Anton Nikolov

Right now I have played around 60 games of Eclipse and I love the game more and more after each one! I’m HUGE fan of 4x games (both PC and board games) and this one is definitely in my top 3 list – right after Galactic Civilizations 2 and Endless Space. The game requires perfect combination of good strategy and “calculated” luck which leads to a unique gaming experience every time you played it.

Components:
The game comes with:
– Bunch of little components – techs, ship upgrades, exploration tiles, game board tiles etc…
– A box that have only 2 sections and a bunch of little plastic bags ( + 2 really nice bigger bags). Needless to say preparing the components for the game is a little nightmare if you don’t buy proper storing equipment.
– Little box with 84 plastic ships that look nice, but are reused from other games.
– 6 player boards. The art is so-so, but their design is perfect. The board is all you’ll need to perfectly track your space empire.
– Several generic 6 sided dices in 3 different colors (one for each weapon type).
Overall the components are with nice quality, but some might say that you can get more for the price of the game.

Learning Curve:
The rules are perfectly written and there is no confusion about them. You will be ready to play after one read.
The game can be explained in around 30 minutes and every new player will need no more than 3 game turns to be perfectly comfortable with them, but you will need at least few playthroughs to start mastering some clever strategies. In other words – The game is quick to learn, but slow to master.

Game Play:
After everyone understand the rules the game is just smooth sailing!
It is incredible how fast a game of such complexity can go. The game design is just top notch!
The length of the game is the following – for every new player add between 45 to 60 minutes. For everyone else add 25-45 minutes (depending on how fast they take decisions). This leads to games that can end in under 3 hours with 6 experience players!

The game have really deep strategic elements that are combined with few luck factors (exploration hexes, technologies you can research, dice rolling in combat), but all of them can be mitigated or even completely ignored with proper planning and player cooperation (you can always tell if someone is ahead and ally against him).

Overall the game is a perfect mix of luck and strategy!

Replay Value:
My personal opinion is that the game have huge replay value, because of the luck factors and the fact that there are many different configuration of races that can play (Even more with the expansion), although if you are not a fan of 4X games the gameplay might seem a little repetitive – you just eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate, nothing more, nothing less

Who is this game for:
Family gamers – No. Unless your family is a bunch of gamers 
Social gamers – No.
Casual gamers – **** NO!
Strategy gamers – I’m yet to find a strategy gamer that don’t like this game :0
Avid gamers – **** YES!
Power gamers – Yes, but some of the don’t like the dice rolling.

TL DR;
Pros:
– Really smooth game design.
– Quick games (relative to other 4x games)
– Perfect Blend of strategy and luck
– Huge replay value
– Has expansion that fixes almost all issues that you’ll encounter in your gameplay!!!

Cons:
– Slow games (relative to the average board games that I usually play with my play groups)
– Looks intimidating at first
– It is a gamer’s game. It is definitely not for everyone.