Board With Each Other
A podcast that looks at Board Games / Tabletop Gaming through the lens of playing as a couple or with a regular gaming partner. Hosted by Al & Hannah, We review a game each episode.
Board With Each Other
Episode 33 - Star Trek: Captain's Chair - Spock's Brain (Required)
This month, we've opened a channel to the most recent entry into the Trek boardgame subgenre.
As always we discuss rules, mechanics and just how much of a mind melting experience this complex beast is. Not one for the faint of heart / brain, but most importantly...is it any good? Answers within.
Make It So!
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Board With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that reviews board games and asks the question how well does this play at two players? Whether it be with your BFF, your significant other, or with Lieutenant Barkley to distract him from going back to the holodeck. And if you get that reference, you're my people's. I'm joined as ever by my wife, co-host, and player too, Hana Kelly.
SPEAKER_02:Hi guys. Also I don't get that reference.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I didn't think you would. Share what your people would say. Star Trek Captain's Chair is played by taking the role of a captain, of which there are six in the core box, and with that comes a player board, and an associated deck of cards. On your player board you have missions, which are specific things that you need to complete during the game to earn some victory points.
SPEAKER_02:All specific to your captain.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, all specific to your captain. They are all asymmetric. And three tracks, one for science, one for diplomacy, and one for military. Your deck starts out being split into three. You have available cards, which start in your deck from the beginning of the game, you have reserve cards, which you draw later, and you have developments, which you can buy still later on in the game. You start the game by putting out your captain card, which will have uh some abilities on it, and some perhaps end game scoring, depending on the the captain. And you will almost always deploy a ship, your starting ship, for which you get a little cardboard uh standee for. There is a marketplace comprised of people, cargo, uh, allies, and ships.
SPEAKER_02:You can't buy people though.
SPEAKER_00:No, you can't buy people. I mean, you kind of can unless, but you know, ethics aside, um, separated into four different piles, the top card of which is presented face up, that four was a marketplace. So you also have a deck of incidents and a deck of encounters. Finally, you have a deck of locations, which are placed in between the two players with a row of three, and that is the neutral zone. How gameplay works is you start your your turn with five cards in hand, possibly more, depending on card effects, and you have three action tokens. You play cards from your hand, and they will either require an action token to play, in which case you put the card down, put the action token aside or on top, as we do it, or you can just free play them, which means they don't have a little action token next to them, and they will take an effect. The main crux of the game is improving your standing on the tracks, completing your missions, buying cards from the marketplace, all of which usually have victory point uh values associated with them, and a bit of aerial control. You can warp your ships to locations in the neutral zone, and you can use cards and abilities to send away team members, of which you have a limited amount that's on top of your captain card, and they vary depending on the captain. If at the start of your turn you have at least three ships or waitings on a particular location, and at least two more than your opponent, you gain control of said location. Uh, that means it goes into your row of uh cards, almost like your tableau, and you usually get sort of a bonus effect for taking control of it. And of course, it's usually worth victory points at the end.
SPEAKER_02:Might also give you ongoing effects as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So all the cards that are out on the table, whether it be locations or deploy cards, usually have a either an activate or a passive or reaction uh keyword on them. To activate cards once per turn, you can essentially tap them, you turn them to the side, and they will take an take effect. Some of those activations cost an action, some do not. Um you have passive things, which are for instance increasing your hand size by one, and you have reactions, which take place when certain conditions are met. So if your opponent does X, then Y happens. When your turn is completed, you uh they are they are the spark part out. So they are five turn cards or round cards. I can never remember whether they call them turns or rounds. I always get mixed up from game to game. Either way, there are five of these cards, and they have a resource on them called glory. Glory is something you gain during the game, and is worth one victory point per token that you have. The first uh turn starts with five glory tokens on it, the second starts with seven, the third also with seven, then it goes to six, then to five. When you gain glory during a turn, you take the glory from the card, not from the general supply. So the more glory you gain through the course of gameplay, the quicker the game goes, and the quicker you count down to end game. At the end of your turn, you also take one glory token from that turn order card and you place it on one of the cards in the marketplace. If you gain that card, you gain the associated glory with it later. Whoever gains that card. Whoever gains that card. Finally, you draw back up to your hand size. If your deck runs out, you take a card from your reserve pile, which are face down and shuffled, and you place it on top of the deck. Well, you put you shuffle your discard pile, but then you place that reserve card on top, therefore you draw it straight away. If at any point your reserve deck is then run out, you then go on to developments, which work in the same way. However, those are public information, you can look through them anytime, and they all have costs associated with them. Um what I didn't mention, aside from Gloria, are the other two resources, which are Dilithium and Latinum. Those cards usually cost Dilithium and all Latinum to obtain, but they happen in the same way, and they're usually very powerful. Um we'll get onto that as a mechanic when we talk about the game proper. The player continues until all the turn order cards have run out, and then depending on when the f where the who went first, where the first player token lies, you finish out that round, and then you play one more turn each after that, and then the game comes to an end. The only other thing to mention is some cards have what's called a focus icon on them instead of victory point value. And that focus icon will usually not usually always be either military uh diplomacy or science. As you go up the tracks on your captain board, you'll get multiplier values. The further up the track you get, the higher the multiplier, depending on the captain.
SPEAKER_02:Five, I think, is the matter.
SPEAKER_00:They differ completely different. Yeah, they're completely different from captain to captain. So how far you have to get to get them differs, or how much they go up to differs. But basically, at the end of the game, for instance, if you had a times three in science, every science focus card you'd count up and then you multiply that by three. So if you had five, you'd get 15 victory points. And that works the same for all of them. You also get victory points at the end of the game for any uh awaity members or ships you have on unclaimed locations. So you get a few more from that. That is basically it for the rules. This is not a game where the complexity lies in the rules, the complexity lies in the cards and the amount of cards that you have on the table and in the in your hand. Um, but we will get to all that I'm sure in due course. Anything else about that?
SPEAKER_02:In terms of playtime, it's not quick.
SPEAKER_00:At least two hours. Yeah. You can't be looking at up to three. Yeah. This is this is a beast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's definitely sort of like a weekend game, I think, for us rather than a school night game.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is, um, yeah, it is quite quite long. We have gone over three hours once.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think it's also worth mentioning that you are a trekkie. I am not particularly a trekkie. We watched DS9 together.
SPEAKER_00:You enjoy DS9.
SPEAKER_02:And I watched a little bit of Voyager, mainly because it was on before buffing.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:Um but I wouldn't necessarily call myself a trekkie if if I Star Trek to Star Wars, though.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, good to say that up. I think I need to put it well, you get hate, whatever you do with the the ski expose. I need to put out there that I am a massive trekie, since seeing a oddly charismatic bald man say make it so on my TV screen at about the age of eight. Um but there is a prevalence of oddly charismatic bald men in the Star Trek universe. I like it. Um I was completely enraptured, and it's one of those things that's been with me my whole life. Um not so into the newer stuff. I'm definitely original series and the 90s, the 90s stuff, so DS9, Voyager, and uh Next Gen. But um it is on my sort of Mount Rushmorph, like important geek things to me, and I think it's important that we we own our biases when it comes to theme, and I am definitely, definitely biased because I like Star Trek.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that works both ways.
SPEAKER_00:It does work both ways, yeah. Um, but yes, I love Star Trek, I think it's really fair to say.
SPEAKER_02:And again, you were very excited when you heard about this.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, because there has been a real dearth of sort of complex, weighty, two-player-friendly Star Trek board game experiences out there, as far as I can tell, my research. There's some really big things out there, but uh they're either very long out of print or they are definitely for three plus players. There's sort of Twilight Imperium end of the spectrum where you have, you know, whole day affairs of diplomacy and whatnot, but that's that's not for us or situation. So I saw this come out and uh I did a mental cartwheel. Um and I think we managed to pick up one of the last copies of UK Games Expo 25 when we went there. So I was uh I was on the hunt all weekend and everyone sold out, and then we somehow found a copy on pretty much the last day. So that's obviously fate. Um but yeah, that's I think that's more than enough to say why I picked this up.
SPEAKER_02:So should we then move on to scoring? Because I think there's going to be quite a lot of meat in the Yeah, I think so. Okay. So first up, under our general rating criteria, we have components. So what's in the box? What's in the box? What's in the box? Set up, stripped down, tear down, what play strip star deck up to chair.
SPEAKER_00:I just I don't think it fits the mood and the vibe.
SPEAKER_02:I think you'd be very happy with that.
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't I would, yeah, but let's not go down, let's not go down that road. Um so and theme. We should talk about theme.
SPEAKER_02:Theme as well. Yeah. So what I would say is, do you like ships?
SPEAKER_00:Love ships.
SPEAKER_02:There are an awful lot of ships.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of ships. Love it.
SPEAKER_02:Which brings us kind of onto theme. So you're the trekky, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, nerds, go off. Um I think the theme is wonderful and nails everything. It nails the colour palette. Um, all of the cards have got this art style, which they I'm I'm becoming increasingly a huge fan of, that they're using Jude Imperion, which is almost like paintings of the characters, but photorealistic. Um kind of hard to describe, but it's not just straight up photographs, it's you know, it's almost like an artistic take on it. I assume it's just photographs run through some sort of filter, but it's nice, it looks really good. And with Trek being for from so many different errors of particularly sort of makeup design and special effects, it's a bit of a leveller, and it's not immediately apparent what error something is from because of that art style tweak that they've done.
SPEAKER_02:I thought what was really cool is there is a wolf card in there that was a cartoon, and because of that, that's from Lower Decks. Yeah, so it really stood out to me, and I was like, Oh, tell me more about that. And that was quite cool to see that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's some proper animated stuff from Lower Decks in there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and what I would say is somebody who isn't really a Trekkie, there is something from all generations in this first box. So you've got stuff going quite far back, you've got Michael Burnham, so from more recently.
SPEAKER_00:From Discovery, yeah, there's no original series captains in this box. So, well, Kirk. Kirk is not in the box. Um, we'll get on to them. Kirk and Spock and the stuff from the 60s and 70s and 80s. Um, so you've got we've got Bicard and Sisko from DS9 and uh Next Gen. You've got a Romulan captain from Next Gen Sealer, you've got an Andorian from Enterprise, which even though I'm a Trekkie have never watched, so I didn't recognise them. You've got Koloth from DS9, uh, who Klingon. And you've got Michael Burnham from Discovery.
SPEAKER_02:And you've got a smattering of all the characters you know in there. So Diana Troy is in there, oh yeah. The ginger scientists.
SPEAKER_00:The ginger scientists. Do you mean Beverly Crusher?
SPEAKER_02:It's like Jimmy Crusher.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02:You're various quite a lot, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I look forward to that. Um, but through the Marketplace decks, there's stuff from everything in there. Uh, I think the most notable exception is Voyager, oddly enough. There seems to be nothing at all from Voyager. I have a feeling they they are saving that for a future box. I know I have seen the designer basically discuss that the publisher demanded certain things were held back because as we go on to, this is going to be a more of a living game, I think, than a one-off. Anyway, uh a bit of a digression there. Um, everything looks really nice. Everything is is it is good quality. There's no there's no cheaping.
SPEAKER_02:And they have a lot in the box as well. Yeah, it's quite a lot of cards. I mean, we've already talked about the numerous decks that you have. You've got decks for each of your captains, plus all the marketplaces, etc. You've also got these really lovely little Latinum gold bars.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, gold press Latinum bars, gold pressum crystals.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and little pink sparkly crystals, which you know I quite like, and then obviously your glory tokens as well. So you get a lot in this.
SPEAKER_00:And the action tokens are these great big chunky uh engineering chips.
SPEAKER_02:Is that what they are?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and they're really cool. Those are really cool. So, yeah, I think there's very little I can I actually can't think of really anything negative to say about the components and the theme.
SPEAKER_02:I would say that setup isn't terribly bad.
SPEAKER_01:Fairly quick.
SPEAKER_02:It's fairly quick. Tear down does take a while, largely because obviously you build your deck and then you have to strip everything out. What's also worth mentioning is incidents are bad things that happened that you have to spend actions to get rid of them, they give you a minus victory score.
SPEAKER_00:If you don't get rid of them.
SPEAKER_02:If you don't get rid of them. And what happens is when you get rid of them, they obviously have to go back into the incident deck.
SPEAKER_00:So you can just strip them all out. Yeah, if you run out of incidents, the game doesn't.
SPEAKER_02:Game ends. Um, so there is a little bit more to tear down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think it was worth mentioning within teardown that scoring takes scoring's a a big task in this.
SPEAKER_02:And actually, it's quite complicated.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a real it's it's it's a very big point salad, but it makes teardown take quite a while because you've got to separate a whole bunch of things out.
SPEAKER_02:So, how did you score it then?
SPEAKER_00:I've given it a nine because I have very, very little I I can't think of really anything negative to say. Um, if they had some miniatures for the ships, it would be a 12.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, but if we have miniatures for the ship, it will cost 365,000.
SPEAKER_00:Money well spent.
SPEAKER_02:I kid you not, there are about 50 ships. And it does take us a while to find them because obviously you can acquire ships on a marketplace, and so it sometimes takes a while to find them.
SPEAKER_00:Uh in 10 years, when they come out with a super deluxe edition, I have way too much disposable income, then you know we aren't going.
SPEAKER_02:Um so I scored it an eight again. Not particularly many criticisms, but perhaps maybe the theme isn't so exciting for you to me as it is to you.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, okay.
SPEAKER_02:All right, so let's talk about complexity because complexity, this is probably the most complex game, I think, that we have.
SPEAKER_00:It is. I'm saying this is more complicated than Gloomhaven.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it's again the devil is in the card, really.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Just for those who haven't listened to us before, the complexity um scoring criteria is not we don't score complex games higher than light games. It's how well the complexity serves the underlying game and how much it matches up with what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02:I would say is that for my very limited exposure to Star Trek, actually, it is really complicated.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And there's interplay between your factions and your alliances, between war, between like the science stuff that goes on. Like so, it is a really complicated TV series, and I think that as a result, the board game is that complicated. Yeah. And the way in which your characters interact and do things, and I think in that sense, it's a it's a really strong strong justification for a very complicated game.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I mean, just at the the top top of it, it it it sets out to be a very heavy board game. Um this this has been designed to really, really test your your your brain power, really. Um and with that it achieves what it sets out to do. Okay, it absolutely does do that. I think where this game, where the real mental toll of this game comes in, is particularly mid to late game, where as you go along, you end up with more and more things on the table, and you have so many things that do so many different things that you have to try and keep abreast of at all times while still concentrating on what it is that you're trying to achieve, usually your missions and/or just you know getting points, it the it the mental toll gets quite large. And what happens, one thing I have noticed that happens is as the game gets later on, turns start to get longer and longer and longer. And that can be difficult sometimes because when your opponent is taking your turn, if you have a plan, trying to keep that plan together in your head for sometimes 10 minutes while your opponent takes an epic turn can be quite difficult. And I found myself losing sight of what is it I'm even trying to do here at times. The the actual content of the cards is not way more complicated than you see in some other sort of heavier card games. But I think where this is uh slightly more so of that is most of the cards do multiple things, so you don't learn a card and go, oh, quark does this. Quark does several different things depending on how you use it.
SPEAKER_02:Because you can either, we didn't talk about like that, but but yeah, so people, for example, you can promote a duty officer, and then they will sit above your captain, and quite often they will have ongoing effects. So it might be they have a reaction, it might be that you are able to gain things during like resupply, which is kind of like upkeep at the start of your turn, it might be that they stop bad things from happening, so or you can just play them as a person, yeah, as an action, and then they will promote them after, yeah. Promote them after sometimes, possibly. So there are lots of different ways that you can use cards.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I think with that said, you can end up in a situation where you've got 10 to 12 cards in front of you, and they all do three to four different things depending on how you want to use them, and that starts to get really brain burning later on.
SPEAKER_02:So, a really good example of this is the last game that we played. I had a whole bunch of cards that allowed me to do things during my upkeep and my resupply phase, and because I was so I I felt like I was lagging behind a fair bit and I was so driven about trying to meet missions, etc., I kind of lost track of half of those, and that would have really substantially changed gameplay because, for example, yeah, I was able to draw a glory from the supply from the supply during each phase, and that would have stopped you from doing something back. Yeah, it actually had quite a substantial impact. And for people like us who have played a lot of games, who we openly say that we lean into heavy board games, I find that a bit telling, maybe that I lose track of just how complicated it is.
SPEAKER_00:It's one of those things I remember seeing the the heaviness rating on board game kicking reading the rules. It's like I was like, this doesn't look that bad. I don't understand what people are on about, but then when you play it, it it's like getting punched in the brain. Yeah, it really is it is easily. I mean, uh, I think the only other things that come close to are something like Nemesis and Gloomhaven, and I would put this in a I put this in a brook.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:It is deceptively brutally complicated once you really get into it. And you start out with the early rounds going, oh, this is okay, this is okay, but you've you just get plunged into deep water later on.
SPEAKER_02:And I think particularly the missions, so the missions are obviously specific to the captain. Um, some of those missions are exceedingly taxing. Yes, because you also they often require you to have cards in play. And in order to be able to achieve that, you can beam cards.
SPEAKER_00:On to ship so you keep them out on the table, but you can't use them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but then you might want to use them for other things. So it becomes this real dynamic about what is it like for banking, how do I get them back? It's yeah, there's a lot of pre-planning and strategy.
SPEAKER_00:Once you've then got past that and you've actually completed your missions, then you have to then start thinking about what end game scoring and yeah, well, ideally, you're like thinking about that at the same time as everything else, but just how much mental capacity you have, you know. And I I think all of this is like this is this is no um slight against it. This is not marking it down at all for me. Um, I just want to make it really clear to people what they're getting into here, unless you have played heavy board games and you're like, oh, Star Trek, I like Star Trek, I like the IP. Um beware. This is very complicated.
SPEAKER_02:So, one of the things that you often say in this category, you know, are there rules there just for the sake of rules just to be complex? One of the there are lots of different ways to acquire cards. There's a lot of very subtle linguistics around that.
SPEAKER_00:Find, gain, take.
SPEAKER_02:Find, gain, take, enlist. And whilst they all have slightly different meanings, and whilst I understand why, because actually it does affect gameplay, I can't help but think this is somebody who designed this who would then sit there and be really exacting about no no no no, you can't put that there, you have to put that there.
SPEAKER_00:And are you projecting? Because I'm usually the one seeing going, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:Let me just take this comment as going my discard point, you know. And again, is something a little bit overwrought? Yeah, maybe. And I suppose part of me is thinking, you know, we don't rate things down because just because they're complex or just because they're simple. But is there an element that I think that actually it is so complicated that it may be really inaccessible to people?
SPEAKER_00:Potentially, potentially. Um, I think there is an issue around accessibility, yeah. But I think on the flip side, it never pretends to be something that it's it's not, in the sense that there is a lack of heavy Star Trek board games. And given the Venn diagram between nerds that like Star Trek and nerds that like heavy board games, I can see why they've done it. I'm making some assumptions about myself, they're not assumptions, I know this, but I am making a little bit of an assumption, and it is a gap. There are lighter Star Trek games out there, like Star Realms Star Trek, for instance, but this heavy, meaty thing, like, come on, punch me in the intellect, I we I have not seen. And I understand, I get it, I know why they've gone for it.
SPEAKER_02:So, how did you score it? So I scored it, I would think, probably lower than you.
SPEAKER_00:I gave it an eight.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, alright. So I gave it a seven, and I think that's partly because I I think that's fair. Yeah, I I do think it might be a little bit inaccessible, and if they maybe stripped it back a little bit, it could be a bit more accessible. Yeah. But again, that's not entirely I also would just.
SPEAKER_00:Do I want them to strip it back though? Do you want them to strip it back?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, the whole fucking game take card thing just drives me up the wall every single time I fall afoul of it, and I'm not stupid.
SPEAKER_00:It's the new enlisting.
SPEAKER_02:It's the new enlisting.
SPEAKER_00:And it's the listing as well.
SPEAKER_02:There is the enlisting.
SPEAKER_00:Call back to uh the side episode for those uh uninitiated. Um so I scored it a seven. That's completely fair. Alright.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so next up we have shelf life, um, value for money and replayability. So as always, what's the price point?
SPEAKER_00:Uh tends to go when you can buy it around 40 to 45.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. I'm surprised. I actually thought the price point would be higher.
SPEAKER_00:So did I when I saw it was in the box. I think it's a really good price for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, like I said from the very get-go, you get an awful lot of in the box, and I think in terms of the the actual components and more for less. Well, yeah, um, I think that does represent really good value for money.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I thought I like shelf life.
SPEAKER_02:You go.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. There is a promotion of depth to this game. If you enjoy it. The asymmetric nature of the captains and the uh what's the best way to term it? The the skill gains you make each time you play it, because every time we play it, we score higher and higher makes me feel like there is if you enjoy this, there's no there's it's an evergreen.
SPEAKER_02:There are a lot of different routes to victory, and I think that's what's really interesting because I would say for the majority of our games, apart the first couple when we've still ever we achieved all our missions, um, and we do for the majority of our games.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'd say two out of three that's the time for me.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's because you're a little bit rubbish, but yeah, well um, so you therefore it then all becomes about different types of end game scoring and how you work towards that, and so because of that, I do think there are lots of routes to victory. What I will say is that because most of your missions are very much dependent on having particular races or having particular types of cards, etc., there becomes a point when it's about learning your deck, yeah, learning what's in the marketplace and knowing what to hit at what time point, and that's where a lot of your skill gains come from, I think, and that's why we're improving.
SPEAKER_00:Like, yeah, to a certain extent. I don't think it's the whole picture.
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't think it's the whole picture, but I do think there's a huge element of that. And I guess now that I'm feeling really confident, particularly with certain captains that I made a fair few times, I don't know that learning the deck is what I want in terms of replayability.
SPEAKER_00:Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it makes complete it makes complete sense, and I completely get you. I mean, I've memorised the number of click-ons in the person deck at this point.
SPEAKER_02:Have you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You're such a fucking nerd.
SPEAKER_00:I know, I know. But I think it's less about that. That almost for me, that felt like the the tutorial ending, for want of a better term. Because I think once now I'm getting to the point where I know what is there and what I'm playing with, it then becomes about reactions to what's going on and choosing the route to victory. The number of times you've jumped a card from the marketplace that I need to fulfill a mission is is several now. And I know there's nothing else left, which causes you to pivot. You then have, why what am I doing? I'm just sending all my ships, I'm gonna go and try and take all these locations, or I'm gonna mess with you in another way, or I'm gonna try and get concentrate on a track and try and. I think there's so many different, as you say, routes to victory that depending on how your opponent's doing, it changes up. I don't feel like any of the games that we played have been yes, they've been alike, but they they've all gone quite differently, particularly the the last two or three, because we become more competent. And this obviously bleeds into the competitive nature for me later on. But there's so much going on, even though usually I am one of these people that jumps to a different character every single time I play. This is one of the few games I've got where I actually just want to take one of them and just keep playing that one person and getting better at that one person, and then moving on to another person and getting better than that. But it it does tickle that element of my brain for me. So, in terms of longevity for me, this is an evergreen.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I'm not done at all in any way, shape, or form, but I'm also at a point where I'm a bit like maybe I would like a new captain, and maybe I would like a bigger marketplace, I think is probably what I want.
SPEAKER_00:That that's my that's my question. Would expansions change that for you?
SPEAKER_02:Um I think so, but then also does that not ch if a game is not holding its value as a base box game with the number of games that we played, which there have been a fair few, admittedly, yeah. But I mean it's not anywhere near as as much as they say, for example, June, then is there not something slightly lacking for me there?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I challenged that. We played about the same number of games as this as we played Bass Dune. No, really just before we went for the sort of going for the expansions. And once you chuck in Rise of X into the mix, Rise of Ick. Rise of Ick, I could play Dune Forever. Could I play Bass Tune Forever? Maybe. But I was starting to go want something more.
SPEAKER_02:Oh really? I can't.
SPEAKER_00:And it's the same point. I think Well, we know there's there's expansions on the way coming out. I think the month that this goes goes out published. Um I think what's tricky with the expansions that will remain to be seen, is I know there's there's recommendations with the expansion because they're producing another base box, which is basically the same as this one, just with completely different captains and some different cards, some from the same. They recommend the designer recommends playing with only that box for a good while. There are rules to mix it all together, but they say don't start there. I think because of what we were talking about, the whole memorizing day, I'm not because I think I have a feeling it might throw the balance out, or it might make it more difficult to achieve missions. I mean, you're both in the same boat, but I don't think they are fully play tested using all the captains with everything chucked into one. One of the expansions coming out is one that you chuck in and just makes the marketplace broader and all the rest of it.
SPEAKER_02:But you can also say that some of the captains' missions I think are crying out for a fatter marketplace because they're almost impossible to achieve. Some of them are incredibly difficult.
SPEAKER_00:In the base game, the balance does feel slightly off at times.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just for one or two. Um, just because I don't think there's a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00:The endoring captain, I think I come in the shroud.
SPEAKER_02:Um Cisco as well and his changelings and I think there's there's a couple that are incredibly difficult to pull off. Yeah. Um, okay, all right, that changes my opinion a little bit. Um, so I might knock it up and bump it up one more. How did you score it?
SPEAKER_00:Nine.
SPEAKER_02:So I will score it in eight.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:When you make the due reference, which I hadn't considered. So I think that's fine.
SPEAKER_00:Um I mean, I think we we're pretty much on par with this one. I just add one point extra for me being a master trek nerd. I think that's the conclusion I'm going to. It's one point behind me and everything. It's the nerd point.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, and so finally, is it any fun?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it is. Yes. I mean, there's more to it than that. As a base deck builder experience, yeah, 100%. I really, really, really enjoy this. I think it is a wonderful challenge and other elements that we'll come on to in the next categories. And um obviously I just give a little squeal of delight when I see characters I recognize, especially the really niche ones.
SPEAKER_02:The nearest numbers of wholf.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, multi-wharf. Yes. But further than by nerdy squealing and delight when I see something I know. Um I love the mix of area control and deck building. Like, I really, really enjoy that aspect of it. And just trying to keep your head wrapped around everything.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's what's really interesting. So, again, as somebody who has AP, right, and has paralysis, quite often I can get really locked down and optimal moves, etc. And the game like this, where there is so much strategic forethought and like planning about what it is that you need to achieve and how you're gonna do that, the size of your deck, wanting to draw more cards, etc., to bump up your deck. I don't find it as stressful as some of the other ones. Um, and so I think that's because there is a lot of fun to it. Yeah, I'm not gonna explain that very well, but like gotta get you you have more fun playing with it because it's not so it's not so and I think because again, because of the theme, it's really lighthearted and quite fun because of that, even if I'm not like a massive truckie.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. On the negative side, does it sometimes outstay its welcome? Yes. There are times where you'll get to our 2.5 and I'll be like, oh, I'm kind of done now.
SPEAKER_02:Uh um haven't got the mental capacity left to finish this off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think that what I mentioned earlier around turn the turn dilation later on can become a bit like oh, okay, come on, let's let's let's crack on. That can start to wear on me a little bit. It doesn't make me give up and throw my hands up and go, oh, I just want to go over. No, but it doesn't make it the perfect experience I would hope for.
SPEAKER_02:But I also think that's partly again about us and and where we are in our life. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:Sort of. Yeah, I mean it's a game that I will not pull out the shelf at any given opportunity simply because I know the mental taxation that is involved in it. It's one of those that I have to be in the mood for it. Um I'll be in the mood for it quite a lot, but I have to be in the mood for it. I don't think this is a uh yeah, I'm just gonna go to this straightaway kind of game. I think you have to be in the right head space. Okay, shall we go on scoring then?
SPEAKER_02:Yep, so I scored it a seven.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I scored it an eight. So again, yeah, you just it's the nerd point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nerd point stands stands firm all the way through.
SPEAKER_02:Alright, so let's add those up.
SPEAKER_00:That gives us a general rating of exactly eight.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean it's a good game.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've got no, I've got no argument with that. It is it is a good game.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right, so on to our two-player rating scales. Um, and first up we have things like table talk, interactivity, getting to know you. So there is a lot of talking because you have to explain what it is that you do, and I think some of this is going to bleed over quite heavily into the next category. Um, but there is an awful lot of talking. I do think as turns get longer and you get further down, it is just an awful lot of narration about things that you're doing because it gets very lots of talking. And there are opportunities, I think, to interact with people.
SPEAKER_00:There's quite a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm don't know how to rate that when it comes to the competitiveness.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I I would echo everything you said. There's a there's a lot of talking that goes on. I have found increasingly as we've got better at playing the game, you won't get this when you first start. But as you get deeper in, there is a higher degree of really, really annoying each other. And the banter that comes along with that. I'll park the annoying each other for the next category, but it has become increasingly banterful in a way that I haven't seen in a while.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There are things like someone swearing at you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I was swearing at you, and that's not something I do very often, but I was swearing at you in the last game.
SPEAKER_02:That's not true, guys.
SPEAKER_00:He's what's I'm I'm the non-porty mouth. But there is there is a lot of that interactivity. Um getting to know you, uh sort of I mean it's not a first date game. Unless it's if it's in the category you'll try it to see if they run away or not, you know, there's that. Dressed as Odo. Um yeah, yeah. Will you understand more about the person you're playing with by playing this with them? Not until about game 20, I don't think, once you figure out what it is you're trying to do. Um, but there is there is a lot of interactivity, and there is area control in the game, and they are attacks, which I will get on to a little bit later, but it is not uh it is not uh build your tableau and your engine and face off each other at the end. There are there are direct links of interactivity within the game. So it's quite a good one for this. Yeah, for for my money.
SPEAKER_02:Um I scored a seven.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, I scored an eight, so the nerd point strikes again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. But then let that neatly segues us into competitivity. God damn it, I said it right earlier.
SPEAKER_00:Competitiveness.
SPEAKER_02:Competitiveness, that one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's the one.
SPEAKER_02:And oh my god, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So where where should we start?
SPEAKER_00:I want to start with this is one of those games that to get the most out of, you need a uh a gaming partner. Because if somebody has played five games of this and you teach it to somebody else, the destruction will be horrific. There is no way for that person to catch up until you've played more than ten games, I would say, if you start off on that footing. This is something that you want to learn with somebody else that you're playing with regularly. Because our scores are on a knife's edge close in most of the games.
SPEAKER_02:Except for when you play with Burnham, funnily enough.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, Burnham's.
SPEAKER_02:But Burnham's another beast, we won't talk about that. That's beyond the scope of this podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, but our scores are with a knife's edge and they creep up every time we play, almost. There's been a couple of exceptions, but every single time we score higher.
SPEAKER_02:That's also again about learning your captains, learning what the missions are, and being very selective about what it is that you do. So, in this game, I think more than anything else, uh, I do pay really close attention as to where you are and and and how you're achieving your missions, and I will definitely do things that are very instructive that may harm me in the long run, just to fuck with you.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, there is that element of it. And once you know what the other captain does, you can really mess with them. You can nick cars that you know are in short supply and they need. You can basically take the objectives away from them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If you know the decks well enough and you time it right, and you have that in the back of your head.
SPEAKER_02:The last game, which made me want to upend the table, was you stole um uh you were able to steal a controlled location from me that gave me endgame scoring specifically around an entire engine knot I had.
SPEAKER_00:And I knew exactly what I was doing.
SPEAKER_02:You knew exactly what you were doing, and I was so fucking angry.
SPEAKER_00:You still want that.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I did still won.
SPEAKER_00:But by one point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but I'm still angry about that now. Clearly I am, because I've not forgotten about it. Yeah, it's not angry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's been sitting with you for a while, isn't it? But isn't that evidence of how competitive this game can get? You won't get there for a while, and I feel like we've got more road ahead of us. But I think when you become really, really competent at this, it will be an incredible job.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like it is a proper meeting of minds.
SPEAKER_02:Even the area of control thing. So you have obviously three locations, neutral locations, and you need to send away teams there. If you've got three away teams there, or three three things there that can be shit as well, then you obviously control that location. You can just send an away team there, just to annoy your opponent to annoy your opponent and make them commit more resource, which can sometimes, for certain captains, be really difficult to do. And sometimes I've done that just because I didn't know what else to do, and I was like, well, I'll do that to annoy you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm just gonna do that as well. But it it is there, and I think when you know what the other person needs to do, there are so many routes to not only victory yourself, but also routes to hamper theirs. And I think that's the secret source that uh so many games that I play kind of miss now. Um, is it but cutthroats? Yeah, it can be. Can feelings be hurt when you're 2.5 hours into a game and you do something? Yeah. So also a little bit of a disclaimer there that there is that element to this game. It's not quite gotcha, but you you can destroy somebody's plans really far into the game and knowingly do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think also what's really is interesting is is the the marketplace mechanics and the idea that replace glory. And again, that adds another element of depth. You can try and lure somebody and say, well actually why don't you go even this because there's lots of glory on there and that counts for victory points and leave the card that I really want but I can't quite get.
SPEAKER_00:Or even nobody seems to want that card. Why don't you have that card? Why don't you take that? Or I know you're not going to go for one of these. I'm going to put the glory there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which is something I go for quite a lot. I was like you're not going to go there so I'm going to put that there so you're not getting the victory points. And there's also the element of the some the captains play so differently but some of them play quite aggressively with a lot of attack. So you can really start disrupting when attack attack plays are really fun. Yeah. Yeah. But some of them have defenses against them some of them are very like the Romulans and Clintons obviously have a lot.
SPEAKER_02:So you can have attack plays for example allowing you to dismiss captains duty officers. Yeah. I mean you have attack players allowing to steal resources so dilithium for example and they can be really good. And what we haven't really talked about is the idea of currency. Currency early game is mainly about being able to walk with ships but as the game goes on you need to use that currency to be able to buy your development costs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And sometimes that can be really difficult. I have lost the opportunity to buy development cards so many times because I haven't had the currency because of of various reasons attacks that steal it from then you steal my currency and it suddenly becomes so much harder.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah you've you've definitely used those cards strategically knowing full well that my decks are about to run out and I've just been stockpiling things.
SPEAKER_00:But I think it takes a while to get there. You have to get through I you know we always say six games a minimum for when we would be review something I as I said earlier we we're 10 games into this and I feel like I'm just starting to exit the tutorial area. Yeah no I in video game parlance um yeah but yeah in in in general this is fiercely competitive as a two player game of this ill could be and the potential for it to become more competitive as time goes on is a real secret source for me which I love in games. I want something that's gonna that's gonna build and I can consciously through the scoring and through playing it see my skill with it developing which is what you know you really want in something like this. So go on then how did you score a a nine so I also scored it a nine no point difference there. Right so our final score is scalability or country material it's an NA in this it's a two player game and only a two player game. God I can't imagine how long this would go on for if you can play it with four players but I think that's why it's not a four player. So we just don't count that one. So we add those up and that gives us a two player rating of 8.25 so you round down to an eight. So an eight and an eight which is definitely on the yeah I'd be quite happy rating this is an eight yeah I think in general this is one of those things where if the complexity doesn't scare you off and you're cognizant of you know the heavier side of all gaming and you have even a passing interest in the theme by don't do it now.
SPEAKER_02:And for 45 quid it's an absolute steal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah I can't recommend it enough in that sense but there are things that are buyer beware. Beware of the complexity and beware of the cutthroat nature of what it can get to because those are two things I know some people will be put off by I think you need to take those into account. If those are not something that will put you off I unreservedly recommend this. But also I want to know where is Wesley Crusher there's no Wesley Crusher I mean I'm not particularly attached to him but it seems that even conscious slight on Wheaton to not include him. I'm not buying that I am not buying that um but hey well thank you very much for joining us and I hope you enjoyed the episode and until next time have fun. Be good to each other play lots of board games.
