actually very, very good, provided you get the 2nd rules. It's also fucking cheap and plays 6 in about 2 hours if you're not lagging and AP'ing.

Now, bed.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I'll go to my fucking grave saying TI2 is FAR superior to TI3 in a great many ways, not the least of which is that there is far more conflict that doesn't involve ~talking~ about conflict at Senate hearings..

I gotta say when I play an "empire" building space game, the talk and threat of conflict is as important a piece of the overall game than the combat itself. The cold war aspects and balanced between show of force and actually committal to that force is a strong point of TI3 for me, not a weakness.

My question is how many of these types of games does one really need? If I have 5-8 players and want to play this sort of game do you folks really alternate between systems very much? Seems more you would play one many times and eventually move to the next; even in that case seems like you never need to own more than one.

Imperial Stars sounds great, but 2 player requirement seemingly makes it a different game than build up an empire style... just a preference I guess but the more competing Civs the better, as indirectly stated in the first statement.

There are times when I really enjoy the vast depth and replay value of Twilight Imperium 3. There are other times when I realize that it is basically just an extraordinarily complicated game of King of the Hill.

I ended up going with Space Empires 4x and its Close Encounters expansion. I'm also on board for the upcoming Replicators expansion too.

First thanks for the discussion on this, as I'm new to boardgames as of a little under a year and often miss older games. I'm probably going to also order space empires but really want to get one play in first. It does sound like a lot of the criticism is addressed by the first expansion, and while that makes a high price point there aren't many options for space war games seemingly.

Definitely ordering imperial stars 2 also before SE though. After reading over the rules for both games I've realized what I'm looking for is almost a classic RTS game in space, like the PC game Total Annihilation or the successor to it Supreme Commander. Something with both an economic side and different types of units and movement and attack strength. Or maybe I should just go back to 1999 and play those games online...