Kit Reviews - Star Trek Ascendancy

Star Trek Ascendancy is a resource management and exploration space strategy game designed around the star trek universe (post “Next Gen” for you trek fans). It is designed for 3 players, allowing you to play as one of 3 factions: The Federation; Klingons; or Romulans, although there are expansions available which add another two factions (The Ferengi and the Cardassians) which increases the player count to 5. Each faction has its own powers and weaknesses, for example, the Klingons can advance quickly by destroying other players ships but can’t retreat from a fight; and the federation are excellent explorers but cannot invade planets or colonise pre-warp civilisations. Additionally there is a “AI” Borg expansion for more experienced gamers, which I won’t be covering here.

The game starts with each faction universally exploring around them by flying away from their home planet and revealing randomly shuffled planets and/or phenomena. The game instructs you to set up the planet “deck” in such a way that you’ll only find planets for the first few turns, as phenomenon are more dangerous and less advantageous at the start of the game. Each planet comes with a randomly drawn Exploration card which will determine whether the planet is inhabited, and if so, how technologically advanced the civilisation is. Contrastingly, the planet may be empty, or you may face a “crisis”, where you generally role the die to determine the outcome. Each player inhabits these planets according to their own abilities and generate resources (production, which is basically money, research which aids technological advancements, and culture, which allows you to do more things and potentially win the game). This plays out similarly for each faction until they connect with each other, ie. make “First Contact”, at which point the factions can forge trade agreements, which nets them extra production, or they can go to war- dependant on your strategy for the game. Timing this meeting is important, as although it increases your risk, it allows connected players to bid for turn order in the next round.

There are two ways to win the game: Via Ascendancy, i.e. becoming more culturally advanced than your rivals, or Supremacy, conquering all of your rivals home planets.

As a Star Trek fan I LOVED this game, but even the player who hasn’t watched Star Trek at all really enjoyed the game. All in all, I think that this is a very well-designed game with incredible attention to detail regarding the theme and mechanics, which remain true and accurate to the Star Trek universe, going as far as to design each faction so that playing thematically to the tv show will give you an advantage in game.

But how did it score? Well, I scored Star Trek Ascendancy at 3.6/5 based on the five categories: Originality; Theme; Mechanics; Clarity; and Availability.

Originality 3.5/5

The game design is completely new to me, but I have been assured that there are similar games around. The game design is fresh and appealing and if this was designed without the Star Trek theme I would also absolutely score this game higher, the series has, after all, been around for 50 years!

Theme 4/5

As I said earlier, the game is very well thought out with each races abilities and construction agreeing with the on-screen canon. Each planet disk is also a planet either seen or mentioned in the Star Trek universe, and the crisis cards frequently depict events from the series. This game is unlike several other Star Trek board games where they have essentially just slapped the star trek logo on a pre-existing game (Star Trek Catan, for example). This game feels as if it was designed from the ground up with the theme in mind. The open-ended game size also fits well in to the theme; after all there is an infinite universe to explore!

The Klingons have taken over Romulus!

Mechanics 4/5

The Mechanics are obviously well thought through to fit with the theme. Although initially coming across as complex, many of the steps are repetitive, but still give enough choice to prevent boredom. The game flows very well with each game being different and requires you to adapt your strategy depending on what happens in game, whether that be your rivals actions or the unique order of planet/exploration card appearance. Every game feels different and really ramps up at the end, with every player trying desperately to get enough culture together to ascend, while simultaneously trying to stop their opponents, as well as defend themselves from their rivals attempts to do the same.

Star Trek Ascendancy is a LONG game, taking roughly 1 hour per player in a standard lay out according to the designers. This means that the base game takes at least 3 hours, and at least 5 hours with both expansions. In my experience this is optimistic, our 4 player game took over 5 hours to complete. The game is also extremely complex, but necessarily so, and the complex mechanics are woven in such a way that make sense, it’s a cleverly designed game that you can get a grasp of within an hour of play or so, and after a couple of games won’t need to refer to the rules at all.

The only small issue I have with this game is the lack of catch up mechanics. Once one player has a significant lead its almost impossible to stop them winning, or even slow them down.

Clarity 2.5/5

As I said earlier, this game is complex, and with complex games come long, complex rule books. Sometimes you are sure you’ve seen a rule somewhere in the 36 pages of rules for your faction, to later find it was on your player board or your starting advancements all along. On first opening this can be off-putting, especially for people new to the hobby. There are also some things that aren’t made clear in the rule book, like the ability to warp to unexplored systems, or extend your warp range by using commands, which have had to be clarified by the designers.

Some actions or terms might be confusing for non-trekkies, but the designers did think of this and included a helpful glossary of terms in the rule book.

Availability 4/5

This game is reasonably available, you’ll be able to get it (or order it) from your local board game specialist. However, the game isn’t cheap, retailing for £60-80 for the base game which is 3 player only. To clarify – 3 players, not less or more than. This in itself is a barrier to many groups. The expansions are an additional expense, and you will likely have to look online for these, retailing at around £20-30 for each. And if you want to spend even more money, there are individual dice available for each faction, additional ships/nodes, and of course, miniatures of the space stations.

Final score 3.6/5

I absolutely love this game, but it is very complex and takes forever to play. Don’t plan on playing anything else on game night! I would absolutely recommend this game for experienced players looking for a massive game with evolving strategy. My final thought is- don’t be put off by the Star Trek logo!

Gwen's Thoughts

Hi all! I’m Kit’s better half (by which I mean I have at least a 51% win rate, and an impeccable talent for being a no-good traitor). To give the all-important feminine perspective, and just another point of view, I will be adding my thoughts on the games in these reviews, which will range from a paragraph to a good-old rant!

I am a massive fan of Star Trek (I have a badge tattooed on my chest, and would marry Jean Luc in a heartbeat if it were physically possible). I was told by a trustworthy friend this game is excellent, and I would love it, however, it still took me about 6 months to buy the game. This is because of three main reasons: 1- It is a lot of money to spend on a game that you are unlikely to be able to borrow to test, because it's very niche- a complex, heavy game, based on a TV show (albeit, an excellent TV show). 2- It plays with 3 players as standard. I mean.. what? The number actually works well for the game, but usually I play with either the two of us, or with more players than this. I found it very off-putting as I had to try to find someone who was interested in playing with us, and then, like buses, two came along at once, which means you need to add expansions before you have even gotten to grips with the basic gameplay. 3- I really wanted to play as the Ferengi. This meant adding an expansion to the game, which at retail ups the price to around £100. I can buy several games for this amount, and unfortunately, again due to it being very niche, I was not convinced it would resell if I was disappointed.

After buying the game it took me a few days to play. Watching “How to Play” videos online were helpful, but often missed out key points. Unfortunately, with a 36 page rulebook, and text EVERYWHERE, it can feel like a chore the first time. However, when you start to play you quickly figure out there are not “unlimited” options, and it starts to fall into place, especially for those among you who play resource management games. I was impressed with how well balanced the game is, and how it escalates, upping the tension. I had no idea who was going to win most of the time, but always felt I had a chance. There is enough luck, and enough skill, to keep it interesting, and the randomly generated map is a joy. The small touches, such as finding Risa (the pleasure planet) never fails to make me smile.

The base factions work well against each other, and the Cardassian expansion follows along similar lines. The Ferengi expansion is a little different and may be better played by a more experienced member. The briefly mentioned Borg expansion is a whole other conversation: it vastly changes the strategy and the urgency of the game, but does alter the gameplay to allow 1 or 2 player variants, so it is worth considering if you prefer 1-2 player games.

The amount of pieces you need for this game is staggering

The only negatives I would say were how many pieces there are/how much space your stuff takes up, and that if you are going to the Supremacy win you genuinely might wipe another player off the map, and out of the game. That can be a touchy subject at the best of times, but if you’re playing a 5 player (minimum 5 hour game) and you get kicked out early on, that could lead to some problems outside in the terrifying real world. There are suggestions to alter gameplay to reduce time (eg. Reduce the number of Ascendency required to win, increasing the speed of the first few rounds, or moving your home planets closer together), although they work, I thought many were detrimental to the experience. Cutting off the ascendancy win at 3 feels like ending the game as it’s ramping up, and makes it much more difficult to win through supremacy this way. It knocks the balance off in my opinion. One mechanic we did ignore was bidding for turn order. Although you lose some of the strategy element, it felt like an extra hassle and the group consensus was that it would add too much time, so we continued to randomise the gameplay. The creators seem to know this, however, and added 10 “turn order” cards, so in theory everyone could get two at a time and know where they will stand next round. It’s personal preference, and it’s nice to know the creators thought of this.

Overall thoughts? I love it. I’ve already spent far too much money buying the additional extras (because who wants to share die when you can have your own branded ones?). Will I play it every weekend? No, because that’s a lot of hours of my life gone, and us women have laundry to do, but I cannot honestly see myself selling this game. I want to play again and again as each faction and master their individual strategies.

Live long and prosper folks. See you next time!