Saturday, October 3, 2015

Systems Saturday - Tiny Epic Galaxies (2015)

Recently, my friend Wendy busted out her Tiny Epic Galaxies (2015) game and we tried it out at Culver's.  It came with Tiny Epic Galaxies: Satellites & Super Weapons Mini Expansion (2015) but we stuck with the base game for the time being.  It was plenty enough.  There's a lot to learn for a game that fits easily into such a small box but it's all well-worth learning.  We had a lot of fun and even played it again at a subsequent gameday.


The description from Board Game Geek is as follows:
A thirty-minute game of galactic conquest, Tiny Epic Galaxies is driven by an exciting dice-rolling mechanism that rewards thoughtful programming of the results. Players control a home galaxy and a fleet of space ships. As players upgrade their galaxies, they gain access to more ships and more dice.
Each turn, a player rolls a set of dice; how many dice are rolled is determined by the level of that player's galaxy. Each side of the six-sided die represents a different type of action: Movement, Colony Action, Harvest from Culture Planets, Harvest from Energy Planets, Improve an Economic Influence, and Improve a Diplomatic Influence.
After the roll, the player sorts the results of the roll (one selective re-roll is allowed) and organizes the dice in a desired activation order. Each die, in order, is then resolved and the results are immediate, which allows the player to pull-off unseen combos and surprise other players. Other players have the option to copy other player's actions...at a cost!
As players expand their galaxy by colonizing other planets through economic and diplomatic influence, they gain victory points AND the special powers brought in by those planets! In addition to galaxy upgrades, effective resource management provides luck-mitigating options that can sway the game in a calculated player's favor.
Whoever achieves the most points from acquiring planets and upgrading their personal galaxy wins!

Although it took us much longer to play the game than the box indicates, I do think we could come close to such game times once we've played a handful of sessions.  There is a lot to keep in mind and players are playing on each other's turns, with "Follow" moves if you are prepared with enough Culture resources.  It's one of the best features of this game, that players are engaged at all times and rarely waiting for a turn of their own, unless they've done so well that they accomplish their goals on their own turn and right afterward.  Still, being in good shape is hardly something to complain about.  Love this little game!


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