Ad Astra
Science fiction would have you believe eventually we’ll wear out our welcome on Earth, or perhaps more accurately, we’ll wear out Earth itself, and at that point everyone has to look for new worlds. Hence, Ad Astra, wherein mankind has split into five factions based on the subspecies they have evolved into, each of which hurl themselves into the galaxy in search of a refill. Nine nearby star systems offer unknown quantities of resources among those planets in their orbit. These materials in turn create more equipment for further settlement and exploration, and whoever deploys their assets most wisely claims victory.
Players deploy action cards that determine what actions everyone takes, and in what order. Those who best anticipate their rivals’ plays can capitalize on them, letting someone else do some of the work needed to take the lead. It’s a non-random and (mostly) non-interference-based system that nevertheless allows heavy competition and short-term cooperation. Ad Astra is an easy introduction for all ages and skill levels, but it remains complicated enough that it holds the attention of even seasoned gamers looking for a fast, fun exploration game.
Players play mankind’s descendants, competing for new resources. They travel from one system to another, exploring the planets contained therein for the tools that make victory possible. Everyone starts the game with a starship in deep space and a factory on one of the planets in the home system. They have a hand of action cards, and one each of all the resources in the game as “seed.” After selecting someone for the first player position, the turn begins. During each round, players select three actions from their deck to build ships or structures, travel to new worlds, produce resources, and score points.
While everyone has the same number and type of cards, they don’t have identical options on those cards. For example, everyone has three production cards for generating resources, and on each card is a choice of either of two resources, but where one player may have a choice of water or food, another may have to decide between water or Xanthium ore. In the former case, the player can never generate water and food on the same round… if he wants both, he’d better hope someone else plays a card that mines the desired “missing” resource. Little variations like this mean some things cannot be accomplished until another player unwittingly uses a card that proves useful to his rivals.
Cards are placed on the numbered planning board, starting with the first player and going clockwise. Production cards make planets generate their designated resource; Movement allows ships to travel from planet to planet or system to system; Build cards create new ships and structures; players exchange needed resources with a Trade card; and Score cards add to players’ victory point totals. When everyone has placed three cards apiece (or four, depending on the number of players), the cards are turned over one at a time and resolved in order, starting with the first player. Everyone makes use of all the cards. That is, if a card turns out to be a scoring card, the owner of the card gets to decide what is scored (ships, colonies, perhaps even resources), but all the players get points for whatever gets chosen. The owning player does get some benefit – with a building card, for example, he gets to create multiple items while his rivals make only one.
A player need not place cards in order on the numbered spaces of the planning board, though, so someone who plays a scoring card may put it near the end of the order so he gains maximum play opportunities from anything that happens during the turn before scoring. If he wants to score for the number of ships he has, he may hope someone else played a Production card (to create new resources for everyone) and someone else played their Build card (so he can use those new resources to create yet another ship). A big part of the game is second-guessing one’s opposition, though, so if someone has a big fleet of ships, it’s a good bet he’ll try to score them. Rushing to build another ship might therefore earn a few more points before the turn is over.
Making planetfall on a new star system positions an explorer to gain more resources. They get to look at all the planets in that system and, if it’s available, choose the one that produces the resource they want. The remaining planets stay secret until someone lands at that system again. Having a ship at, say, a water planet generates one water resource card when someone plays a matching production card. If he has a ship and a colony, two cards come out, and the colony can be upgraded to a factory for even more cards. A terraformer is an imposing structure – it creates no cards, but it’s worth a lot of victory points at the end of the game. Some of these worlds are called “alien planets” (their terminology – would not all such worlds be “alien”?). These produce nothing, but by landing on them an explorer immediately receives a random Alien Artifact card that allows them some special power. For example, they may have the chance to retrieve a Scoring card early (see below) or win the game by achieving a specific point total.
When a turn ends, the players retrieve all their cards – all, that is, except the Scoring cards. Those only come back once the owner has played all three of his Scoring cards. If he has a good fleet of ships, he can’t just keep scoring for those over and over – he needs to cycle through the other forms of scoring before he can get any of them back. Once someone has hit or surpassed the 50-point mark on the planning sheet’s victory point track, he triggers the end game. When that round is finished, whoever has the highest point total is the winner.
Production values are high, with a lot of fun plastic miniatures and bits. Alas, a few come out of the box with a bend in the ship’s wing or some such, but mostly they’re well-molded and interesting shapes that hold up well and are easily identifiable. The same cannot always be said about the rest of the pieces. The blue, green, and gray action decks are easy to confuse, and one must train oneself to remember some star system symbols differ in size but not in design (“large star red” and “small star red,” for example). There are three kinds of ore, each with a different name (using an XYZ pattern of nomenclature), so that’s not exactly as intuitive as wool, lumber, and wood. You end up calling them as they look, not as what they are (“I’ll trade in one ‘gold’ and uhh… the one that looks like apple crumble”). The rules are mostly clear with some good examples of play, though the movement rules awkwardly contradict themselves within a couple of sentences. The player reference sheets are indispensable – literally, because the Alien Artifact card names are in Latin, and the translation and explanation of use are only to be found on the backs of those sheets. Kieran Yanner, Justin Albers, Fabio Maiorana, and Abyssal Studios are variously to be commended for the look and graphic appeal of the game. It’s splendid work, though some of the alien artifact illustrations can be downright goofy, reminiscent of Eon’s early Cosmic Encounter releases.
If Ad Astra sounds similar to an entry in the Catan game series, that’s because it is. About the only things missing are dice rolls and robbers, neither of which is much missed in this exercise. The name of this game is anticipation – calculating what your opponents are thinking and monitoring their plays during the turn to figure out what they’re likely to try next. Thus, anyone who can read their rivals is going to do well. Even if you can’t predict their actions properly, seeing what an opponent does during the game can give away elements of their strategy; follow in those footsteps and you’ll keep the scores close. Barring that, your opponents need a lot of energy cards to propel those craft; take over a lot of energy-producing worlds and they’re sure to trade with you.
The blurbs on the box are the usual bits of publisher puffery, making the whole thing seem more grand and involved than it really is, and what Ad Astra really is… is a whole lot of fun. The first in Fantasy Flight Games’ Nexus Designer Series, intended to highlight famous game authors, it’s a fully formed piece of family entertainment. (This one centers on the design team of Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget.) No laser attacks, minimal interference between players, but still plenty of interaction – everything needed to keep the table’s attention focused on play without sacrificing an elegant system.