Also it is announced on their twitter feed. I hope they put in some sort of Alliance rule so you can make the federation out of these three, or even go full mirror and make the (Klingon Cardassian) Alliance.

Theyre not releasing back to back? Hmm, odd.

I suspect once these comes out i'll never see cardassians in the game again. Their negative of having a ship in orbit of every colony is brutal and their battlegroups are meh. So far ive never seen a cardassian user win, closest i got was 3 turns behind the Ferengi buying the victory (literally, we kinda forgot to track his money and he ascended 3 times in 1 turn lol)

Wait so they really did Andorians and Vulcans?

Why not Dominion or Xindi or Tholians or Gorn or Tamarians?

I get it, they're big name species, but then what is actually the point of the Federation if its two most important/influential members are separate factions?

I believe they have stated that the Dominion will be another NPE group, like the Borg.

As for why they chose these two, who knows. They got out of playtesting faster than the others?

Dominion would have to be a Borg level thing, Dominion may not be the same level of danger but they were definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Undine would be in the same boat, though i'd be surprised to see them added in (Species 8479)

I do admit though it seems weird for Vulcans to be their own entity. I cant recall a single instance of a Vulcan ship doing anything other than the whole "first contact after a successful warp" thing. Theyre always either working in the Federation or an emissary-type person.

On 2/28/2018 at 1:30 PM, Forresto said:

Wait so they really did Andorians and Vulcans?

Why not Dominion or Xindi or Tholians or Gorn or Tamarians?

I get it, they're big name species, but then what is actually the point of the Federation if its two most important/influential members are separate factions?

Yeah I find it just as equally odd. I guess they may want a 4 player game in the enterprise era making the scale not exactly the era spanning game that the devs originally claimed. But with the Original Canon the Next Gen contradictions, the Enterprise Retconning, The JJ rebooting, and the Discovery parallel but connected universe, trying to stick to official canon no longer make sense for any Star Trek product.

Still I do hope for an alliance system for games with 5 or more players. One that makes teams that are not overpowering loners. Think of making your own Star Trek Canon where Vulcan and Romulan Reunification can happen or the mirror Universe of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance (hmmm Terran Empire expansion with Constitution class starship shaped pieces?)

On 2/28/2018 at 3:53 PM, Sithborg said:

I believe they have stated that the Dominion will be another NPE group, like the Borg.

As for why they chose these two, who knows. They got out of playtesting faster than the others?

I was hoping for more of a NPC/Playable with 4+ faction. (Working on making a playable house rules for the Borg to incorporate much of the elements with the other races by using components in the Borg Expansion). As for the Dominion well I hope they have some sort of Gama quadrant and Delta quadrant expansion. It is simple just make the system separate from the standard unexplored systems. So they are sort of like mini galactic islands that are connected by either Wormhole or Transwarp Conduit phenomena.

On 2/28/2018 at 1:30 PM, Forresto said:

Wait so they really did Andorians and Vulcans?

Why not Dominion or Xindi or Tholians or Gorn or Tamarians?

I get it, they're big name species, but then what is actually the point of the Federation if its two most important/influential members are separate factions?

So someone took some pictures of the expansions and posted them in his gallery. I'll link it below.

https://boardgamegeek.com/images/user/54257/mundane

So to summarize it.

Vulcans

Start off with 5 Ascendancy, they have a hidden agenda which is their victory condition. They have no Starbases, instead the have ambassadors and tokens they can move around and provide bonuses. Also their Advancements can cost production or culture instead of research.

• Logical Vulcans must retreat from a space battle if they are outnumbered by a rival who has more weapon and shield upgrades than the Vulcan player
• Honest Meddling A Vulcan Player cannot lie to other players (O'RLY*). A Vulcan player may spend a command to move a ship in a system with a Vulcan token on it.
• Vulcan High Council (Starting Advancement) Starting You may build ships and fleets at a planet you control with a Vulcan Ambassador. (Warp Icon)

Andorians

Not as crazy as the Vulcans but they strike me as being a faction that specialized in both technology advancement and combat (usually mutually exclusive in most 4x games)

• Field Testing When you win a space battle in which you destroyed another ship, you may take on of their ships and treat it as a research token. You must spend these tokens first when spending research, return the ship to their owner.
• Andorian Pride If your weapons or your shields are upgraded more than any other player take a culture token at the start of your turn, or if they are both better take two culture tokens.
• Unflagging Animosity (Starting Advancement) Military When a rival retreats from you in a space battle roll a die for each ship retreating, destroy one ship for each 5 or 6 rolled. When you retreat from a space battle each retreating ship may make an attack.

There you go sorry for the bump but search wasn't working so well.

Definitely interesting.

Yeah I am not too sure about the Andorians, and how to enforce Honest Meddling rule outside of keeping it to the Agenda card (as Vulcans may often exaggerated or even change their minds). Traditionally each faction had one bad thing (Prime Directive, Suspicious) and one good thing (Ever Victorious, Annexation) but the Andorians have (pun slightly intended) two good.