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For your non-periodic section “Versus”, we propose a multiple challenge directed by our Aledrugo1977. Three contestants step on the ring: Exodus Proxima Centauri, Eclipse and Twilight Imperium III!
The section VS – Versus compares two or more games which have something in common (setting, mechanisms, genre or even different editions of the same game). Write to <EMAIL_ADDRESS><PERSON>. Three contestants step on the ring: Exodus Proxima Centauri, Eclipse and Twilight Imperium III!
The section VS – Versus compares two or more games which have something in common (setting, mechanisms, genre or even different editions of the same game). Write to articoli@goblins.net to propose your challenges!
Never has the Game Galaxy been so full of opportunities.
Space Opera right there in your living room whenever you want it. But which one to choose?
Up to now, Twilight Imperium III was the first choice. New games are challenging the Mecatol Rex supremacy: what shall we do?
Is the new entry, Exodus Proxima Centauri, a worthy challenger? Are there any similarities? What are its pros and cons?
Let us now see the games which inhabit the Board Game Universe more in detail.
Before the challenge starts, we will briefly summarize the features of the three games in question, which will then be compared accurately.
Let the challenge begin now, by assessing some features of the products. In each section, we will start from the newcomer: Exodus Proxima Centauri (hereinafter EPC).
Setting
EPC is about the fight for supremacy of the human race, who migrated to the Proxima Centauri system. Each player leads a faction and tries to control as many planets as possible and destroy his/her opponents. At the beginning, all the factions are the same: technological and economic choices will characterize each faction.
Eclipse, in the advanced version, shows a Space Opera teeming with very diversified alien and human races. 200
Also in this case, technological choices will result in different games.
TI 3 does not need any comment, as far as the setting is concerned: it is perfect and painstakingly designed, with such beautiful asymmetry as to make up for any little imperfections.
EPC
TI3
Eclipse
Game mechanisms
Exodus Proxima Centauri allows you to control the game strategy almost completely.
Nothing is random in the technological development (unlike Eclipse, which is affected by it): technologies have a known cost and all of them are available (like in TI 3 but without any preliminary requirements) depending on your strategic choices.
The playing order is not random either: a secret auction – with the game money – determines who starts. In TI 3 the order is due to the strategic card cycle, whereas in Eclipse everyithing is random, since the first player who finishes a turn becomes first and then the order is clockwise from him/her.
Action cards allow everyone to make an individual primary action and an exclusive secondary one: this is an interesting mechanism. The first player can make any secondary action – thus making it accessible to everyone – each turn, until the last one, when he/she will, inescapably, have fewer options, thus giving momentum on the auction to determine who the first player will be.
The Galaxy map is known and random each game. Unlike in Eclipse, there is no risk of having an unbalanced distribution, but an interesting specific phase present in TI 3 is missing, namely the creation of the Galaxy – an entertaining moment, as well as an important one.
EPC
TI3
Eclipse
Political phase
In Exodus Proxima Centauri players vote secretly every turn – using the game money – among three randomly chosen possible laws (permanent, temporary, immediate). The Chancellor (i.e. the first player) prevails in case of a tie. Moreover, each turn the vice Chancellor (i.e. the second player) proposed to the Chancellor two bonus actions to be performed at the end of the turn and affecting all players: the Chancellor chooses whether to use one of it or neither one.
In Eclipse a political phase is absent, whereas in TI 3 it is comparable to EPC, although a law is not necessarily selected each turn.
EPC
TI3
Eclipse
Trading phase
There are three resources in EPC: blue cylinders (money for auctions, research and for buying other resources on the market), red cylinders (for spaceship construction) and green cylinders (for buyinf upgrades).
The EPC market is simply and deep: a table shows the purchasing/selling quotas. The first player to perform the Trading phase enjoys the best rates on the market. As the others start their Trading phase, their exchange rates will become worse and worse. 937