Obviously too early for people to have any indepth knowledge of the game, but am I the only who who feels this looks VERY similar to the Starcraft boardgame FFG made quite awhile ago? Not saying it's a bad thing. It's discontinued ages ago and it was a really good game. Just something i noticed and somewhat unsure if it's worth buying when i already have the starcraft boardgame.

at first look the "planning phase" with orders recalls Starcraft.

about other game mechanics i cant be more specific, i want to read other stuffs and rules before havin any opinion or do comments.

Yeah, there is some Starcraft in it, but there's also a lot more

Huge fan of both StarCraft and Runewars (And TI...) Can see some similarities but that is it so far. So they may borrow from past success does not mean it is exactly the same game. There will be some new components, ideas and all that as well. Look forward to more information about this game.

Wish it was 40K Armada!

Huge fan of both StarCraft and Runewars (And TI...) Can see some similarities but that is it so far. So they may borrow from past success does not mean it is exactly the same game. There will be some new components, ideas and all that as well. Look forward to more information about this game.

Wish it was 40K Armada!

*sigh* if only.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Starcraft is long gone and Game of Thrones the Boardgame is BASICALLY the same game but with the focus shifted from units, combat and deck building to scheming and interaction directly between players rather then via the boardgame, while the core mechanics are still pretty much the same.

I'd bet that Forbidden stars will be to Starcraft as Runewars was to Twilight Imperium

I'd bet that Forbidden stars will be to Starcraft as Runewars was to Twilight Imperium

Sorry, for the uninitiated such as me, can you elaborate?

One of the great things about SC:TBG/BW is that games do not take an entire day, unlike GoT. Hoping for the same from Forbidden Stars!

I'd bet that Forbidden stars will be to Starcraft as Runewars was to Twilight Imperium

Sorry, for the uninitiated such as me, can you elaborate?

Read: similar in some ways, but not identical.

A little bit "TI" plus "Starcraft" equals "Forbidden Stars".

It's ok for people that not own Starcraft (great game imho). For me it isn't worth the money, also not with its additional mechanics and content. I need the money to buy the huge amount of expensive Descent

I'd bet that Forbidden stars will be to Starcraft as Runewars was to Twilight Imperium

Sorry, for the uninitiated such as me, can you elaborate?

Read: similar in some ways, but not identical.

Yep!

It's like Descent (second edition) and Imperial Assault. The "same game" re-themed and evolved.

The combat is the main difference: dice based (but you still play cards and they can be more powerful depending of the units in the battle),

however, both games have:

order stacks (last in first out)

event cards played at the end of the turn,

the same three turn phases,

the same three orders (move, buy, research)

maximum area's unit capacity ,

only air/ground areas (broodwar expansion)

bases/factories to allow buying units in a planet/tile

...

Of course, you have new (and better I hope!) stuff like the fourth order (dominate), different resources, four event decks (instead of one), and, of course, the combat.

In fact, I think that Runewars and TI3 are much less similar that this two!

PD: Sorry for the lateness!

Yes, there are a lot of similarities between the two games, but I feel that there are enough differences between them that you don't feel like you're just playing a re-skinned game.

The biggest differences:

Combat resolution is completely different, including the use of dice.

Combat deck is always just 10 cards.

Ships are placed in voids; ground units are placed on planets.

Objective tokens are collected, rather than accruing points on a victory point track.

Unit cost does not involve two different types of resources (unless you count the occasional forge token).

Four different types of order tokens instead of three.

Game board tiles are not the same on both sides.

I'm about to play my first game of FS but from reading the rules FS is less an adaptation of Starcraft and more along the lines of "borrowing" established mechanics which is actually a really good way to design big board games.

Typically Big Board games (aka complex multi hour board games) that are designed from scratch without basing their mechanics on established games don't work out very well. This is why often 2nd and 3rd edition games are better than their predescessors as they take what works and re-develop that didn't (3rd Edition Twilight Imperium, 2nd edition descent are some good examples of that in action).

Starcraft had a lot of new ideas in it, some that I think are very good, others that fell flat (and actually infected other games that fell equally flat).

For example the command actions (stacking commands on top of each other) as a method of taking actions is actually a well established mechanic that works well. You see it in games like Games of Thrones and of course in Starcraft (one of the things that worked really well in that game) as some examples.

Other things in Starcraft like pure card based combat doesn't work that well and we have seen it fall flat in a couple of games not just Starcraft (Sid Meier's Civilization, Rune Wars for a couple of examples). It just doesn't work that well, it lacks the dynamics.

Fortunatly these are the things that FS corrects, for example they brought dice into the game mixed in with the card combat and that is a good idea, it creates those clutch moments and a bit of dynamic randomness that means when you go into a fight, while the odds might be stacked against you, its not a presumed loss based on the available information you have. I know that Euro gaming really likes that "fixed" pure strategy approach to gaming but it just doesn't work particularly well in games with combat systems. You really need that randomness to get that dynamic illusion that only randomness can offer.

I do see a lot of Starcraft in this game, but I don't think you can say that if you like Starcraft you will like this (or if you didn't you won't like it).

One bad thing about extended combat (which Starcraft also had) was that it creates downtime and FS very clearly suffers from extended downtime for players not involved in combat as a combat can take a few minutes to resolve. How much of an impact that will have on your group and on your experiance I think will be something you will see argued on these forums in the future and you will see "how to speed up combat" threads in the near future if there aren't any already.

As a precurser to that argument, something I often say about all Big Board games is that downtime is part of the deal. Wether its TI3, Games of Thrones or other broad (big epics) along those lines, the time commitment and potential downtime is always there and its just something you have to accept about the game. Im sure there will be ways to speed it up, most of the time it will come down to experiance with the game but its there and it always will be.

I'm about to play my first game of FS but from reading the rules FS is less an adaptation of Starcraft and more along the lines of "borrowing" established mechanics which is actually a really good way to design big board games.

Typically Big Board games (aka complex multi hour board games) that are designed from scratch without basing their mechanics on established games don't work out very well. This is why often 2nd and 3rd edition games are better than their predescessors as they take what works and re-develop that didn't (3rd Edition Twilight Imperium, 2nd edition descent are some good examples of that in action).

Starcraft had a lot of new ideas in it, some that I think are very good, others that fell flat (and actually infected other games that fell equally flat).

For example the command actions (stacking commands on top of each other) as a method of taking actions is actually a well established mechanic that works well. You see it in games like Games of Thrones and of course in Starcraft (one of the things that worked really well in that game) as some examples.

Other things in Starcraft like pure card based combat doesn't work that well and we have seen it fall flat in a couple of games not just Starcraft (Sid Meier's Civilization, Rune Wars for a couple of examples). It just doesn't work that well, it lacks the dynamics.

Fortunatly these are the things that FS corrects, for example they brought dice into the game mixed in with the card combat and that is a good idea, it creates those clutch moments and a bit of dynamic randomness that means when you go into a fight, while the odds might be stacked against you, its not a presumed loss based on the available information you have. I know that Euro gaming really likes that "fixed" pure strategy approach to gaming but it just doesn't work particularly well in games with combat systems. You really need that randomness to get that dynamic illusion that only randomness can offer.

I do see a lot of Starcraft in this game, but I don't think you can say that if you like Starcraft you will like this (or if you didn't you won't like it).

One bad thing about extended combat (which Starcraft also had) was that it creates downtime and FS very clearly suffers from extended downtime for players not involved in combat as a combat can take a few minutes to resolve. How much of an impact that will have on your group and on your experiance I think will be something you will see argued on these forums in the future and you will see "how to speed up combat" threads in the near future if there aren't any already.

As a precurser to that argument, something I often say about all Big Board games is that downtime is part of the deal. Wether its TI3, Games of Thrones or other broad (big epics) along those lines, the time commitment and potential downtime is always there and its just something you have to accept about the game. Im sure there will be ways to speed it up, most of the time it will come down to experiance with the game but its there and it always will be.

You don't stack orders in Game of Thrones? Unless me and my friends have missed something very serious in the rules. But yeah, I like it. The rule is simple to read, understand yet contains alot of complexity as adds alot player interaction.

Personally I love card based combat, I don't mind dice, but sometimes it's nice to know you won because you made the right decisions and prepared properly and not feel like i'm 14 playing Risk again. And hating every time I loose while doing nothing "wrong". I'd say game of thrones, at least the base game, does card combat pretty bad as everyone knows your hand and can guess at what you're going to play based on the fight and it can get dull and repetetive, which is why GoT focuses more on scheming then combat.

Downtime in starcraft is there, true. but combat never felt slow for my sake and my players saw the battles coming and all were interested in seeing what was going to happen. One combat CANNOT last that long when you only have 1 round of combat as opposed to 3, as both players will have prepared in advance.

I'll agree that FS probably has a niche that is slightly different from Starcraft and probably has improved some of the issues starcraft has/had. You can't deny that the core mechanic is vastly different though. I'm rather unsure if I'll buy it as alot of people have complained about long downtime with 4 players and that's kind of the amount of players i want for a game like this. We shall see !

Just a short note on the randomness of FS. There is not much of it.

You roll X dice and can get a variety of combinations of Guns, Shields and Morale.

There is no "failed" roll, you just have to adapt you cardplay accordingly.

If you roll alot of shilds and morale, you dig in and try to win on morale.

If you roll alot of guns, you try to end the battle as quickly as possible even if it costs you units.

It is, in my opinion, a fantastic battle system since it minimizes the bad luck and promotes good skills in building your battle deck over the game, not locking yourself in with a single strategy but instead spreading out to give yourself options, should the rolls present themselves.