Eclipse - keeper?

I have a reasonably limited games library and intend to keep it that way.
I recently received eclipse. I would like to play it and I might well enjoy it. That said, while my other half has agreed to play it once, I'm fairly confident she will hate it. Following this, I suspect I would be lucky to have an annual game with anyone. I could send it back and repplace with something friendlier.
1) what should I do?
2) anyone who owns the game wish to play this Tues 20th?

Jamie is obsessed with this game... speak to him... I personally prefer Twilight Imperium. Just feels there are more options and it is a bit more of an Epic.

I wouldn't think there's any need to own a copy of the game as I'm sure Jamie will play it with you any time you want to...

It's a keeper alright Sam!

Quite a few people like it (not just me), including Scott, Dave W, John, Sam, and others at the club. It can be fairly lengthy though; I played a two player game of Eclipse at the club a couple of weeks back (with Dale), and I think we were going from 7 till 9.45. That's very quick for Eclipse! Turns out, we were playing it slightly wrongly up to turn 6, which made it go quickly...

I'm signed up to play Archipelago next Tuesday (20th), but happy to give you a game any other Tuesday; it's worth starting a little early though, say 6.30; and capping the number of players to 4 (3 would be quicker, 2 would be quicker still).

It really is a super awesome game though.

Eclipse is a great game. Don't be put off by the length of it, me and my gf have it down to about an hour (not including set up/take down) for a 2p game (we've played it a lot though, and we make our decisions during each others turns so we don't hum and har when it's our go). I'm not going to lie and say it's her favourite game (she prefers co-operative games), but she does enjoy it (moreso when she wins). I find the trick is to not analyse every little decision as if it's life or death.

Having said that, if you get a 4-6 player game going and everyone at the table is heavily invested it can quite easily take all day. Then just as you think the game is coming to a close Jamie will stab you in the back and make the final round last 2 hours on its own. And then it ends in a tied game anyway so you double check the scoring, and you lose out because the other guy managed to mine more rocks than you did. Before you know it, you're on the last bus home from some random part of south east sheffield filled with drunk 30 year old women out for a good time. Leading you to question the choices that landed you in that situation. All you wanted to do was play a little bit of 4X on a casual Saturday afternoon, how did it come to this?

TL;DR - don't get into an alliance with Jamie, and don't let him get missiles.

JohnH wrote:
Having said that, if you get a 4-6 player game going and everyone at the table is heavily invested it can quite easily take all day. Then just as you think the game is coming to a close Jamie will stab you in the back and make the final round last 2 hours on its own. And then it ends in a tied game anyway so you double check the scoring, and you lose out because the other guy managed to mine more rocks than you did. Before you know it, you're on the last bus home from some random part of south east sheffield filled with drunk 30 year old women out for a good time. Leading you to question the choices that landed you in that situation. All you wanted to do was play a little bit of 4X on a casual Saturday afternoon, how did it come to this?

TL;DR - don't get into an alliance with Jamie, and don't let him get missiles.

This is my favourite post of 2015.

Sorry John! I slipped and accidentally moved my ships to the wrong hexes. Before I knew it, I'd inadvertently (the game forced me) broke our rock-solid alliance. Hope we're still friends.

I just wish I'd taken 1 more hex from you at the end and snatched it. It's the regret that really hurts me

JohnH wrote:Having said that, if you get a 4-6 player game going and everyone at the table is heavily invested it can quite easily take all day. Then just as you think the game is coming to a close Jamie will stab you in the back and make the final round last 2 hours on its own. And then it ends in a tied game anyway so you double check the scoring, and you lose out because the other guy managed to mine more rocks than you did. Before you know it, you're on the last bus home from some random part of south east sheffield filled with drunk 30 year old women out for a good time. Leading you to question the choices that landed you in that situation. All you wanted to do was play a little bit of 4X on a casual Saturday afternoon, how did it come to this?

TL;DR - don't get into an alliance with Jamie, and don't let him get missiles.

Brilliant summary, I'll try an organise another sometime soon(ish) see if we can get another saturday game on... earlier start and a decent intermission I think...

If need be, next time, I can collect and drop people back off in town.

Eclipse really shouldn't be taking all day to play! It's supposed to be a relatively quick 4X game, it doesn't have quite the depth or interaction as I'm lead to believe TI3 does and the game should move along at a decent pace. We (Dave, Kes and I) used to play fairly regularly and it would take about 3 hours.

I love the game and I'd be happy to play again soon. It's another one I wish I played more regularly but, as with all games I say that about, shiny new games seem to get my interest from.week to week. Eclipse is definitely a game that benefits from repeat plays, afterthought and thinking ahead about strategy.

Jamie - I still break out in a cold sweat thinking about the game I had to abandon halfway through....after 4 hours.

Oh and absolutely, positively DO NOT let Jamie get Plasma Missiles.

Always happy to play more Eclipse with you Karl. If you've not played with the expansion (rise of the ancients) yet, its well worth a whirl...

Plasma missiles didn't happen for me in the game tonight! All I could cobble together, was weedy Ion missiles. Got my behind handed to me by Sam and Sam! Well played chaps!!

Jamie wrote:Always happy to play more Eclipse with you Karl. If you've not played with the expansion (rise of the ancients) yet, its well worth a whirl...

Plasma missiles didn't happen for me in the game tonight! All I could cobble together, was weedy Ion missiles. Got my behind handed to me by Sam and Sam! Well played chaps!!

Well I just let you two duel it out while I thoughtfully dealt with he ancients. I'm an altruist, me.

As an update to people , my copy is now unwrapped. I played a 2nd game on Sunday. I won in an alliance, though it did help that my partner left towards the end and I played him out, avoiding any risk of backstabbing!

Congrats on your 2 Eclipse victories Sam!

Yeah, plasma missiles are just the ticket for dominating the galaxy! As you probably found out, they're a tad over-powered* with the just base game, but the first Eclipse expansion balances the game out very nicely with some anti-plasma-missile techs (Ion Missiles, Anti-Matter Splitter, etc etc).

Anyhow, glad you liked the game! Great to get more new players in to Eclipse; next time we play though - gloves are off!    


* There are some defences against plasma missiles when just playing the base game, e.g:
- pinning PM dreadnoughts with sacrificial ships.
- cooperating against / ganging up on the player with plasma missile.
- star-bases with lots of shields and hull points.
- getting plasma missiles yourself, and having better initiative.