#oneaday Day 142: StarCraft: The Board Game (Part 2)

[Compromise: Have decided on a new format. Weekends will have individual pictures like what I used to do. That way I can do them in Paint if I’m away from my Mac.]

So we finally got through a complete game of StarCraft: The Board Game. And after a bit of initial confusion over a few rules-related bits and pieces, the three of us found ourselves understanding the way things worked quite well. It’ll probably take a few more games for us to be able to strategise with any real effectiveness, but for a first game, we didn’t do too badly — and more importantly, it didn’t last for six hours like we were expecting it to. In fact, due to the “Special Victory” conditions, the whole thing ended up being over a little quicker than we anticipated. No bad thing — it means that it doesn’t go into that pile of “games that are good but take hours and hours to play” and will hopefully be trotted out relatively often.

It’s an interesting game, really, with elements of Risk and Civilization present. There’s empire and unit building, conquering opponent territories, researching technologies, and an interesting card-based combat mechanic that gives something of an element of chance without making it completely random. There’s also a very wide array of possibilities for things to do, and this coupled with the randomly-generated game board will make for a game which is unlikely to be the same twice in a row.

Things we have learned so far, then:

• If someone has a Z-Axis Navigation Route (or “warpgate” as we kept calling them) linking to one of their own planets from one of their own planets, you’d better assault them sooner rather than later, otherwise you’ll find them building up an unassailable fortress.
• Building the Air Support module which, among other things, prevents people from landing troops directly on your base, is an expensive investment that is very worthwhile as it makes life quite inconvenient for invading armies.
• Ultralisks are tough.
• Archons are tougher, especially if they have some fortunate combinations of Reinforcement and Event cards.
• Obstructing another player’s orders isn’t necessarily a good course of action, because it lets them draw Event Cards, which are quite powerful and also act as the game clock.
• Knock people off Conquest Point spaces as soon as possible rather than trying to do something clever like cut off someone’s supply line. If someone has captured conquest point spaces worth a total of 3, it takes them just 5 turns to win.
• Attacking is better than defending to quite a significant degree, so it pays to go on the offensive.
• Force-mining someone’s resources then retreating is a petty and amusing way to wreak revenge without destroying your own units.

I’m looking forward to trying the game again soon. It was a lot of fun and despite its apparent complexity (this is a game that easily takes up all of a large table with board, figures, cards and lots of chits) it’s relatively straightforward to play once you get how the rules work. Approve, then!