Board Gaming on the Final Frontier...
Star Trek: Ascendancy is a complex game in the world of Star Trek from Gale Force Nine (who make the Firefly, Spartacus, and Sons of Anarchy games, to name a few).
In Star Trek: Ascendancy, each player controls one of three factions--the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. Each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Federation is good at exploration and diplomacy. The Klingons are good at warfare and planetary invasion. The Romulans are somewhere in between being warriors and diplomats, and their Cloaking Device technology lets them fire the first shot in any space battles.
Your goal is to expand your faction by exploring other worlds and galactic phenomena (pulsars, etc.) to increase your position in the galaxy. For every system that joins your faction, either through colonization, invasion, or diplomacy, you gain the ability to produce more resources for your faction.
You start the game with one Ascendancy token, and you win when you have five Ascendancy tokens (if no one else currently has five Ascendancy tokens).
There are three resources in the game: Production, Research, and Culture. Production builds ships and nodes (nodes produce one of the three resources). Research lets you advance technologically in various ways. And Culture helps you convince other worlds to join your cause. Also, spending 5 Culture tokens gains you an Ascendancy token towards winning the game.
Game play is about exploration and expansion, resource allocation and management, and strategic deployment of military forces. Where the real "Star Trek" flavor comes in is when you explore new planets and draw from the Exploration deck. The encounters in the Exploration deck range from dire crises, to scientific discoveries, to new and independent civilizations. You might even have some trouble with Tribbles...
Overall, Star Trek: Ascendancy is a very complex game. If you're a casual or novice gamer, the learning curve will be steep. Most of the rules are quite logical (in the fine Vulcan tradition), but the rule book is less than perfect and sometimes snows you under with small details rather than providing simple clarity about how the game works. And I found some elements of the game, like the Trade Agreements and the method of choosing who goes first each turn, to be needlessly complex.
You don't need to be a Star Trek fan to enjoy Star Trek: Ascendancy, but it sure helps.
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