Despite our love for exploration and space we own none of the big ones. So which one is the one for us? I have seen reviews for both and feel unable to decide.
I didn’t include TI4 because from what I can tell it wants higher player counts than the other two. Quinns suggested in his review Eclipse plays well with two and Xia has a solo mode expansion which leads me to believe that it would also be fine with two. And for now two is it.
Is there another big space exploration game I haven’t got on my radar? (Leaving Earth is a different genre I think and also we have that)
Yeah, Eclipse is more in the TI-ish sort of category - lots of elegant Euro mechanisms but basically explore with your fleet and win the war, while Xia is about wandering around with your one rattletrap starship doing trading and bounty hunting and so on. Xia has a fair bit of randomness (such as rolling to see how far you move this turn). I haven’t actually played Xia though I’d like to; Eclipse is not the sort of game I tend to enjoy, though given other things you have enjoyed I suspect you might like it rather a lot.
I’m in the market to find a reasonably priced copy of Eclipse 2nd Dawn. I already own Xia and Firefly. I have no interest in TI4, maybe I should? But I feel as though whatever slot TI4 would occupy in my collection, Eclipse would do a better job of it.
I think Eclipse promises to bring more “exterminate” to the table than Xia, but less “explore” and certainly less “sandboX” (I made a new X, so now we have to talk about 5X games)
I have no direct comparison to make but I do want to echo the sandboX emphasis in Xia. At the end of the day it’s a grand pick-up and deliver game, and a really, really dicey one. I bloody love it, but it won’t sit well with certain sensibilities.
My experience of Eclipse is that it’s amazing on first play, because the Euro mechanics Roger describes are really lovely and the ship upgrade possibilities are exciting. But then (for me) it wears off quite fast, and I’m not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. Maybe because it turns out that certain ship upgrades are just better than others.
In some ways it’s like Scythe, which is also a Euro with build-engine-plus-fighting, but I found that Scythe lasted longer in want-to-play terms.
A non-starter in what way? Is it hampering the competitive side? Are there specific games you have in mind? Just curious because I don’t have many games I would place in the exploration genre—hence this question—and the only competitive one would be Leaving Earth which is very much it’s own thing.
Edit Oath has some exploration but I haven’t explored the game enough to have much of a say about the nuance of the mechanism within the game.
Either the exploration makes a real difference or it doesn’t, and it’s very hard to make a real difference while also not randomising the winner. Fine for casual games, not so great for 4x marathons.
This is only a half-baked thought I came up with on the spur of the moment. It seems apparent that deck digging is not that distinct from tile-laying, so maybe the problem for competition is merely one of familiarity - it’s much easier to become familiar with a deck of distinct cards than it is a stack/pile of visually similar un-named tiles.
I think Oath has an out or two: winning may not be your only goal, and the sites and deck cycle only slowly between games, making familiarity possible. The total number of sites and the impact they have is also quite limited, while also being memorably distinct.
Eclipse, to bring this back on track, has a bunch of very different tiles that shape the game quite a lot while also not being memorably distinct, so it’s hard to get a handle on the distribution and odds involved.
Or maybe it’s not about familiarity at all - just action economy. In Eclipse, every action is important, and “wasting” one on a bad explore feels bad.
No actually, not off topic. After I recently made a virtual shelf for my collection I realized how few exploration games we have and exploring is one of my partner‘s favorite things in all kinds of games. So maybe I should have chosen a different title.
Re: Inis. Thank you for reminding me that this indeed counts into the genre. I have yet to play more than a two player though thanks to 2020+
Ah, I can see how that would be frustrating in a game where every action counts.
I agree about Oath. There are a very limited number of locations to explore each game. I have had some not-so-useful draws from the world deck but it feels from my solo impressions as if this is not an issue. Also, I need to play more Oath.
And isn’t that a cool thing?
I think so, too. When Quinns held up that tray with technologies I almost wanted to drag it out of the screen
However, there is also my Mitspieler (co-player is not a word is it?) to consider. And I feel like he would much more enjoy Xia or Firefly (not available I checked again).
I’m told that the universe setup in TI4 does a fairly good job of allowing a reasonably balanced game while still having random elements – but I haven’t played it and I barely remember TI3.
Probably “regular gaming partner”.
Boardgameprices.co.uk lists several shops in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands that claim to have copies.
Not quite, because anyone you play a game with in that moment regular or not is your Mitspieler. I really like the word because “Mit” really translates to “with” and emphasizes the fact that we are playing together even in a competitive game. I have not found an adequate translation.
I actually see Eclipse as more exploration, or at least the way we play, where conflict with other players is minimal or a final pyrrhic action of the game. Beyond that you can explore your own little pocket of space, connected by the centre. But we mostly play as a family game where conflict is in general avoided. I know this is not the optimal way to play but we have fun anyway (all based on 1E - have no desire to spend £££ for 2E).
TI4 to me is much more about sneaking to the objectives (both community and secret) which increases the chances of annoying other players, but also makes it a less dramatic thing - it is often solely to get an objective, once you have that objective you may no longer have an interest in that area of space.
While we’re talking about exploring (sorry to derail slightly), 7th continent is probs the most exciting exploration game I’ve played. It has other flaws and issues but it really nails the excitement of exploration, for me at least.
