Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy Review & Retrospective

upon its release in 2011 eclipse a new dawn for the galaxy was a paradigm shift for the gaming world a game of space-faring dominion and interstellar combat that emphasized organic technological development and varying paths to victory eclipse received wide critical acclaim for bridging the gap between european and american game design sensibilities one of the blueprints that heralded hybrid games for years to come now nearly 10 years later eclipse has returned to a very different gaming landscape one partially shaped by its own impact and yet while many of its innovations have become expectations within various genres in our hobby it's the freedom and fluidity of eclipse that still manages to stand on its own so let's take a look at what this game is in the first place eclipse is a 4x game which for those of you who don't speak old-school pc gaming lingo that stands for explore expand exploit and exterminate but calling it 4e would be too simple and x is objectively the coolest letter in the alphabet thus for x so in these games to achieve success you are not just empowered to but expected in some degree to explore new territory expand your holdings there exploit the local resources and potentially exterminate enemies what makes a clip so special is the latitude through which you can lean into any of these aspects of the game to score points and ultimately claim victory the core gameplay is action selection and resource management your planetary holdings produce money science and materials that fuel your capabilities guided by you at the seat of your galactic empire during your turn you select an action resolve it and rotate play with fellow players until you choose to pass out of the round but so long as you have the scratch you can continue taking actions that build new ships upgrade your technology explore neighboring star systems and confront your enemies the problem is that the cost of taking actions becomes more and more expensive with each disc you use this is further compounded by the fact that your action discs are also removed from your pool to establish control in a sector of space meaning that as the game goes on you'll have more and more expensive upkeep it ain't cheap to fund an eternal space faring civilization but if the core gameplay of eclipse is resource management the beating heart is the initial and continuous development of asymmetric powers through the various factions and technological upgrades each player controls one of six alien civilizations or any or all players can flip over their board and play as humans basically the vanilla suburbanite civilization from the fallen empire with its superior combat but lingering debt to the cyborgs with their uber efficiency to the fanatics who worship the ancients and can cohabitate with npcs each have their own unique persistent effects and loadouts of starting technologies that dramatically influence their play but these are just starting points each round new technology is drawn that can be researched unlocking new potential for its possessor some give you special bonuses like more efficient actions or access to advanced resource production others allow you to upgrade your ships for greater mobility and combative capabilities and it's the scarcity of these upgrades and the looming presence of threat that drives the beautiful and unique complexity of the game [Music] while participation and hopefully success in combat itself can net points the fourth x extermination is generally a means to an end initially players are cut off from one another needing to explore space to chart its mysterious territories as wormholes are connected from tile to towel you even have a degree in control of blocking access or providing pathways to your neighbors itself feeling like a microaggression worthy of notice to everyone at the table but exploration also populates npc ancients of varying severity blocking your expansion and hiding unique discoveries providing a unique technological puzzle to overcome whether it's with npcs or opponents combat happens one in the same where opposing ships cohabitating space at the end of a round continue to volley shots at one another until one side proves victorious and yes combat in eclipse is based around dice but what makes a clip so unique is the amount of control that you have in tooling these probabilities in general every faction has three different classes of mobile ships that can be upgraded to fire more shots fire more accurately move more spaces per action take more hits reduce accuracy of enemy fire or even fire stronger blasts but much of this is limited by the space for upgrades on your ship's blueprint and the amount of energy your ship produces which itself can be upgraded provided you've researched the tech furthermore every movement every build every research and upgrade costs precious resources and the pool of technology that populates means that your own approach to combat may be different than your opponents maybe you have limited damage output but rely on extreme likelihood to hit or maybe you have space behemoths that are so armor-plated that they could take wave after wave of damage until they manage a success and if you upgrade to overcome these ancients opponents notice they upgrade in their own unique ways in the event that it ever comes to a brawl or maybe it doesn't maybe they create a blockade of smaller ships to ensure you can't invade their territory or maybe they'll develop a counter to your own strategy or maybe they'll even offer a non-aggression pact allowing you to easier pursue the center guarded by the mamothy and galactic defense npc it's this sort of cold war and escalation of power as you pursue your own ends that drive interaction inner player combat may happen but until the final couple of rounds it tends to be pretty minimal too risky to pick a fight unless it's over particularly advantageous regions or you just left yourself too vulnerable but that's what i love about eclipse even if there's a tenuous standstill by opposing forces the game provides meaningful challenges to overcome the ancient ships are often as threatening as those controlled by other players there's territory to explore new discoveries to obtain and technology to research making your economic militant dominion more profitable and secure all of this builds to the eighth and final round where players tend to make bigger gambits resulting in massive power exchanges whether you've set up defensive barriers to securely build point-bearing monoliths sweep up massive amounts of tech to get point rewards from tech trees or wrestle away valuable territory at the center tensions are high and every action you take informs the possibilities and risks available to everyone else that said this game won't be for everyone no matter how much mitigation there is luck be it from the draw of system tiles to just bad roles in a critical confrontation will play a factor there are so many nuanced systems and eclipse ranging from formalized diplomacy to pinning moving ships to low power reactive actions after passing out of around to specialized technologies that defy fundamental aspects of the game though the core aspects of action selection and resource management remain intuitive and precise in a way that feels remarkably elegant for so much subtlety and overhead almost 10 years later eclipse remains one of my absolute favorite games and it's incredible that this new edition preserves that core identity of the game while feeling aesthetically modern in a way that the original never really did would beautifully upgraded visual presentation fine-tuning of rules like further incentivizing early passing and reducing the number of rounds from nine to eight a consolidation is some of the best concepts from old expansions like the mega powered blue cannons and some desperately needed organizational tools to make managing the game so so much easier this new release is everything this game should be but even with that polish taken away and the legacy of its impact removed at its core eclipse remains a beautiful anomaly a true forex game empowering you to cultivate an empire through a fluid mix of exploration expansion exploitation and extermination organically responding to adversity threat and potential in ways unlike anything else that has come out to date if you enjoyed this video we have all kinds of other reviews interviews and recommendations via writing podcasts and video here on our channel and website cardboardherald.com our content is audience supported so if you want to show your support please visit our patreon thank you so much for watching this has been the cardboard herald

Channel: The Cardboard Herald

Views: 10,988

Rating: 4.9450173 out of 5

Keywords: 2nd, 4x, space, exploration, exploitation, battle, combat, board, game, tabletop, games, gamer, gaming, a new dawn, 1st, edition

Id: NbiFcenxYTY

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Solid video. Like many 2.0 treatments recently, something about the heavy infusion of plastic, peculiar mechanical sidegrades, and general aesthetic just doesn't do much for me, at least not enough to warrant replacing games I already own. Having given Second Dawn a spin lately I'm honestly really glad I kept my first edition with Rise of the Ancients. What I will say though, is that I'm thankful that a whole new round of folks will be able to get this game. It's good. Comparatively, I don't know if the new msrp is 'worth it', but at least it's available.

[u/Dice_and_Dragons]

Eclipse and Twilight Imperium are two i have always wanted to play but just can’t get to the table.

[u/Nimeroni]

Unfortunatly, the mechanics was what I hoped they would modernize. The game is a bit too long and the combat is a bit too random for most people I play with.

[u/Placiibo]

TI4 has completely supplanted Eclipse at our table. It's a better game and the time commitment is similar. Second dawn looks like a better version aesthetically but they didn't go far enough with the gameplay.

[u/j3ddy_l33]

Hey this was a nice thing to wake up to. Thanks for posting!

[u/daFunkyUnit]

Is this game currently available at retail?

[u/JBlitzen]

Game aside, that’s a really well made video. Very watchable and a great overview, not five fat guys talking to a camera. Easy subscribe. Thanks!

[u/hypotenmoose]

Are there other games that use an action track with increasing upkeep costs per turn?

[u/Varianor]

Well presented review. Although I see an error at 2:16 - unless it was staged merely for the looks. There are two monoliths - love the new miniature - on a hex. You can only have one.