by ghbell
Ok, me again,Last night we played 2 more games. So, 2 late nights and then work. My tanks is running near empty, but that is what happens when you get an Expansion for a game like Eclipse. Love makes us do cuh-raaazy things.
So, this was a 3P session, we intended to play 3 games, but the first dragged out a bit.
This time, we incorporated ALL of the new stuff. All the tiles, all hexes, everything. We set up the 3 Ancient Homeworlds, but discovered that the tiles are not symmetrical. That struck me as odd, but it really doesn't matter. They were laid blindly so that was fine.
I played Magellan, KAM played Syndicate, and our third played Humans.
I played with the intent of exploring as much as possible to get as many discovery tiles as possible, and that is exactly what I did. Humans played aggressive and made a move toward the Syndicate and the center.
Early game I stayed in rings 2 and 3 pushing for discovery tiles. I got the 4 hex drive (Name??? Dangit) and the Muon Energy Source from an easy hex and then killing an ancient. I connected with both alien homeworlds near me and eventually killed the ancients there. So I had 2 VP from the Ancient Cruisers, 4 VP from 2 tiles, and then the drive, the Shard hull and the Muon Source. I was kicking butt there.
Meanwhile, the humans pushed on Syndicate and then evenutally the middle. There was a ton of battle and we were all drawing big amounts of tiles. Humans got the Ion Missile and the The Syndicate was cashing in on the battle and quickly rebuilding. The Syndicate missed out on an Ancient Homeworld as I took the one near him as the Human moved in his direction.
After battling the Syndicate, Humans pushed into the middle, and I made an attempt to intervene and prevent the battle, but his Ion Missle Discovery tile LAID WASTE and then he gunned down my fleet that I moved there. I was in serious trouble. Fortunately I was able to rebuild with a huge artifact key, but it was a smaller Key than what the Syndicate got to buy. Syndicate also bought the Development that granted 1 VP per artifact.
Earlier I bought the neutron absorber which was HUGE the last turn. Syndicate tried to burn me but I didn't need to worry about it much and in one case I built to counter. Syndicate thought he was winning so he began to bottleneck, which led to me not attacking him and heading at humans.
2nd to Last turn I moved with a LONG range move and hit the homeworld of the humans. I won there and that combined with the Syndicate turtling made him turn his gums at me.
Last turn, He moved on me and then I moved more fleet to intervene and pin him on the path to the homeworld.
Lady luck was with me in the ensuing battle. I held the human world and won a battle I should not have won where I had pinned him. I with the tiles that I upgraded, I gained an additional 3 points.
Final score: Magellan 46, Syndicate 45! Humans had something in the low 20's. That caused several recounts! I don't have a full break down of points, but I got 9 VP from discovery tiles or ancients.
That game took a TON of time in the last 2 rounds, so we only played one more.
In game 2, I played Lyra, the other 2 were Exiles and then Hydran.
With Lyra I built my systems to completely cut my universe off from my opponents. I was able to build all of the 2 cost monuments pretty easily so I was able to pass through the hex's with no problem
The hydran turtled for a while, as did the Exiles. So, this game went VERY quickly as we barely interacted for the first several turns. There was a skirmish on the border which drew attention, but nothing major.
In the first turn, the Exiles explored and found 2 ancient homeworlds. We hadn't put them out this time, we instead made them hidden with the hidden world variant.
He couldn't hit them early so I made a point to get to that ring 2 hex, but explored it in such a way that only a wormhole generator could pass.
With this game, the short version of the long story is that the Lyra ran away with the game because of their controlled map. The Hydrans had all sorts of great things going on and had quite a few points, but I gained 7 bonus VP from my shrines. I forget the point total, but Lyra won by 5 and I had 7 from my bonus shrines. I was bunkered in with no way in without a generator which never showed up.
Now, the WARP PORTAL did show up at the second to last turn. I had one early but it just sat there. Second to last turn Exiles pulled another.
They tried to get to me, but I was able to emergency pin his single ship on my side of the portal with 2 quick starbases. That cloaking device is uber annoying but it does open a whole new strategy set for us.
I also made the mistake of trying to stop the Hyrdan advance into the middle again. This time I lost 4 cruisers at the cost of 1 cruiser and one intercepor. That sucked for me but the tiles were important.
Last turn I built 2 more on that hex and Exiles gave up trying to come in on me. He was resource starved so he couldn't muster enough strength or moves.
I was in action heaven with the bonus tile, advanced economy, and quantum grid so it was tough to get me stuck in one spot.
I clearly need to play more with Lyra, but they seem to be the new best turtle race. I have to play that more before I call that my official opinion though.
Final analysis on the second game is that the Exiles were once again completely inept. They couldn't get to me at all so no population burning. The wormhole generator never showed up so they were stuck always wanting to do something but not able to do so.
Exiles have played 3 games now in my group and they have badly lost all three.
Another sidenote: The Ancient Dreadnaught, in 4 games, has not gotten a single kill. It might be that we are terrified of it and so go in only with overwhelming force? Not sure there. But it is food for thought.