Our group also played Eclipse yesterday. There were five of us, all first-time Eclipse players. Four of us with 30+ years of gaming experience (we game a LOT). All 5 of us agreed we had a LOT of fun PLAYING the game, but this came mostly from a solitaire management experience. Competitively, this game is very lacking. It really was fun building a space empire and customizing ships. I feel the end game and competitive structure in Eclipse is EXTREMELY lacking, borderline turning a incredible game into yet another bad turtling build-up fest with little or no player/conflict interaction.
I feel Eclipse suffers from one of the most often used, and possibly worst, multiplayer features in build and conquer type boardgames, and that’s the dreaded Free-For-All gameplay leading to the eventual Pile-On effect. Any player initiating conflict is usually rolled over by a neighbor because they are vulnerable while fighting someone else. Any player becoming the obvious leader in the game gets attacked by everyone and is easily pummeled from having to fight everyone at once (the Pile-On). As a player, how do you avoid this? You turtle and keep quiet, and you certainly don’t do well enough to be the obvious leader. This results in boring, uninteresting, and just goofy gameplay. Most games (with knowledgeable players) play out the same. Everyone turtles, no one initiates conflict or aggression, and usually everyone attacks everyone else on the last turn of the game. The winner is typically the one who happens to benefit the most from the chaotic last turn or the player that persuades the most players to attack others or to do something foolish. The wisest option for players is to just turtle, not upset the apple cart, talk other players into fighting each other, and to get VP for yourself from non-interactive mechanics. BORING!!! Stupid stupid way to design a game, yet most games are like this. Eclipse suffers from all of this.
How do you fix these problems? The last is my preference.
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[li]Players actions don’t have big detrimental effect on others (Dominion). Doesn’t work well in expand and conquer games.
[/li][li]Don’t allow players to gang up on others. The game requires mapped enemies where you are only allowed to attack/effect your enemy. Players A and Z are enemies. Players B and Y are enemies. Players C and X are enemies. Etc. Not a great option.
[/li][li]Big rewards for aggression, combat, conflict, etc. This is very hard to design and rarely works. Eclipse is a perfect example of this. Eclipse rewards players involved in combats by allowing them to draw VP tiles. While this is a start, the rewards are not worth getting pounded on by everyone else because you’re weakened from fighting.
[/li][li]The best, easiest, and most fun way to fix this problem, and one rarely found in most multiplayer games: 2 equal sides. One side wins, the other loses. Yep, it’s that easy. Fighting doesn’t leave you open to the whimsical nature of FFA players. You have your allies to keep retaliation in check. I can’t think of a single game with a team option that suffers from turtling, passive, non-aggressive boring play.
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Examples:
Game that suffers from boring non-interactive turtle fests. It’s not wise to attack or to take any sort of action against another player, or be perceived as the strongest player in the game. You do and you’re getting piled on or exploited by everyone else. These games play out the same way. Wise players avoid conflict and don’t become the obvious target/leader. Players make a made rush at end of game to get victory. Winner determined by last turns chaos fallout. I wish all of these games had an options to play as two sides of equal number of players:
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[li]Runewars: Boring turtle fest. Not wise to attack. Not wise to be front runner.
[/li][li]Twilight Imperium. Are you the obvious game leader? Guess what, you’re about to be steamrolled by everyone else and you now have no chance of winning. There’s your reward for doing well. The winner? Some random player who benefits the most from the steamrolled player.
[/li][li]Eclipse. Leader will get ganged up on and get crushed so no one wants to upset anyone by attacking or being the obvious leader. Best play is to lay low and make a mad rush on last turn. Our game played out like this. One player had a huge VP lead. Last turn he was attacked by everyone. Winner (me) was the one who benefited the most throughout his demise.
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Games with great ways to encourage expansions, conflict, interaction, and doesn’t reward turtles. These are all team games:
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[li]Conquest of Nerath: Fights all over the place, both sides battling for territory, aggressive play from start to end.
[/li][li]Axis & Allies: Expansion is rewarded, teams protected each other. Lots of warfare in this game.
[/li][li]Star Trek: Fleet Captains: Federation vs Klingons. Lots of battle. Lots of aggressive play.
[/li][li]War of the Ring: Free peoples vs Darkness. Tons of interaction, battles, etc…
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