Place your Starting Sector in the zone closest to you, then fill all empty Starting Zones with randomly selected Guardian Sectors with the arrow facing GCDS. Because for every action you take there’s a double cost of influence and money which means that every decision you make needs to be geared towards a very clear goal. Are you going for tech? Great! Better hope that no one invades! Are you building towards a military victory? Better get those ship upgrades right or you’ll be very embarrassed when your armada collapses in the face of the enemy defence fleet. Like Monopoly, you must avoid bankruptcy at all costs, and your Money Storage Marker must never move below zero. To prevent this, you’ll have to trade Science and/or Materials or abandon Sectors for Money to pay the cost of Upkeep.

If you want my advice, make sure you build at least a few large ships, as they will significantly impact the strength of your position in the game.The appeal of Ameritrash-style combat, at least in part, is due to the fact that there’s an ample amount of chaos or randomness. Even in such games that are dice-less, there are unexpected moments that defy attempts to turn it strictly into a puzzle to be solved. Which isn’t to say you can “solve” combat in Eclipse, but that it’s welcoming of this type of analysis. So instead of gauging whether or not my opponent would be willing to commit extra resources/cards etc. to more solidly defend a territory, as I might in some 4X games, I’m instead simply crunching odds with something resembling on-the-spot napkin math. So here in combat, ironically, I think we see the strongest Euro-gaming influence. It’s a system that can be mapped out and calculated more than the premise initially implies. Dice rolls still matter, of course, and outcomes aren’t predictable when sides are more or less evenly matched, but decisions can definitely lean toward the analytical side instead of gut reactions to board state and player dynamics. Two, there’s no diplomacy phase like in TI once Mecatol Rex is taken. This eliminates some negotiation and opportunities for table talk, but also eliminates a phase that, in my experience, isn’t always dramatic. Some diplomatic decisions are game-changing in TI, but I’ve had entire games of it without a single exciting vote. Structures are permanent colossal objects built in your controlled Sectors. Monoliths give you extra victory points at the end of the game, whereas Orbitals provide an additional Population Square. Zones and Rings

Shuffle the Tech Tiles in the Tech Tile bag and draw the correct amount for the number of players (see below). Put the tiles in the Tech Tray with matching Tech and cost icons.Again, this is a very streamlined game. It flows! But still takes about 2 hours for a two player game, more for more players. Still not as long as the other Big games out there. Starting with the person to the right of the Start Player, select a Species Board and take a Species Tray of the same color. You can trade some resources for others by paying the number indicated by the Trade Value on your Species Board. Population Cubes