Winter 4X - Exodus - Saturday Jan 21st @ S6

With the total lack of gaming opportunities recently I was worried people might be getting withdrawal, so it's time to suggest Exodus: Proxima Centauri + Edge of Extinction.

It's always cold in space.

This is the revised 2nd edition with the expansion including variable starting player powers. We can play with 4-6. Timewise, the game should be faster than Eclipse, but with the new expansion and undoubtedly a new player or two, I think it'd be best as a standalone session, either a Sat or Sun. I'd expect it to take half as long as TI3 - so 5 hours. I actually have potential time either day next weekend, but expect most people will need more fair warning that.

The average rating for the expansion on the Geek is 8.28. The rating for the base game, 7.28, while very good is also an interesting case of boardgame injustice. For some reason, some 2nd editions get a new page and rating on Bgg while other don't. This one didn't, so the score is brought down by the shoddy component quality of the original version. This version fixes that. And the expansion's so good that Tom Vasel smashed the box with his gavel in excitement.

Feel free to suggest dates/times. I can happily host at mine and provide some snacks. Though I shan't compete with PaulyG!

1) Sam S
2) Tom S
3) Sam V
4) Meurig
5) IanM
6) Scott

I'm interested in playing this again with the nicer components! But will depend quite a bit on when you do it as my availability isn't looking great over the next few weeks (I definitely can't do next weekend). So don't let me steal a spot from someone who can actually turn up. Would the Sunday session on the 4th December be a possibility?

I'd be up for this too

paulyg wrote:I'm interested in playing this again with the nicer components! But will depend quite a bit on when you do it as my availability isn't looking great over the next few weeks (I definitely can't do next weekend). So don't let me steal a spot from someone who can actually turn up. Would the Sunday session on the 4th December be a possibility?

4th Dec works with me.

Yep 4th would work for me

Had a great 4 player game at the Sunday session yesterday. 5.5 hous play time, which isn't bad with a new player and 3 of us who'd only played the 1st edition base game once.

The new components generally worked really well. The player boards are great and the player aids for the races (expansion) are really useful too - though  a bit more table space would have been nice on that front. The ships come with numbered tokens to mark which is which and corresponding places on the player board - but the tokens are still annoying, and it would be better to upgrade here - perhaps with numbered stands, which the ships do have holes for. The dice as resource markers are much better too. Different coloured dice for the resources would also be a nice upgrade - though not quite as necessary.
There were some interesting comparisons to Eclipse made - I actually think the base components here are better than Eclipse. Playing Eclipse with ridiculous piles of components falling everywhere and a grid of resource cubes sliding all over the place can be a real pain. The advantage for Eclipse is that there are so many fan-made solutions to it's problems.
Another Eclipse comparison is in the gameplay - base Eclipse is basically broken, I wouldn't play it without house rules for rockets. Base Exodus doesn't have any such problems now.

That said, and thinking about gameplay, I don't plan on playing base Exodus again, because the expansion is so bloody good. Variable player powers are the main part of it, and with new action cards, the addition of combat cards, extra components, and new laws, it all makes a big difference. I think the powers have been designed in an interesting way to highlight different elements of the game. The council phase was very important for my player power, which made the game feel more like TI3 than Eclipse for me. Especially when Paul copied one of my techs!

Also, Paul deserves the award for the least 4X playing of a 4X game ever. He made turtles look bold and adventurous. Each race has it's own route to victory points now, and Paul maximised his tech to take a very peaceful 2nd place.

Definitely going to be up for organising another game before too long. I think next time at mine, with more space, better lighting and the game already set up in advance to save time. And did I mention ship stands?!

Any thoughts from others?

60 coloured dice and 90 ship stands all on their way. Just need to work out how to number the stands. Label printer?

I pretty much agree with you, Sam. The second edition certainly elevated the component quality significantly and has improved almost all of the most fiddly bits of the game. I haven't played Eclipse outside of the app, but that feels more like a Euro game themed as a 4X. EPC feels like a 'proper' 4X game.

I'm certainly interested in playing this again and, like you, would now only play with the expansion as the player powers add so much! Almost everything in the expansion is great. Even though the combat cards didn't typically alter the outcomes of battles enormously, I think that may have been because most of the battles were fairly one-sided to begin with. They certainly added a bit of spice and I particularly liked them for the Resistance ships as it made those encounters just a little more dangerous.

It feels like a well-rounded game. There's the politics, a huge chunk of technology to research (I nearly managed it all!), resources, trading, ship upgrades and combat. I like that battles are typically rewarded as there's a bit more action in the game.

I think there are three niggles, none of which are significant:
1) The ship tokens to tell which ship is which (for damage tracking, etc.) are a bit of a pain. As you said, though, some stands and numbering would sort this.
2) I really like the idea of the hidden movement (better for bluffing / treachery) but the system for implementing it is just too fiddly (as acknowledged in the rules). Would love to try the game with, say, a pad of paper for people to note orders. As everyone could then move simultaneously I don't think it would take any longer than the reverse player order turn by turn that we did.
3) The open technology stack (you can research anything), in particular, adds in the possibility for some serious AP and calculations. I think this is just solved by playing the game more

I'd also be interested in checking out if anyone has house-ruled players trading with each other. One thing that seemed slightly lacking yesterday was the ability for people to negotiate / make threats and deals. I guess you can do this over territory, and use the WMDs, but would be nice to have the ability to pay people off etc. I don't think it would be a huge deal to implement that ability as part of the trade action or something.

Anyway, count me in for next play (and I'll maybe try 2 or even 3 of the 4 Xs next time).

psychomansam wrote:60 coloured dice and 90 ship stands all on their way. Just need to work out how to number the stands. Label printer?

Yeah, or craft shop for something like https://www.amazon.co.uk/Numbers-Peeloff-Stickers-Cardmaking-Crafting/dp/B00EV5HOBI/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1480947631&sr=8-6&keywords=number+stickers+1-10

I've got a labelmaker (one of the Dymo ones) if you want to borrow it?

psychomansam wrote:
Also, Paul deserves the award for the least 4X playing of a 4X game ever. He made turtles look bold and adventurous. Each race has it's own route to victory points now, and Paul maximised his tech to take a very peaceful 2nd place.

What's interesting is that my original plan was to do what I did and then make an unexpected rush assault in the final round (with super upgraded ships) to snag a bunch of victory points for battles and space. I didn't pace things quite right (should have invested in economy upgrades earlier), and we played one round fewer, so I wasn't in a position to do that. But it's definitely possible with the tech race, and in fact one of the racial tech makes ship building cheaper so making a fleet would actually be fairly straightforward. You could even play super aggressively and I don't think you'd be at a disadvantage. In fact, you could play like the Nekro virus in TI3 and just make use of the two racial techs that let you copy tech when you do space battles or share a planet rather than bothering to research the expensive stuff. The difficulty is getting consistency because of the lack of control over actions available, but that could be overcome by bidding on the turn order and choosing the bonus action. I'd be interested to play them again (and to play the other races)!

paulyg wrote:

psychomansam wrote:
Also, Paul deserves the award for the least 4X playing of a 4X game ever. He made turtles look bold and adventurous. Each race has it's own route to victory points now, and Paul maximised his tech to take a very peaceful 2nd place.

What's interesting is that my original plan was to do what I did and then make an unexpected rush assault in the final round (with super upgraded ships) to snag a bunch of victory points for battles and space. I didn't pace things quite right (should have invested in economy upgrades earlier), and we played one round fewer, so I wasn't in a position to do that. But it's definitely possible with the tech race, and in fact one of the racial tech makes ship building cheaper so making a fleet would actually be fairly straightforward. You could even play super aggressively and I don't think you'd be at a disadvantage. In fact, you could play like the Nekro virus in TI3 and just make use of the two racial techs that let you copy tech when you do space battles or share a planet rather than bothering to research the expensive stuff. The difficulty is getting consistency because of the lack of control over actions available, but that could be overcome by bidding on the turn order and choosing the bonus action. I'd be interested to play them again (and to play the other races)!

It's funny you say that - I'd also been thinking I'd like to play mine again, differently - while also wanting to try other races. My research action card gave me a (5cp) compensation for paying to be first player, so I focussed on that a lot, which coupled with my racial re-roll tech, let me move last so I could pick battles - and win them. I used some of my political tech towards the end, which was fun and also gave me 9 vp, but if I researched that earlier, I could do loads with it (choosing an extra law to enact each round) and get more vp from it. The other thing I didn't touch was the cloning tech allowing me to produce more population. It would have been useful and I felt a bit like I just managed to get away with spreading my population so thin.

I'd quite like to try the trading race...

Sat 21st at mine? I can provide snacks and some of the world's finest teas.

With colour coded resource dice and numbered ship stands :-D

psychomansam wrote:Sat 21st at mine? I can provide snacks and some of the world's finest teas.

With colour coded resource dice and numbered ship stands :-D

Sorry, I've got relatives visiting that weekend so can't join you.

Which reminds me...

I'm up for it if you've got a space when you next play, Sam. I'm free on the 21st.

Sam wrote:I'm up for it if you've got a space when you next play, Sam. I'm free on the 21st.

Yes, of course.

psychomansam wrote:Sat 21st at mine? I can provide snacks and some of the world's finest teas.

With colour coded resource dice and numbered ship stands :-D

Any more takers for this?

(Meurig added)

What time are you planning to start? / hope to finish?

Ianm wrote:What time are you planning to start? / hope to finish?

I should probably say we'll likely start early afternoon and finish around dinner time. It really depends on player numbers, new players, AP, and how much we feel like rushing. I'll set it up in advance I expect, so it could be done in 3-3.5 hours as it stands, but no promises*.



*
But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

(from 'To a Mouse', by Robert Burns)

Hi Sam
If there is space for me I would be up for it.
Never played it so complete newbee.
Can you recommend any good video guides?
Cheers

Ianm wrote:Hi Sam
If there is space for me I would be up for it.
Never played it so complete newbee.
Can you recommend any good video guides?
Cheers

Hi Ian,
Very welcome to join the madness. I'd recommend starting with the dice tower reviews for both the base game and expansion.

There are then various videos available on boardgamegeek as well as written rules.

Fully booked - and 6 is a good number for a hex based game!

I'm going to suggest arrival from 12.30 for a 1pm start.

I'll have lots of tea, a bit of pop and the odd beer in the house. I'll also provide some crisps / biscuits etc. Feel free to bring anything you want of your own, but you're not at all obliged to bring anything.

Do watch a video or two. If you're keen, you can even read through rules or player aids from Bgg. I'll start the afternoon with a rules review - but I'm not claiming I'll be giving a foolproof runthrough of everything, so get your head around the basics in advance.

Videos:

1) https://boardgamegeek.com/video/42208/exodus-proxima-centauri/miami-dice-137-exodus-proxima-centauri-revised-edi
2) https://boardgamegeek.com/video/97872/exodus-edge-extinction/dice-tower-reviews-exodus-edge-extinction
3) https://boardgamegeek.com/video/61201/exodus-edge-extinction/undeadviking-videos-exodus-edge-extinction-review

Condensed Rules:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/135841/exodus-rules-merger-base-game-and-expansion

Finally got around to looking into this games. Looks pretty rad. I'm looking forward to playing it

I'd love to come and record this to put on the club Youtube account but I'm busy on Saturday.

If anyone wants to film any of it then send me the videos I can edit them together. Otherwise I will try and make myself free for the next one!

Have fun guys

I've read through the rules, and I'm looking forward to it. However, I'm going to need some hint about Sam's address, or I doubt I'll make it on time.