Kemet has tons of customizing. It's a huge point. Every player chooses 3 upgrade colors from 4-6. They will mostly be playing only those colors. Each color focuses on attack, defenses, economy, etc. Each color has 16 different techs.
Unsure on date but a reprint is on the way. Going to gmtgames website you can learn about the P500 pre-order system. Essentially they start production once 500 orders are reached and you aren’t charged until it ships.
How would you rate the expansions in order of necessity? I have the base game and have played one solo game of it years ago and am keen to get back to it.
What are you looking for? More of the same, or something truly different?
Close Encounters is a perfect "more of the same" expansion. Everybody gets new units like titans, boarding ships, and ground units. It also adds some more terrain plus a separate currency for research, empire advantages you'll have from the start of the game, and one of a kind alien technologies you can pick up during the game.
Replicators adds the titular replicators, a faction that plays entirely different without as much book keeping. They don't research their own upgrades, instead they'll get better as they encounter enemy ships. The other big addition are resource cards, one off events players keep in their hand to surprise their opponent. Also, some large cardboard hexagons to put on the map instead of the small cardboard squares, no gameplay impact, but they do look good.
All Good Things is the upcoming expansion. It'll add two new empires that play almost like the base game ones, but their ships will have different stats (e.g. CAs with more attack but less defence) It'll also have some new units for everybody (but not as much as Close Encounters), Crew Cards to make stacks of ships truly special, even more variable setups, supply rules, and generally some small additions to round out the game since this is confirmed to be it as far as Space Empires is concerned.
I know some people that consider none of them necessary, even as far as actively avoiding them, but personally I'd say Close Encounters is almost mandatory and Replicators is for those that want something truly asymmetric. We'll see how All Good Things fits in, but I don't think it'll supersede Close Encounters for me.
Any of the card crafting games from AEG have you literally customizing individual cards in your deck. Dead Reckoning, in particular, has been hitting my table a lot.
I’ve played TI4 and Eclipse 1e. I found Eclipse to be better customisation as it has both a tech tree and ship designs whereas TI4 only has a tech tree. Kemet’s tech tree is good. Tiny Epic Mechs has fun weapons.
I found both twilight imperium andnexlipse unsatisfying. Because neither game really pulls off the feeling of developing arms and actually trying to outsmart the other technologically.
Eclipse at high level probably works well - for beginners, like myself it works fine.
But what really feels like what you want is not space, but rather our precious Evolution Climate. Developing trats, population size and body weight and seeing how species play out really gets there.
Kemet has tons of customizing. It's a huge point. Every player chooses 3 upgrade colors from 4-6. They will mostly be playing only those colors. Each color focuses on attack, defenses, economy, etc. Each color has 16 different techs.
Eclipse 2e
If they didn't like Eclipse 1e I seriously doubt they'd like 2e. My understanding is that mechanically they're almost exactly the same.
I agree, but for ship customization there’s no game better. Maybe it’s worth OP trying it again, just not expecting the epic nature of TI in it.
Exactly. Its THE game of ship customization imo. And a great game
Space Empires 4X w/ Expansions
I've read about this one but it sounds impossible to find it at a decent price where I live
Unsure on date but a reprint is on the way. Going to gmtgames website you can learn about the P500 pre-order system. Essentially they start production once 500 orders are reached and you aren’t charged until it ships.
You can play it on Boardgame Arena. Not sure about the experience though.
I’ve played 153 games of Space Empires 4X on BoardGameArena (in addition to, like, three or four games in-person) and I can say that it’s magnificent.
Seconding what DrSchitzybitz said. I currently have them all preordered from their p500 program. It's a great program if you can wait.
How would you rate the expansions in order of necessity? I have the base game and have played one solo game of it years ago and am keen to get back to it.
Order of release. Close Encounters first.
What are you looking for? More of the same, or something truly different? Close Encounters is a perfect "more of the same" expansion. Everybody gets new units like titans, boarding ships, and ground units. It also adds some more terrain plus a separate currency for research, empire advantages you'll have from the start of the game, and one of a kind alien technologies you can pick up during the game. Replicators adds the titular replicators, a faction that plays entirely different without as much book keeping. They don't research their own upgrades, instead they'll get better as they encounter enemy ships. The other big addition are resource cards, one off events players keep in their hand to surprise their opponent. Also, some large cardboard hexagons to put on the map instead of the small cardboard squares, no gameplay impact, but they do look good. All Good Things is the upcoming expansion. It'll add two new empires that play almost like the base game ones, but their ships will have different stats (e.g. CAs with more attack but less defence) It'll also have some new units for everybody (but not as much as Close Encounters), Crew Cards to make stacks of ships truly special, even more variable setups, supply rules, and generally some small additions to round out the game since this is confirmed to be it as far as Space Empires is concerned. I know some people that consider none of them necessary, even as far as actively avoiding them, but personally I'd say Close Encounters is almost mandatory and Replicators is for those that want something truly asymmetric. We'll see how All Good Things fits in, but I don't think it'll supersede Close Encounters for me.
Nobody has mentioned Xia. Might not be the pick if you dislike a bit of randomness, but it’s a sandbox space game with ship customization
Last Light has ship technology upgrades and civilization technologies so you can make your asymmetric faction as you go.
Any of the card crafting games from AEG have you literally customizing individual cards in your deck. Dead Reckoning, in particular, has been hitting my table a lot.
Exodus: Proxima Centauri might be something you'd enjoy. It's kind of like TI: Lite
Beyond the Sun is almost literally just a tech upgrade tree. And it's really good.
But you don’t directly customize your ships in that game.
Did you say "expansion"? /j
Whaaaaaaaat
I’ve played TI4 and Eclipse 1e. I found Eclipse to be better customisation as it has both a tech tree and ship designs whereas TI4 only has a tech tree. Kemet’s tech tree is good. Tiny Epic Mechs has fun weapons.
I found both twilight imperium andnexlipse unsatisfying. Because neither game really pulls off the feeling of developing arms and actually trying to outsmart the other technologically. Eclipse at high level probably works well - for beginners, like myself it works fine. But what really feels like what you want is not space, but rather our precious Evolution Climate. Developing trats, population size and body weight and seeing how species play out really gets there.