Empires of the Void game review

 I recently received a parcel. I wanted to buy "Neuroshima Hex!" for a long time, and it finally happened. But now it's not about this masterpiece of Polish play building. And about the fact that the same person also sold Empires of the Void, which I seem to have heard something about once. I thought about the purchase, decided to read... and found nothing. Almost. Next, BGG and the game site were studied, which turned out to be richer in information. As a result, the game has already been on the table twice, acquired a bunch of printed components and managed to like it, although it did not overshadow Eclipse. But about everything in order. I will admit right away that I played only Eclipse among 4X-cosmostrategies, which I will compare with it in the course of the story.

 So what is Empires of the Void? 4X? So! However, the main reference of the author of the game, in my opinion, is an attempt to speed up the gameplay as much as possible by adding his own "spices" to the classic recipe.

 Let's start with something simple - there is practically no space exploration as such. The galaxy consists of 7 tiles, which are laid out openly right from the start of the game. At the same time, the central tile is always the same, the others are spread around randomly. There are only 7 tiles in the box, i.e. they participate in every game, except for the option for 2 players. At the same time, they are large and bilateral. The meaning of the latter escapes me, as both sides are completely identical. The 3 fattest planets are located in the central part of space, and 2 in the rest.

 Actually, the planets and options for interacting with them are the main feature of the game. Unlike "Eclipse", all the planets here are unique and have their own completely intelligent and different inhabitants. In addition, they are pathologically peaceful - they will not respond with fire even to repeated attempts to seize by force, they will easily obey after the first hit. They will give resources, but they will not help, having gone to the edge of their Oikumena offended. Neither influence in the galactic council, nor secret knowledge.

 Next moment. The turn here is divided into a pre-round, in which all players choose one technology to study and build ships at the same time, and the turns of players that go sequentially clockwise. There is an advanced version with a variable order of movement.

 A few words about ships and technology. There are 14 (fourteen!) types of ships: 5 available to each player (but mostly requiring the appropriate technology), 5 aliens that can be accessed by allies, and 4 more unique to certain races. Schemes of ships, like in "Eclipse", are not here. They differ in range, accuracy and initiative, most have special properties, some can be improved with technology.

 The battles here are very similar to those in Nexus Ops: all ships fire in order of initiative once, all have one hit and one shot (with rare exceptions). Can there be more attacks in one turn?

 Technologies are fully available from the start of the game. Some require only payment in money, some require access to one of 5 resources (infinite), others require prior learning of any technology. However, there are not many chains here.

 When everyone has learned the technology and built a fleet, the first player's turn begins. He can perform 3 primary actions and one secondary action of his choice. The choice is not very large, but quite sufficient: movement, attack, production (mine), culture and diplomacy. Movement initially allows you to move one ship, technology makes this process more massive and efficient. The attack is what it is. Unlike Eclipse, battles take place immediately after the announcement in a certain place, but not until victory, but only one round. However, if necessary, you can always repeat. Mining is just +2 credits, you can do it once per turn. Culture - taking the appropriate cards into the hand. Diplomacy - their use in order to acquire an ally. The more correct cards, the easier it will be to succeed. 3 cubes will determine the result.

 After the main ones, you can perform one additional action. This opportunity appeared with the release of a free PnP add-on from the game developer. Moreover, he positions it rather as a patch, recommending to play even your first game taking into account all the changes.

 Secondary actions are not much more complicated: attack, a slightly modified movement, the ability to increase the income from one of the planets, buy a one-time "+" to military and diplomatic rolls for subsequent rounds, and the ability to learn another technology even if you do not have the corresponding resource, but there is a place to steal it.

 That's how the game goes. A random event is read before the start of the round. Points are counted every 3 turns. After the 9th round, the game ends with a final count (we have already seen this somewhere). Points are awarded for controlled planets, technology and friendship with the aborigines. And three times per batch. This means that you have to capture as many planets as possible by a certain point, even if you lose some of them in the next round. As a result, we have a wave-like increase in confrontation and a decrease in the role of a single mistake at one of the stages.

 Now about the first impressions. The first game on the 4th blew everyone's brains. The rules are not that complicated, but there is far from one version. The Key to the Universe expansions are rewritten and expanded rules of the base game. Among them, the number of components changes, the technology tree and the form of its presentation change (separate cards for each - one self-print page on which you need to mark the learned), new actions, goals, races, criteria for obtaining victory points, etc. are added. Changes are mostly small, which are always noticeable, but have a significant impact on the process as a result. In short, all this must be thought through.

 In addition, when you receive a letter with almost 3 dozen technologies, most of which can be learned almost immediately, the eyes frankly go wide. I see the potential of the fastest 4X strategy in the game. But not in the first batch. And, most likely, not in the second.

 By the way, the next game for two was much faster and more meaningful. Ships scurried back and forth, the leader changed with each scoring, planets passed from hand to hand. Different starting races entailed a specific play style. In short, it was fun.

PROS OF THE GAME

• small batch time (potentially);
• a large number of starting races, types of ships, aborigines with their specials. properties;
• the possibility of choosing: befriend/capture/release (if captured by the opponent).

CONS OF THE GAME

• the feeling that the game is still in the testing phase, hopefully the final one;
• the feeling that the last player in the last move has an advantage - he does not defend his worlds and throws the entire fleet into an attack on foreign ones, while others must either leave part of the ships on their home planets, or completely go on the defensive; it is not particularly difficult to fly to the neighbor's planets here, there is always someone nearby; there are several options for determining the turn order, but the basic one is clockwise with/without eliminating the first player each round.

AMBIGUOUS MOMENTS

• controversial cartoon art: some people think it's genius, others it hurts the eye;
• a large number of interpretations of the rules gives rise to a desire for experiments and home rules, the last game was played with a fanatic tree of technologies - I liked it; there is no clarity, but there is room for creativity.