i have not played Rebellion but its rather popular around here. One time on friday we literally had six games going at the flgs, it was kinda funny to see BOARD GAMES hog the tables for once. Ive observed and read the rules, and it seems really dull to me both because its semi-static in whats going on each game independent of the player's actions and it got a LOT of stuff to track.

Also the strict 2 player format bugs me. Its 4player rules are not 4player, its 1v1 with a stat tracker. Ascendancy is planning to goto 10 players since theres 10 turn order cards in the box. I doubt i'd ever get that many people at the same time let alone have the SPACE for it because even just the normal 3player game can easily hog up a large table quickly.

Ascendancy's price is more in the work that went in the rules than anything else. Board games in general are kinda expensive because of that, you have to word everything in a way that theres no confusion. And in a 4x style game, thats not easy. I play 4x games all the time and ive never started playing one with prior knowledge on what i was doing, but because it was a computer game i didnt have to worry about not knowing the rules. Cant do that with a board game.

Also FFG is a bigger company so they can afford to have it be a bit cheaper lol.

So i had my first game today: love it!

I will say this though: its a true 4X strategy game. I played with one of my friends and his 16yr old son, all 3 of us did completely different tactics, but his son did the ultimate 4X mistake: he declared war almost immediately. Five turns he built his fleet with only 3 resource nodes, attacked his dad's homeworld (romulons) and razed it. But, his dad was expanding and got a lot of lucky free colonies so he had SEVEN colonies already, most of which werent fully developed but they had something on there. He built a fleet in 2 turns that retaliated and crippled his sons forces: meanwhile im the bystander Federation that walks in and picks up the free loot rofl.

Basically it went like this:

Son/Klingons: Immediate war with minimal productions to back it up, or research. Boosted his weapons/shields once, thats it

Dad/Romulons: Expanded for resources and moderate research: boosted weapons/shields once and had a TON of researches/ships.

Me: Research. I boosted my weapons/shields three times and had 5 techs researched, but only had moderate resources. My ships were basically 2x theirs though as a result.

Totally different strats: just funny that the son did the "i will lose or win now" strat lol

5 Ascendancy to win is way too fast. It seems like a lot, but when i got my third i did the math and i could literally win in 4 turns and considering they had no connections to me yet, odds are i could have EASILY won in 4 more turns. I opted out of that and recommended we went to 7 to win: which the store closed before we got that far but it was kinda decided anyway: Romulons took the Klingon homeworld, i took theirs as it was razed and not colonized again, and i had the most weapons/shields research since i spent most of my time hunting anomalies for research.

There is NOT enough planets lol. We ran out of planets fairly quick, i was kinda surprised. The 4-5player expansions are suppose to come with more planets though so hopefully theyre generous with them, because i'd rather run out of table space than planets. And we could have easily found a way to add 10 more worlds lol. Which is funny because we had like 5x the warp lanes we needed for the game.

Im really hoping i misread how Hegemony works, because i think its too powerful. Federation cant invade planets, period, so they can only take it through "cultural influence" i.e. Hegemony. The way it works is every node on a planet (max = 4, counting the control node) + you Ascendancy = the result the other player needs before adding his own bonuses to the roll. I took over a klingon planet that had a resistance of 8 due to his research, 3 ascendancy, and 4 nodes. I had 4 ascendancy and federation +1 bonus, which brought his resistance down to three. Meaning now i need a 4+ on a SINGLE DIE ROLL which i have a fleet that lets me reroll that to flat out take over the colony. No risk at all other than potentially wasting some culture tokens if i fail.

Hegemony is honestly the #1 thing i dislike in the game: only because its just too easy. So easy to the point that i am convinced i misread the rules, even though i cant find where i goofed.

Hegemony does seem like invasion with a different name in the ways you perform it. In both Invasion and Hegemony

• You need a ship in Orbit
• You need to make a dice roll
• You take over the planet

I think there should have possibly been some diplomacy type setup which may have brought in an additional risk like a crisis card per failed hegemony. (Draw Exploration until you receive a crisis). But that is another issue. I still can't wait until I get the Cardisian and Ferengi Expansions. Then it will feel like a true 4x game.

So is Ascendency worth buying?

If you love Star Trek - Yes

If you enjoy Civilization or Twilight Imperium and don't mind down time then probably.

Overall im enjoying it quite a bit.Played a game yesterday as well.

It sorta has a bit of a rockpaperscissors effect with the upgrade cards though. I played romulans this time and i bolted for heavy research because romulan tech is nuts, also culture per finished research (once). The techs are labeled Military, Espionage, and i think Diplomacy is the third off the top of my head. All four of my techs were military, and they +2 shields +1 weapon let me completely demolish 20 Starfleet vessels with only 6 ships (he needed 6s to hit me, i needed 5s, i ignored the first damage each round of battle and i got lucky in the First Strike and took out 4 ships before they even fired). But, Klingons showed up since i was about to win with ascendancy (they literally beat me the EXACT MOMENT i was going to win, since you have to finish all turns before checking victory) and he had a tech that he can burn to flip all my military techs down, rendering them useless. ALL of them. The 9 ships i had on my homeworld didnt stand a chance against 20 klingon warships that had +1 shield and +2 weapons (so he needed 5s and i needed 5s, no first strike, no ignore first damage each round of battle). He took my homeworld, which is a requirement for any victory, so my 5 ascendancy victory didnt kick in. Was also my last place i could build ships so i was wiped out entirely.

Federation won because the Klingons opted to not attack them for 1 round and reposition their third fleet, even tho he didnt need it. Literally because of this he was missing enough commands to invade Earth, even though he occupied the space around it, and he won with 5 ascendancy before he could invade lol.

Also i think its kinda dumb Federation cant invade other players. Prime Directive only applied to prewarp civilizations and prevented you from invading fledgling warp capable species to exploit them. It did nothing in an all out war.

Oh, on that note, its hilarious when the federation player finds 3 prewarp civs right off the bat. They cant do anything to prewarp planets...at all. I think they should be able to park a ship in there and get a research from it.

I asked about the Hegemony on some boardgame forum the developers poke their head into sometimes and found i forgot that Starbases add to the Hegemony resistance. Hegemony is still VERY powerful and i really think there should be a risk against other players. I out-ascended the Federation by 1 on a system with a starbase, 3 nodes, and a control node for a total of 9+ resistance. His ascendance brought that to a 6+, and his tech to a 5+ so he needed a 6 to get it. That is the best you can hope for defensively. He failed FOUR TIMES (had the culture banked up to do it) and the 5th and final try he got it. No rebuttal for a failed attempt other than a burned command and culture. I think the colony should fire as they basically just got insulted that the federation would ever suggest defecting their own race and joining their side lol

edit: clarification on my wording: im used to writing the + after the number. Its actually +5 resistance not a 5+ result succeeds. He needs to exceed my resistance, which means on a 5 or lower he fails since thats my resistance.

I really want the two expansions. Both because then theres actual choices in your race, play 4 player to prevent the "first player to declare war gets ganged on" mentality that 3ffa matches tend to do in ANY game, and get more systems. Because they do NOT give you enough systems off the bat lol. I really hope they release a booster pack of more starlanes, resources, and ~15 more systems in the future. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

TLDR; great game, no game is perfect, really needs more planets.

First time they came across one when Q decided to be a prick, it folded their defenses like a hot knife through butter (and their hull).

Alerting and preparing the Federation to the existence and coming of the Borg is one of the nicest things Q has ever done.

First time they came across one when Q decided to be a prick, it folded their defenses like a hot knife through butter (and their hull).

Alerting and preparing the Federation to the existence and coming of the Borg is one of the nicest things Q has ever done.

Well before Star Trek Enterprise Q was responsible for the coming of the Borg.

For those who have played while I understand the game is supposed to be played optimally by three people is it possible to play two player in a casual setting? I only know one person who I can play the game with consistently so three or more players when the expansions come out isn't looking too hot for me at the current moment. Would two factions throw off the rules too much or is it potentially, and moderately easy to adjust the rules for two?

As for the Borg: If I recall correctly well before Q Who there were border colonies going missing on the edges of the Federation and Romulan Star Empire that were the doing of the Borg. I think the general idea is that the Borg and the civilizations of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were going to come into conflict eventually. It's just Q sped up the time table. Perhaps the Borg didnt realize how advanced Humanity was and they decided to send a ship to prevent our further development?

I don't know the mechanics of this game but the idea of the Borg showing up eventually and wrecking house sounds awesome. However I think they should be optional as well.

First time they came across one when Q decided to be a prick, it folded their defenses like a hot knife through butter (and their hull).

Alerting and preparing the Federation to the existence and coming of the Borg is one of the nicest things Q has ever done.

Well before Star Trek Enterprise Q was responsible for the coming of the Borg.

Star Trek Enterprise? *waves hand* There was no Star Trek Enterprise.

As for the Borg: If I recall correctly well before Q Who there were border colonies going missing on the edges of the Federation and Romulan Star Empire that were the doing of the Borg. I think the general idea is that the Borg and the civilizations of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were going to come into conflict eventually. It's just Q sped up the time table. Perhaps the Borg didnt realize how advanced Humanity was and they decided to send a ship to prevent our further development?

That i didn't know but in a episode of the non existing show ( is this better YwingAce ) they revived some of the timetraveling Borg from the First Contact and they then borgified some people and a ship and send a message back home which would take a very long time to get there and this gave the Borg knowledge of earth and humanity.

As for the Borg: If I recall correctly well before Q Who there were border colonies going missing on the edges of the Federation and Romulan Star Empire that were the doing of the Borg. I think the general idea is that the Borg and the civilizations of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were going to come into conflict eventually. It's just Q sped up the time table. Perhaps the Borg didnt realize how advanced Humanity was and they decided to send a ship to prevent our further development?

That i didn't know but in a episode of the non existing show ( is this better YwingAce ) they revived some of the timetraveling Borg from the First Contact and they then borgified some people and a ship and send a message back home which would take a very long time to get there and this gave the Borg knowledge of earth and humanity.

Yeah it's the first episode of TNG where the Romulans show up and they do the whole ominous speech to Picard at the end that was basically "We've been gone for too long but now we're back now go and tell everyone the Romulans are here." The reason that happened though was because the Romulans were investigating their border colonies, as was the Enterprise, that I believe were described as being scooped up just as the Borg later did to a colony at the beginning of Best of Both Worlds.

As for the Borg: If I recall correctly well before Q Who there were border colonies going missing on the edges of the Federation and Romulan Star Empire that were the doing of the Borg. I think the general idea is that the Borg and the civilizations of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were going to come into conflict eventually. It's just Q sped up the time table. Perhaps the Borg didnt realize how advanced Humanity was and they decided to send a ship to prevent our further development?

That i didn't know but in a episode of the non existing show ( is this better YwingAce ) they revived some of the timetraveling Borg from the First Contact and they then borgified some people and a ship and send a message back home which would take a very long time to get there and this gave the Borg knowledge of earth and humanity.

I can't believe that show that never existed desecrated something as holy as First Contact like that!

Seven of Nine was borgified ten years or so before Q Who.

So Q sending Picard towards the Borg was a warning and allowed them to prepare.

Seven of Nine was borgified ten years or so before Q Who.

So Q sending Picard towards the Borg was a warning and allowed them to prepare.

You are right didn't know that, but i'm not entirely sure if Q's reasons where good or just showing the Enterprise crew that they are not as good as they think.

This from the Wiki ist also interesting:

It was once contested whether Q's actions provided the Borg Collective with knowledge of the Federation's existence, directly contributing to the invasion a year later, or if the Borg had preexisting knowledge of Humanity and that Q, whatever his motives, gave the Federation an early warning it would not have had, otherwise. In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode " Regeneration ", it was implied that the Borg became aware of Humanity c. 2153 and that the Borg cube in "Q Who" had been traveling in the general direction of Earth since then, confirming the latter. Additionally, Star Trek: Voyager established that Magnus and Erin Hansen had been studying the Borg in the 2350s until their capture and assimilation in 2356 . In TNG : " Q Who ", it is also insinuated, though never confirmed, that the Borg were behind the destruction of Starfleet and Romulan Neutral Zone outposts in 2364 , a series of attacks first established in TNG : " The Neutral Zone ".

It would be interesting to know if anything of that was planned or it just happend, where the Borg already invented when the plot for the Neutral Zone was written, or did they just use it or did they themselves made no connections between those two events? Same for Voyager and the show that shall not be named, did they just write something they thought was good, or did they really consider establishing a bigger timeline/chain of events for the Borg?

Nevertheless Q is one of my favourite Star Trek charakters and i wihs he would have gotten more DS9 episodes and some in the show that shall not be named.

On Voy, they had to be aware that bringing in an adult character who had been borgified while very young would have consequences for the timeline. That must've been a concious decision.

If you read memory alpha on the neutral zone episode it is confirmed that the seeds for the borg were planted in season 1.

So is Ascendency worth buying?

If you are a fan of Star Trek and you like 4x Board games (because you are a fan of Star Trek) then yes. It is agoodgame for Star Trek fans to have.

First time they came across one when Q decided to be a prick, it folded their defenses like a hot knife through butter (and their hull).

Alerting and preparing the Federation to the existence and coming of the Borg is one of the nicest things Q has ever done.

Well before Star Trek Enterprise Q was responsible for the coming of the Borg.

Star Trek Enterprise? *waves hand* There was no Star Trek Enterprise.

We do not talk about series that didn't have a Orchestra Symphony for the intro. I mean seriously, a rock and roll cover for the intro to a Star Trek series?

I mean this was way better in all forms.

Actually, the final season of Enterprise was pretty good. They got a new show runner that year and he fixed it and started doing the stories they should have done from the beginning. If they had, it might have ended up running the full 7 years and been just as good as DS9 (by far the best Star Trek has ever been). Instead they had 2 years of crap and a third year that was so much worse than crap as to be comical and by then it was too late to save.

When I recorded the show I kept around 2 dozen episodes as worth re watching, and 13-14 of them are from the last season.

So is Ascendency worth buying?

If you are a fan of Star Trek and you like 4x Board games (because you are a fan of Star Trek) then yes. It is agoodgame for Star Trek fans to have.

First time they came across one when Q decided to be a prick, it folded their defenses like a hot knife through butter (and their hull).

Alerting and preparing the Federation to the existence and coming of the Borg is one of the nicest things Q has ever done.

Well before Star Trek Enterprise Q was responsible for the coming of the Borg.

Star Trek Enterprise? *waves hand* There was no Star Trek Enterprise.

We do not talk about series that didn't have a Orchestra Symphony for the intro. I mean seriously, a rock and roll cover for the intro to a Star Trek series?

I mean this was way better in all forms.

Thanks for the links looks good.

I personaly liked the intro song of the show that shall not be named, i thought it fit well with what one saw in the intro and the idea of the first deep space vessel of humanity.

And i really liked the two In a Mirror, Darkly episodes although the Defiant which uses the look of the classic does not look like a more advanced ship than the Enterprise in my opinion and i really wished they would have shown the first conflict between the Federation and the Romulans.

Btw what do you think about the teasers for the new show? I'm personally not quite sure if i like the new ships look, it doesn't look like a Federation ship to me.

And because we are in the X-Wing forum i have to say i'm really sad that Star Trek Attack Wing is so unbalanced, i quite like the core rules and that every ship had a mission card in it's blister like the Kobayashi Maru for the classic Enterprise.

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

A show hated on excessively even though it did more to tie the franchise back to the Original Series, arguably the best series, then any other in the franchise. I mean come on you can hate the show for many reasons but they did incredibly well at developing the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites.

It was really cool bease it genuinely felt that humanity was discovering something new every episode. THEY constantly got their butts kicked.

Enterprise for me felt the most like the original series then the others and go me that's only a good thing.

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

A show hated on excessively even though it did more to tie the franchise back to the Original Series, arguably the best series, then any other in the franchise. I mean come on you can hate the show for many reasons but they did incredibly well at developing the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites.

It was really cool bease it genuinely felt that humanity was discovering something new every episode. THEY constantly got their butts kicked.

Enterprise for me felt the most like the original series then the others and go me that's only a good thing.

Best series would have to be DS9 (Personal opinion)

Enterprise is...okay, it has a few good points but it has numerous points that can be pointed out for being bad. I kind of feel that it was a little jarring truthfully in comparrison to TOS just stylistically, like how do they go from a NASA/modern design to a 60s fueled one? But the mirrior universe episodes are great, as is most of the fourth season. And the third season was okay, if not just for the fact that they had a season long plot rather than being almost entirely episodic, though again personal opinion.

And haven't gotten Ascendancy yet but from everything I've seen it is the most Star Trek game I've seen in quite sometime.

Btw what do you think about the teasers for the new show? I'm personally not quite sure if i like the new ships look, it doesn't look like a Federation ship to me.

I'm not super excited for it just over the teaser, and I hate that it will only be available on the CBS app, and will supposedly they will only be uploading an episode a week instead of just dropping it and letting people binge like on Netflix. I think the app is charged monthly so if and when I see it will be either once a season is done or when the series is done. I'm just sad we haven't had a new season of trek in so long and that the first one we do feels like it is more of a cash grab for an app than for being a show for the fans, but time will tell.

I have it. Haven't played it yet though. Awesome components. Looks fun. I plan to get the expansions, but it can be a long game and waiting for your turn to come around again can take awhile, according to some reviews.

Lol Saw the box up in the corner. I would love a video on it but maybe wait until the Cardassian and Ferengi Expansions come out first unless those become separate videos.

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

Star Trek Enterprise

Holy cricket I read that out aloud and a DVD box broke through my screen!

A show hated on excessively even though it did more to tie the franchise back to the Original Series, arguably the best series, then any other in the franchise. I mean come on you can hate the show for many reasons but they did incredibly well at developing the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites.

It was really cool bease it genuinely felt that humanity was discovering something new every episode. THEY constantly got their butts kicked.

Enterprise for me felt the most like the original series then the others and go me that's only a good thing.

I, too, enjoyed what little there was of it when it finaly got going, it just took a long while to do so which pretty much killed it. The show had bonus points for featuring a beagle!

Enterprise wasn't a bad idea, but fell flat on its face because of horrible writing, acting, and execution. The problem is modern day thinking. Everyone has short attention spans. They want to see sex, guns, and explosions on their screens with minimal story, and Enterprise for the most part sold out to that (same with the JJ movies). All of the depth and integrity of Star Trek was thrown out the airlock with Enterprise. Not to say there weren't a few good episodes, but on a large scale, it was just a shallow cash grab to exploit an old franchise.

Enterprise wasn't a bad idea, but fell flat on its face because of horrible writing, acting, and execution. The problem is modern day thinking. Everyone has short attention spans. They want to see sex, guns, and explosions on their screens with minimal story, and Enterprise for the most part sold out to that (same with the JJ movies). All of the depth and integrity of Star Trek was thrown out the airlock with Enterprise. Not to say there weren't a few good episodes, but on a large scale, it was just a shallow cash grab to exploit an old franchise.

thats part of the problem with startrek in general now days. Startrek has always been about the plot, theres dozens of episodes where the ship in question that series follows didnt fire a single shot.

But thats why i like Startrek more than Starwars. Starwars is nothing but fancy fights and energy-swords and space wizards. The plot goes all over the bloody place and their tech is so random its laughable. Startrek is believable, in fact a large chunk of what happens in Startrek involving technology is how i think we will end up: capital ship warfare with insanely advanced alloys and energy fields, not fighter tech. I dont think the Replicators are possible but aside from that all their tech is believable.

DS9 gets a lot of rep as the best startrek series, and personally i find it the lamest lol. I liked Voyager the most, i was upset they cut that series short and gave it a surprise "Welcome home!" episode finale.