Eminent Domain from Tasty Minstrel Games is a deck-building game that bucks the trend of most deck builders. You control a group of space-faring humans looking for new planets to add to your empire. To win you must earn the most victory points. They can be earned by researching technology, adding planets to your empire, and producing goods to sell. The biggest change from the normal deckbuilder, is the opportunity for the other players at the table to “follow” a choice made by the current player, allowing them to make moves outside of their own turn. This adds a small bit of risk if your opponent could win by getting free turns copying your actions.
The Escalation expansion changes several of the basics from the game including unique player scenarios, new planets, technology, and a fifth player among other additions. I will examine each addition below and how they affect the game.
Adding a Fifth Player
It seems to be a common trend in board games to create the base game and later expand that number if the fans demand it or the game can support it with additional components. From the business perspective, adding a player to a base game could cost too much in components and bring the base game to a higher price point. From a design perspective, the game might be able to support plenty of players with its mechanics, but last so long between turns that the game becomes confusing or boring.
TMG does a good job of adding a fifth player. For anyone who knows how to play the game, adding that extra player doesn’t change the flow much. They even added a blue border around the cards to make removal easier when you don’t have the fifth player at the table. Can all games with set-ups based on the number of players do this? Some games have icons for the number of people playing, but this distinct blue color is incredibly easy to catch while sifting through cards. The game may take up to an additional 15 minutes to play with the fifth player, but the game will still be close and enjoyable.
Scenarios
In my gaming group the most popular addition to the game has been the scenario cards. In a normal setup, all players get the same ten cards for a deck and a random starting planet. With the scenarios, the players get some technology to start the game, a specific starting planet to match their strategy, and a change to the normal ten-card draw deck.
This addresses a significant complaint I heard when playing the original game. Many players were upset that by the time they could research the card that they really wanted, the game would be halfway over and you couldn’t really take advantage of that technology. This allows players to have focused decks from the start of the game. Some might argue that defeats the purpose of a deck-builder, but seems to make Eminent Domain more enjoyable.
Changing the combat system
In the original Eminent Domain box, you received several spaceships of varying size and design. Their design had no impact on the game, until now. The small “fighter” ships retain the same purpose they had before, conquering planets. The medium “destroyer” can be built by converting a few of the fighters, but serves a limited function in the game so far. The largest “battleship” size can be built out of destroyers and serves multiple functions.
Some of the new planets can only be conquered by a specific ship type. When you have all the planets available in the game and from expansions, there aren’t that many where destroyers are necessary. They mainly serve as the go-between for turning your fighters into battleships. The battleship serves several purposes. First of all, you earn 2 victory points when you build one. It may not seem like much, but Eminent Domain continues to be a well-balanced game where victory is often determined by a few points. Second, the battleship makes it easier for your fighters to take planets. As long as you have a battleship available, two less fighters are required to take a planet. The last advantage in having a battleship is the Advanced Fleet technology. When you have this upgrade, you can spend the battleship to take ANY planet outright. The number of ships the planet says you need is irrelevant.
This revamp to the combat system requires a few changes in other parts of the game. Taking planets is now easier which favors a Warfare player. Now there are new technologies and planets that favor peace and will reward a player for not following the Warfare role when chosen by another player.
New Technology
The new technologies vary in their usefulness, but most are welcome additions. Multiple new technologies are added at the second and third research levels, making it less likely for an opponent to take the only good technology from a stack. Most of the new cards are designed with a new method of research in mind. A player that focuses on Warfare needed to nearly abandon technology in the base game. The new techs can be researched with spaceships as well. Clearly, if you have a battleship, you know how to build the big gun that goes on the front, right?
There are new symbols appearing on the tech cards. Some have pictures of the spaceships, which can be difficult to distinguish, and others have pictures of resources. These can be spent on any action that requires those items. For instance, a tech card with two fighters can be spent to take a planet along with the fighter tokens you normally use. The resource icons can be used for the Produce/Trade action to earn victory chips. Since they are cards, they will be shuffled back into your deck to be used again and not permanently lost like the tokens are.
There are two new requirements for new tech cards as well. Some require two different planets. One has to match a specific type and the other can be any one that doesn’t match the first. The second new requirement is the techs that require all three of the basic planet types to purchase. It may be difficult to reach those three planets, but the technologies in that stack are powerful and should be observed carefully each game.
New Planets
Several new planets were added in the expansion. Even a few starting planets were added. Some of those require 5 fighters or 5 colonies before flipping but reward you with more icons. Prestige planets have been added to the starters as well. It makes some scenarios move slower since they don’t count for research prerequisites. They do get a “wild” resource slot that can come in handy for any produce centered scenarios.
Additional components
In the box is also a sticker for the original action card board. It is to replace the images you see on the board with a clearer representation of what the option does when the stack is empty. This is an excellent addition to keep the board in line with the current interpretation of the rules. I’m not a big fan of stickers because they can fray an eventually make your board look worn. The original board was high quality with a gloss finish and has stood up well over time.
A few technology cards were given errata in the expansion. You simply need to replace the old with the new.
Final Thoughts
This expansion was impressive for arriving in such a small box. The Scenarios add a lot to the game with only minor changes. Players will likely see increased playability when trying to learn how to make certain scenarios successful. The card print quality remains the same as the original box. Normally, cards arrive with slightly different sizes or textures. TMG made sure this did not happen here.
A downside to the new mechanics and a fifth player is the victory points and the ship tokens run out frequently or come close to empty piles. Fortunately, the low count on victory chips doesn’t seem to harm the game. In fact, it might be the way a five player game doesn’t seem to last much longer. The new icons on the research cards can be a hard mechanic to teach and for some even harder to see. Determining a destroyer versus a battleship isn’t always easy.
With all these goodies being added in one expansion, it’s hard to believe that the box is so small and when combined together, everything still fits into the original.
The expansion adds lots of rules to the game without adding much confusion. The transition to playing the game with all of the new rules is nearly seamless. It’s almost seamless enough that some changes can go unnoticed. Components are still the high quality TMG demonstrated with the oringinal.
Published: Sep 22, 2014 08:18 pm