Star*Craft
Merchandising. As they said in Spaceballs, that’s where the real money of the movie is made. Game companies have finally learnt the same lesson, but it’s about more than just money – it’s about crossover potential. I know a guy who owns one game, the Mustang version of Monopoly, because he likes vintage mustangs. So when people ask why replicate a successful computer game as a board game, I wonder how they missed the point. Powerhouse board game designers Fantasy Flight Games has not missed the point, and have led the charge in crossover games, from TV tie-ins like Battlestar Galactica to webcomic favorites in the soon-to-be-released Penny Arcade card game. And from very early on they were doing computer game crossovers, with board game interpretations of Warcraft, World of Warcraft and our topic for today, Star*Craft. With usual FFG style, it comes with an absolute shirtload of beautiful toys, including 180 plastic miniatures, 230 full-color glossy cards and more chits than you can imagine, all packaged up in what people have dubbed their “epic” box-size, a prism about two feet long and eight inches deep. If nothing else, you can use the game to brain woodland creatures, so there’s something.
The concern about transforming a computer game into a board game is more warranted when addressing a product like Star*Craft. After all, computer strategy games arose out of tabletop wargames precisely because people didn’t like keeping track of lots of little details and chits. This is an undeniable issue with the game: it works hard to model as much as it possibly can from the computer game, in order to really provide the full range of choices the RTS provides, but in doing so it cannot avoid being significantly complex and noticeably slow-paced. However, with some deftness within those limitations, the extensive time and mental demands of the game are definitely rewarded with an engaging game experience, one nothing like the RTS game. But whether it rewards enough to justify the effort is a difficult question to answer.
The core mechanic is simple enough, and clever too. At the start of each turn, players take turns placing orders on the random selection of planets chosen for the game. The orders are placed face down and are resolved in reverse order, allowing players to react to other’s actions or bluff about their intentions. Indeed, if a player covers all his opponent’s orders with his own, he can ensure having several actions while his opponent has none. Everyone still gets their four orders executed however, and not being able to act for a round gives you a chance to collect more event cards, so a cut off player is neither heavily disadvantaged nor do they miss out on fun.
Since the actions are relatively simple, and there are only three of them, resolving each turn tends to be pretty quick, even if there is a lot of fighting. The analysis paralysis comes when choosing which orders to play and when to play them – especially since you need to think four moves ahead. A similar mechanic is used in FFG’s A Game of Thrones strategy board game, but there you have much greater flexibility in when and how you resolve those orders, and you can also all place your orders simultaneously, so it can go much quicker. Of course, this doesn’t allow for the reactions and counter-moves that Star*Craft provides, but unfortunately it is in the order placement that things tend to get the most bogged down. Like a lot of strategy games, time limits may be a good idea.
The orders in Star*Craft are much simpler than in A Game of Thrones. One is Research, which simply adds more combat cards and event cards to the player’s hand. One is Build, which allows you to build units on the planet in question. The last is Maneuver, which includes both moving troops and resolving the attack that arises. To further increase simplicity, you can only perform one attack per turn. You can also only move onto the planet at hand and each zone on the planet has a very tiny troop maximum for defenders and attackers, so fights can’t get huge. Building is also relatively straightforward, and clearly guided by cards. It involves moving your worker chits from your pool onto cards which represent the planetary resources you control. Put two workers on a gas card and one on a crystal card to build a unit that costs two gas and one crystal. Run out of workers and you’re done.
So far, all quite straightforward. The complexity comes in the many-fold things you can build, all their many different powers, and the complicated rules for how all their powers interact.
There are of course three different races, as per the computer game: the fast but weak Zerg, the slow but strong Protoss, and the inbetween Humans. Each race has two different factions, allowing for up to six players. Each race has the same units available, but have different starting forces and different win conditions, demanding quite different styles of play. Thankfully, every player’s reference sheet lists these goals so you can keep a check on your opponents.
The reference sheet is accompanied by a building track sheet, full of slots to place chits and card decks. Each advancement permits new units to be built, each of which has its strength and armor ratings, is a ground or air vehicle, can attack ground, air or both and may also be able to Cloak, or have the Detector ability, or cause Splash Damage – and may also have access to several upgrades through researching more technology. With all of these options, it takes many instances of play to understand which units are good at doing which things (and that some units are simply far better than others). Of course, just because you know what you want to build doesn’t mean you’ll be able to, because you can only build one upgrade per build order. It makes sense that the more powerful troops take a while to get online but that relationship doesn’t always hold true, and even when it does it often reduces early game turns to nothing but consolidation.
Consolidation turns wouldn’t be quite so bad if the end game wasn’t quite so fast and cutthroat. The game has a timing mechanism which prevents anyone from winning until the third phase has begun. However, from that point on, anyone can win and some of the win conditions are quite easy to get, especially for the Zerg players. Unless everyone is watching closely and ensuring every player is being checked in their moves by someone else, a player can easily sneak in a victory by going unnoticed. In fact, in early games we had players winning without even them noticing they had won for a while. There’s nothing wrong with this kind of “keep everyone down until one slips through the net” set-up, but it can be unsatisfying that the real decisions are made at the end, making those consolidation turns kind of meaningless. They can be immensely satisfying if you like building your empire, of course – but you might also make a slip, get slapped down and never quite recover before a speedy Zerg crosses the line.
Another case where randomness is a problem is in the actual combats. Each skirmish is decided by playing cards from a combat hand or from the tech deck. Each unit has an average strength and armor, but if you draw good cards it may exceed that, and if you draw weak cards you may not reach the average. Add in the countless interacting special effects and tech and it becomes quite difficult to predict the outcome of a battle. Again, this can be fun and exciting to play out, but it can also be frustrating to those looking for deep strategy.
I must stress again that the game play is lots of fun. The usual incredible high standard art design and construction from FFG provides delightful pieces, and moving your pieces around as you build your empire and expand across the different planets is enormously satisfying. It is fun to explore the tech deck each game and try out new troops and new approaches. It is fun to see how a single planet placement or starting neighbor can totally dominate an entire game. The problem is this is coupled with a game that is just too detailed and too long for casual play or for introducing to newbies with ease. Even after several sessions, we have trouble keeping games under five hours, and we continue to dive into the rulebook for clarifications. This wouldn’t be a problem at all if the game was better suited to those willing to take the time to play and study the rules in depth – but the strategy doesn’t quite seem to be there. There is too much randomness in every stage of the game to make it a really solid tactical exercise.
So we return back to the first issue once again: is it really worth playing, when you could play the computer game instead? The answer is still “maybe”. The board game has plenty to enjoy in it, particularly the fun of building and expanding through each new random set up and card draw. It is also has some degree of strategy. It has some depth and scope to explore. But unless your group is really used to dealing with games so full of detail and really enjoys longer games, they will probably not find quite enough strategy or quite enough fun to return to it. And that’s a damn shame, because Star*Craft is fun, and it has strengths. But it is also ultimately more likely to be more a shelf-warmer than a recurring favorite – and thus is better saved for completists. Two and a half stars.