My wife and I were playing using the Cathedral expansion and the expansion with the castles where you can place them on two-tile cities to double a nearby score. So, I decided to try and work to build a reasonably large city, and build it in such a way that I can put in a cathedral (thus tripling the score). Concurrently, I set up three sliver cities (I call them end caps), planning to castle them just before finishing the main city. These are spread around the circumference of my main city to keep them from being “killed” in one play, with the hope of getting just one of them to double my city score. Halfway through, I need just an end cap to finish my main city. I draw an end cap, and castle a small city. My wife… draws a road with a garden, and kills my castle with her abbot. Next pull… I draw another end cap (amazing!). I castle another small city. My wife… next draws an abbey, and kills that castle (even more amazing!). My next draw… another end cap! Cool… I’m going to pull this off. My wife pulls a road that doesn’t hurt me. I just need an end cap to complete my city, and 1/3 of all the tiles are end caps! My next draw… a road. No help there. My wife’s next draw… another road with a garden. She kills my third castle. And then my draw… the end cap I needed. I complete my city, but ALL three of my castles were killed in just four rounds. This happened not in one game, but two games back-to-back with the same strategy.

And this is how “luck of the draw” kills deeper strategies.

So my advice…. just play the light strategies highlighted above. You’ll do fine with less frustration (though they can really PO your opponent… such as stealing their cities). Deeper strategic moves will only lead to failure and frustration. In all of my games (literally hundreds of rounds), I succeeded only ONCE in pulling off a deep strategic maneuver. This is why, ultimately, I prefer military-oriented operational simulation board games, and not the simpler ones like Carcassonne. Nevertheless, I will continue to play with my wife or others for a quick round of relaxation or entertainment…. I just won’t pursue deep strategic maneuvers.

Hey there Caleb! That’s a great question. The caroms/disks are solid but not what I would consider heavy. I was initially concerned about the weight–hoping they would be heavier–but the caroms ended up being perfect given the weight of the blocks that need to be knocked over. They give a very satisfying crunch when they knock pieces down. Please note that I reviewed a prototype; the weight and look of the disks may change between now and the final production copy.

Thank you for the kind word! No title has come close to knocking Everdell from the top of my list. No one ever has to twist my arm to pen a few words. Happy gaming!

Would you say it is worth the cost of the upgrade?

I think many players will discover that there is room in their collections for both titles, as each one does a few things very well while also retaining some weaknesses. One could reasonably argue that TI4 wasn’t a true 4X game (lacking a formal exploration mechanic) until the release of the marvelous Prophecy of Kings expansion which revised the prior Distant Suns “module” from an earlier TI3 expansion. TI4 tends to be memorable for its player participation, negotiations, strategy card structure and the fact that the Agenda phase has the potential to introduce new rules which can radically shift the fortunes of various participants. TI4 rewards a focus on scoring objectives, and those players who approach it as “space Risk” are not likely to win (although I’m confident that they will still have a good time). And, of course, it’s long. Very long. Long enough to require lunch preparation, several trips to the restroom and perhaps an opportunity to have a bank CD mature.

Eclipse 2nd Dawn tends to be more of an economy game, as players must be disciplined in balancing their resource collection with action expenditures lest they bankrupt themselves (which in my experience is the most frequent cause for player self-elimination). Whereas TI4 has a pre-defined tech tree, Eclipse offers a significantly more granular experience with players fine-tuning their ship blueprints to optimize speed, strength and/or resilience in combat as well as a multitude of of infrastructure advances. Unfortunately, combat can be disproportionately influenced by RNG outcomes despite having a “solid combat ship”, and there’s something less than pleasant about being repeatedly attacked by swarms of relatively cheap missile-laden interceptors that stymie your exploration progress. There’s very little diplomacy in Eclipse (save for the Ambassadors if one elects to include them in higher-player count games) and the VP system is weakened by the RNG effect of pulling-chits-from-the-bag despite an uncontested battle victory (this mechanic also promotes early aggression to try maximize your statistical chances of getting the rarer 3 and 4 point VP tokens).

Despite its flaws, Eclipse 2nd dawn is the more approachable format for players that fills that particular space epic itch without having your hair turn gray during a game. The production quality is outstanding, and the Game Trayz organizers are the Holy Grail for players who appreciate a functional and aesthetically pleasing insert- which is something that Twilight Imperium, over its various incarnations over 25 years, has yet to do for the convenience of its dedicated player base.

Fantastic review, Sir. 🖖

What a great memory, thanks for sharing!