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Contents 1 Links 2 Game Settings 2.1 Initiation 3 Appendix 1: Rule Modifications 3.1 General 3.2 Units 3.3 Technology 3.4 Races 3.5 Strategies 3.6 Leaders 3.7 Cards 3.8 Distant Suns 3.8.1 Distant Suns Variant 4 Appendix 2: Final Rule Conventions 4.1 Objectives and Victory 4.2 Galactic Trade 4.3 Action Cards 4.4 The Rotation Cycler 4.5 Racial Technology Progression/Research 4.6 Artifact Research 4.7 Galaxy Building 4.8 The Prospect Strategy 4.9 Increased Plastic & CC limit. 5 Appendix 3: Variants and Extras 5.1 Game option: Star by Star 5.2 Game option: Dimension Rifts 5.3 Game option: The Twilight Council 5.4 Game Option: Crimson Suns 5.5 Game Option: Surrendering 6 Appendix 4: Simultaneous Action System 7 Appendix 5: 2-Player Games 8 Appendix 6: Tech tree 9 FAQ

Links

Wiki Forum Thread
Comprehensive printable pdf
Cards

Current Shattered Ascension rules version: 3.95

Please do not edit unless there is something in error or a newer version of SA is released

Game Settings

Initiation

1. Decide on the number of Victory Points required to win, and agree on which options to use:
   • Galaxy creation: Standard, Star-by-Star or preset map
   • Dimension Rifts
   • Twilight Council
   • Crimson Suns
   • General Transfer actions (Simultaneous Action System)
   • Imperium Rex
2. Have each player roll a die. Take seat positions around the table going clockwise from high to low.
3. Deal two Secret Objective cards to each player. One of these must be discarded during step 10).
4. 1. Starting with the highest rolling player and going clockwise in turns, each player may in turn choose any available race to command, or announce pass to wait for step 4b).
   2. Remaining races are dealed out randomly, with the following advantage; they may be kept hidden and secret until the beginning of the first Strategy Phase. Upon receiving a random race, the player may reject it and pick another. A third pick is allowed, but this race must be immediately revealed.
5. Galaxy-creation (or Home System location bidding if using a presetscenario). will begin with the highest rolling player and progress clockwise. This order will alternate if not using pre-set maps or the Star by Star option. View appendix 6 for some sample maps and details on the bidding system.
6. 1. Bid for Speaker Token; The player with the lowest roll may now place a bid on the Speaker Token (this bid may be 0 TG). Going counter-clockwise, players may either pass or bid over. The winning bidder is assigned Speaker, and all other players then receive a number of TG equal to winning bid.
   2. The Speaker may now set the orientation of the Rotation Cycler.
7. Normalize TG: All players now adds or subtracts the same number of TG such that the player with the lowest amount starts out with 1 TG.
8. Include the 12 additional SA Public Objective Cards and shuffle them into the deck. Do not build a mixed Objective Deck. Leave all Public Objectives in two decks, one for each Stage. Then simply add Objective Cards to the public gaming area when drawn from the appropriate pile.
9. Include the 2 additional SA Special Objective Cards and place all Special Objectives face up on the board, along with 3 random Public Stage I Objective cards from the deck. (Stage II is initiated when eight Stage I Objective Cards exist in the public gaming area).
10. Reveal hidden races, discard Secret Objectives, deal 2 Political Cards to each player, and commence the first Strategy Phase. Use the rule modifications on the following pages (appendix 1 & 2) when playing a game of Shattered Ascension. May the war begin!

Appendix 1: Rule Modifications

General

• Any type of cargo (Leaders, Fighters, Ground Forces, PDS) may be picked up from any non-activated system (or the system just activated). This is regardless of enemy ships and cargo source (planet, carrier or space).
• Pre-Combat effects are always conducted simultaneously by attacker and defender. First both sides roll for Anti-Fighter Barrage and removing casualties. Then remaining pre-combat effects are conducted simultaneously.
• Just before refreshing planets in the Status Phase, all players may produce Trade Goods from unused resources. For every 2 resources spent, gain 1 Trade Good.
• Political Cards may not be spent as Trade Goods. Two Political Cards may any number of times be discarded for a new one during Status Phase. All players also receive a Political Card during Status Phase. Hand limit is 7.
• A planet without Ground Forces present taking a bombardment hit reverts immediately to neutral status.
• During Tactical Retreats, destination system is activated only if and when ships survive to move into the system.
• Mix and Match; One resource may be spent to buy one Ground Force unit and one Fighter unit.
• For the purpose of Action Cards, a Home System is only considered as such if the race of origin controls it.

Units

• Dreadnoughts roll 2 dice during Space Battles and may bombard planets without an invasion taking place. They count as 2 units towards the production limit when producing units (also for secondary of Production).
• War Suns may use their Sustain Damage ability twice. They count as 3 units towards production limits.
• Any unit using the Sustain Damage ability immediately loses one combat die, to a minimum of 1.
• Space Mines trigger the instant an enemy fleet appears the system (before the PDS Fire step). Mines cannot be stacked. The victim of a Space Mines hit may negate the specific hit by taking 2 hits to non-fighter ships in the same fleet.
• Shock Troops are not formed at combat rolls of 10. Instead, one Ground Force will automatically turn into a Shock Troop unit after a successful Invasion (attacker only), during the following Production Step.
• Facilities may only be built on unexhausted planets. This exhausts the planet. No additional cost is associated with building the Facility.

Technology

• Gen Synthesis upgrades an Shock Troop after a successful invasion, instead of reviving your units.
• Micro Technology also allows a player to spend influence instead of resources when producing Trade Goods.
• Integrated Economy: All your planets may now produce units during the Production Step of a Tactical Action, with production capacity equal to its resource value. You may also relocate CCs at the end of your turns. As normal, the planet may not produce units during the same round as you claim it.
• Nano Technology will repair all your units at the end of your turns, instead of granting immunity to Direct Hit.
  • Transit Diodes: As an action, pay one Strategy CC to move up to 6 of your Ground Forces or PDS units (PDS

counts as 2) from the board to any friendly planets or fleets. Units in activated systems may not be moved. Transit Diodes has Hypermetabolism as a third independent pre-requisite.

• Fleet Logistics: As an action, once per round, you may pay 1 CC from your Strategy Allocation to flip turn one of your CCs on the board. Your units (not Saar Space Docks) may leave this system, but you may not activate it again.
• Assault Cannons are applied to Cruisers as well as Dreadnoughts.
• Hylar V Laser, Automated Defense Turrets, Assault Cannons, Graviton Laser System and Deep Space Cannon are considered different types of weaponry. Only one such tech may be used at a time. This results in the following:
  • Cruisers rolling for Assault Cannons do not receive bonus from Hylar V Laser for that roll.
  • Destroyers using Automated Defense Turrets do not receive bonus from Hylar V Laser for that roll.
  • PDS shooting at adjacent spaces with Deep Space Cannon may not benefit from Graviton Laser System.

Races

• Saar Floating Factories: Your Space Docks may now produce units in the same activation as moving, and may retreat and withdraw from Space Battles.
• Winnu have Trade Contracts 3 and 2.
• N’orr Berzerker Genome inflicts 1 additional hit at the end of any combat round, if N'orr has inflicted at least 1 hit.
• Jol Nar Spatial Conduit Network: Your ships may ‘teleport’ (move as if it was an adjacent system) to the destination during the movement step of an activation, if the activated system contains no enemy planets or units.
• The Mentak ability to steal Trade Goods is now an action and costs 1 CC from Strategy Allocation to execute. Salvage Operations yields only 1 TG from lost Space Battles. War Suns may be salvaged, but will default to a movement value of 1 without the War Sun Technology.
• Naalu initiative ability works as follows. At the end of the Strategy Phase, you may choose to lower your initiative to 0 through the Action Phase. Doing this, your first action may not be a Strategy Card. Telepathic Mind Weapon triggers only whenever an opponent activates a system containing one of your planets.
• Yssaril starts with 1 Carrier only, and Light/Wave Deflector as only Technology. Shuttle Logistics: During the movement step of an activation, you may move in up to 2 Ground Forces from adjacent unactivated systems. This limit is increased by 2 Ground Forces for every Strategy CC spent. Such units may participate in planetary landings as normal. If they for any reason are unnable to land, immediately return them to their original position. (Shuttled GF are unaffected by ‘Fighter Ambush’, but ships in orbit must fight a Space Battle. The token are removed regardless of this outcome).
• Xxcha may use either the resource or influence value of a planet when counting votes. Xxcha’s race specific tech works in a system in which they control at least 1 planet, and does not cost a Command Counter to use.
• L1z1x starts the game with only 1 Command Counter in Strategy Allocation.

Strategies

• During Assembly, a player chosen to play an Agenda always has the choice of drawing one random card from the pile instead of his hand. hand. Any player may call a Voice of the Council election, but this costs 1 CC from Strategy Allocation. The elected player gains +5 votes at all times in addition to the Special Objective.
  • Note for Wiki: "Special_Votes|name=VotC Votes|Votes=5" gives the player the 5 extra votes. (the amount can be changed to 3 for 2 player games)
• Playing Warfare II High Alert, the owner may immediately take a Tactical Action, after secondaries are conducted. The High Alert token yields bonus to all friendly combat rolls in its present system, not just during Space Battles.
• Warfare II secondary recquires only that the destination system does not contain enemy ships. Any type of cargo may be picked up during this movement, but no planetary landings may be initiated.
• Playing Bureaucracy, the active player may look at 3 Public Objective cards and choose which one is turned face-up in the common area. The other cards go to the top or bottom of the deck. If Stage II is initiated, only 2 cards are drawn. Also, one influence may be spent to flip turn the Rotation Cycler.
• Diplomacy II secondary works adjacent to (or inside) any system in which only you control planets or units. You many never play Peaceful Annexation on an enemy Home System.
• Trade II Free Trade does not leave opponents with 1 fewer Trade Goods from their Trade Agreements. The active player may take an additional Trade Good if he has active Trade Agreements.

Leaders

• For movement purposes, Leaders are considered Ground Forces that take no capacity. Thus Technologies or Action Cards that allows movement of Ground Forces may also move Leaders (e.g Transit Diodes and Shuttle Logistics). Leaders may also be moved freely within a system during your turns, between the steps of each turn, if the system contains no enemy ships.
• A General may use both Invasion Combat abilities (re-roll and +1) in both attack and defense.
• Agents may only Sabotage Action Card effects that take place in their present system. Doing so, an Agent may not Sabotage other cards this round or through the entire next round. Such a Sabotage does not sacrifice the Agent. In respect to this ability, all political oriented Action Cards (eg. Thugs) are considered to take place on Mecatol Rex, and all cards targeting the race sheet (e.g Insubordination, Cultural Crisis) take place within your Home System. Enemy Leaders are automatically captured when defeated in a Space Battle or Invasion Combat with an Agent presen
• Diplomats may, in addition, let an active enemy fleet pass through a friendly fleet present in the same system. When present with an attacking fleet, Diplomats may allow opposing fleets to retreat before the Space Battle begins. This will not break Trade Agreements. A Diplomat delaying an invasion obstructs the entire Invasion Combat sequence, including all Bombardment. This ability, (to obstruct an invasion) may be overturned by the enemy at the cost of 10 influence. When this happens, the Diplomat will ‘escape’, but can’t be placed in the same system.

Cards

• Friendly Fire: During this combat round, opposing fighters will inflict a hit on their own forces at natural rolls of 1 through 4. May target any fleet, regardless of fighter-to-ship ratio. Play: Just before a combat-round begins.
• In the Silence of Space is not restricted by enemy units. Fleets containing Dreadnoughts and War Suns will not benefit from this card.
• Faulty Targeting Systems: Enemy PDS units may not fire during this movement step. Play: After activating a system.
• Rare Mineral: Receive 3 Trade Goods. Play: Immediately after acquiring a new planet.
• Privateers: Choose an opponent. Take half of his Trade Goods (round down) and add them to your race sheet. Play: As an action.
• Signal Jam will place the opponents CC with ship-side up (for rules on flipped CC, see Fleet Logistics).
• Secret Objective Merciless may be accomplished against any opponent. This does not have to be your neighbor.
• Secret Objective Threatening requires you to be adjacent to three opponent Home Systems (except in a 3-player game)

Distant Suns

• Native Intelligence: Before the game starts, all players may secretly look at any one Domain Counter on the board.
• Deep Space Probing Vessels: During the Strategy Phase, each player may freely probe one planet in a system adjacent to each friendly Space Dock on the board.
• Fighters may perform either a Low Orbit Probing, or a High Orbit Probing (quick probing). The first works exactly as normal rules from probing. High Orbit probing works as follows: Distribute all available Fighters to planets being probed. Immediately before the Planetary Landings step of the activation, roll 1 die for each Fighter. On an unmodified roll of 8+, the planet is successfully probed.
• All Domain Counter units are treated as regular units. Such units can be bombarded, converted or captured just like corresponding plastic units. However, the Domain Token is still a Domain Token with respect to Razing, Peaceful Annexation, etc.
• Lazax Survivors are subject to no special rules/effect when probed. They must be encountered normally.
• Natural Wealth only yields 1 Trade Good upon encountering the Domain. Place all remaining Trade Goods on the planet. The controlling player may take one such TG from the planet during the Production step of an activation, and one during each Refresh Planets step of the Status Phase. Whenever an opponent successfully invades a planet with existing Natural Wealth on itm he may immediately take one Trade Good present. As soon as the Hostile Locals are defeated, the token is removed and the remaining Natural Resources works as normal.
• Instead of “Hostage Situation”, roll a D10, divide by 2 and round down. This is how many Natural Resources and Hostile Locals there are in this Domain. Place the number of TG counters on the Domain Counter to keep track.
• Hidden Factory yields only 1 resource worth of units, but the finder may pay additional resources. Production capacity is 2.
• If a Leader dies as a result of Domain encounters, the Leader is instead immediately placed back at the Home System.

Distant Suns Variant

Distant Suns can be played using all Domain Counters flipped up and visible right from the start of the game.

• When using a pre-set scenario, randomly distribute Domain Counters to all planets before Home System bidding takes place. The nature of local Domain Counters will affect the value of the HS locations, and take part of the strategical game rather than simple luck.
• When building the galaxy by tile placement, players may, after map completion, in turn draw a random Domain Counter and place it visible side up on ANY planet on the board. Continue until all planets have one. This should ensure a fair distribution.

Appendix 2: Final Rule Conventions

Objectives and Victory

• *Victory may never take place mid-round, only after step a) of the Status Phase. At this time all players will have claimed the Objectives they are able to and qualify for. Victory goes to the player that ends up with most points. If this is equal, the winner is the player who controls most planets outside his Home System. In the unlikely case that this also is equal, the other participants around the board must vote for either a ‘moral winner’ or a split victory.
• In addition to the Shattered Ascension Objective Cards, include Objective Cards from both Shattered Empire expansion and the original box.
• Objective Cards that yields “I win the game” is technically worth as many VP as required to win the current game, e.g 8 VP. It does not fully guarantee however, that you turn out as the winner.
• SA objectives:

1) Invaded two enemy controlled planets 2) or more ships 4+ systems away 3) Destroyed WS or 2DNs this turn 4) Hold captive or Killed leader this turn 5) Random Secret obj 6) Destroyed units of 2 players through combat (non 2plr) 7) Control two: Ionstorm and/or Nebula 8) Inflicted 6 hits on fleet worth 20+ res 9) Control Mallice or HEnd 10) Ships in 5 systems 11) Planet 3 spaces away from HS with 2GF and PDS 12) Supply line of ships between systems 3 spaces from eachother

Galactic Trade

• Trade Goods received through Trade Agreements are acquired simultaneously by all players. Trade Goods are always accessible, even if the cardboard pile is dry. In this case use replacement counters. In 3 and 4 player games, players may trade one of their Trade Agreements with themselves (simply flip the card around to show the active side). In 2- player games, both trades can be self-traded.

Action Cards

• It is not required to 'announce' the playing of and Action Card. It is simply played during the proper time, and the effect is immediately carried out. Caution: Playing Emergency Repairs will not obstruct the effect of a Direct Hit card, and Cultural Crisis will not obstruct the effect of a Multiculturalism card.

The Rotation Cycler

• All player-to-player turn rotation, i.e the order of Strategy Card selection, Strategy card 2ndary execution and political voting are all done in direction of this marker (See changes on the Bureaucracy Strategy Card).

Racial Technology Progression/Research

There are two ways of acquiring the Race-Specific Technology:

1. Exigency Research: It may may researched as normal through the Technology Strategy, but the cost is reduced by the amount of Victory Points a race
2. Driving Force of Progress: When a race reaches a number of Victory Points equal the extra cost printed on the Race-Specific Tecnology card, they will automatically and immediately receive the Technology Advance without cost. It is retained if the race should later lose the required Victory poins.

Artifact Research

• Artifacts also work as a Tech Specialties of the indicated color. These work even if they exist on an exhausted planet. A Scientist may as usual double this efficiency if placed on the same planet or space system as the Artifact. Artifacts do not count toward Objectives based on acquiring Tech Specialty planets, however. Empty Artifacts are worth 2 Trade Goods upon discovery.

Galaxy Building

• Each player should have received a number of planets on his hand equal to number of rings in the galaxy. Otherwise reshuffle the deck. Asteroid Fields may be placed adjacent to other Asteroid Fields, but otherwise follow normal rules of red bordered placement. Artifacts may be placed in space, on the same conditions of control as Trade Stations.
• If available, always place an Artifact at Mallice (Wormhole Nexus system) before the game starts.

The Prospect Strategy

• If there are 4 or 8 races in the game, such that all Strategy Cards will be picked every round, add the ninth card to the Strategy Deck. This might also be used for 7-player games, to leave the optimal and intended number of two Strategy Cards with bonus counters.
• When a player is eliminated and more than two strategy cards remains unpicked, remove Prospect from the game.

Increased Plastic & CC limit.

If available, it’s recommended to increase the number of units available to increase freedom of choice and multitude of strategies. In that case include the Global Fleet Supply rules:

• No player may have a higher number than [4 times his current value of Fleet Supply] of ships on the board. However it is always allowed to have at least 20 ships.
• Every Strategy Phase, players must pay an ‘upkeep’ in Resources, equal to how much his Fleet Supply exceeds 8. For example, a race with Fleet Supply of 10 would have to pay 2 resources every Strategy Phase. Any such Fleet Supply that are not paid ‘upkeep’ for are immediately removed.
• No more than three (Saar) Space Docks may exist in the same system.

                       Recommended plastic/CC limit:
                                    24 Command Counters
                                    12 Cruisers
                                    15 Destroyers
                                     7 Dreadnoughts
                                     7 Carriers
                                     3 War Suns
                                     9 PDS
                                     4 Space Docks

Appendix 3: Variants and Extras

Game option: Star by Star

Using this game option, the galaxy is built with Home Systems free at the hand instead of fixed starting locations. Using this option, players may place systems in any place that borders an existing tile, and it’s no longer required to place a tile containing a planet after placing an empty tile. Players should place their tiles in turns clockwise around the table rather than alternating back and forth.Yellow- bordered systems may not be placed adjacent to other yellow-bordered systems. The Mecatol Custodians must be in play.

In addition, include the following rules:

• No Home System may be activated by an enemy during the first round.
• Muaat may only be placed in the rim (outermost ring), but may bid on any system in a pre-set scenario.

((*The game term 'neighbor' is eliminated by other rules in the rule-set))

Game option: Dimension Rifts

Whenever a blank Artifact is discovered, draw a random double sided Wormhole Token (if available) and place it in the system. The active player chooses which side to face up. Whenever a fleet enters such a Wormhole, flip the Token around. Wormholes of this type are ignored for Objective-purposes, but are affected by political agendas.

Game option: The Twilight Council

• All players reveal one agenda during the Strategy Phase, placed face-up in the common play area, marked with a race flag. Each player may only have 1 agenda revealed at a time. These may be changed in the beginning of each Strategy Phase.

• The Primary of Assembly are changed as follows:

Receive 2 AC and 1 PC. Choose a) or b):
a) Claim Speaker Token and choose three of other players revealed agendas to be voted for. b) Give Speaker Token to someone else and choose any agenda from the board to be voted for. Then include (into voting) or discard up to a combined number of three revealed agendas.

• Assembly player chooses order of resolution for agendas if it affects game (before voting!)
• All voting happens simultaneously (write down in advance). Your total votes must be split among the included agendas. Voice of the Council election happens simultaneously, just like a normal agenda.
• Agendas without votes are discarded.

• Changed AC's:

1. Thugs: Player may not participlate in any voting this round. Played BEFORE votes are counted.
2. Discredit: Play AFTER votes are counted. Choose a player and one of the included agendas. All votes for this agenda only are ignored.
3. Fantastic Rhetoric: All +10 votes must go to one single agenda, played BEFORE votes are counted.
4. Bribery: +1 votes (1 per TG) to each agenda AFTER votes are counted
5. Determine Policy: Force the Assembly holder to include an agenda chosen from the Political deck.
6. Council Dissolved: Cancels all voting. Play BEFORE votes are counted.
7. Veto: Discard an included agenda BEFORE votes are counted.
8. Xxcha Veto ability: Pay one CC from Strategy to immediately discard one of the included agendas. Used BEFORE votes are counted.

Game Option: Crimson Suns

• Players may “Declare War” on opponents during the Status Phase. Take one of their flags and place it together with a hit-marker on your race sheet.
• When you attack a player with your mark of war, certain “minor races” of the galaxy will subside you with TGs equal to half of the value of ships you lost (round down).
• If you defend against a player that you have a war decleration on, you receive up to half the value lost in ships, but never more than the attacker get.
• Only losses that happens within an activation counts, not those caused by Action Cards, agendas, etc.
• You may only have 2 war declarations active against opponents at a time. Also, only 2 war declarations may target a single player. *You may not declare war on players in which you share a Trade Agreement, nor can you Trade with a player that has your mark of war.

Game Option: Surrendering

A player may, after having passed, call the Surrender. Doing so, immediately remove his flag from any Special Objectives and then subtract two additional VP from the score. Trade Agreements are kept until elimination. After refreshing planets in the Status Phase, do:

1. Add up to three, to a maximum of five total Ground Forces, on the planet of highest resource value in the surrendered HS. These will be passive neutral forces protecting the planet normally.
2. Remove all of the surrendered players’ Space Docks outside his Home System.
3. If the surrendered player was Speaker, the token moves one step in the direction of the cycler. The Speaker then chooses a non-HS planet or fleet belonging to the surrendered player. In turns players will place bids, in influence, on ownership of the selected fleet or planet. The first to bid may bid 0. Only the winning bid of influence (or TG as influence) are paid for and discarded.
4. The next player (again in the direction of the cycler) may then choose the next planet/fleet and place a bid in the same way. Repeat this step until all ships and planets (except HS) are taken over by opponents.

Appendix 4: Simultaneous Action System

The Simultaneous Action System is a simple generalization of the more specific Transfer Action.The purpose increased flexibility to allow every logical movment through use of a general system rather than special conditions found in the Transfer Action. While this is an extended version of the original Transfer, the name itself describes the new approach; it’s not required to move ships between systems, or have units there at all. Ships being transferred between two systems can simply be viewed as the most basic and intuitive of two simultaneous actions:

• First, place a CC in each the systems you wish included in the movement grid to activate them. One of these CC is paid directly from your reinforcements pile. Ships may now move freely between all the active systems, but no unit may exceed it’s movement value. For each system that will perform any kind of action other than movement (after step 2 of the Tactical Action), will need to be “prime-activated”.
• For each system granted prime-activation, pay an additional CC from you Command Pool. Following the normal sequence of activation, conduct all resulting Space Battles, Invasion Combat and production at the appropriate times.

Note that units may only move from an active system to another, unlike the standard Tactical Action. Also, all Space Battles/Movement happens simultaneously. Thus It’s not allowed to use such actions to destroy a fleet and then hit a system beyond it during a single turn. However, since it happens simultaneously, enemy each PDS unit, friendly or enemy, may fire at only one of the active systems.

The difference from Transfer Action can be broken down to three point:

1. ) There are no restrictions whatsoever to which hexes allowed to be activated in this manner.
2. ) It is possible to activate any number of hexes to be included in the “movement grid”.
3. ) You can perform all normal actions within a Simultaneous Action, e.g produce, invade etc.

• Example movement:

You have 3 systems, A, B and C. You read your situation at the board, and conclude that you have to reorganize your fleet extensively. You need a Carrier from A to B and vice versa, a Dreadnought from B to C and move your War Sun from C back to your base at A. No matter how many turns you could spend on this maneuver, it wouldn’t be possible with normal activation, so you decide to pull it all off simultaneously and call for such a movement. Place activation tokens in all three systems (2 CC from Command), and start your movement. You decide you need to build ships and mines in your base A.

At this time, you notice a situation close to your Space Docks in system A. Last round you sent a Carrier full of Ground Forces into the adjacent system D with enemy controlled planets. The attack was a total disaster, and your empty Carrier remains in that system. You realize that if you want to push on the attack this or the next round, you will lock down the carrier in system D. If you choose to move it home to A first, you will lock down your base and be unable to attack. After some planning, you decide to include system D into your movement-grid, attack the enemy planet in D once more and bring your Carrier home to base to load up new cargo. But then both system A and D will need to be prime activated! This will cost a lot to pull off, but it’s the only way. You activate the 4 system grid A, B, C, D with 3 CC from Command Pool and pay additional 2 CC for the prime activations. For a total cost of 5 CC you manage to pull off the movement.

Appendix 5: 2-Player Games

Initiation Follow the guidelines on the first page, except Step 3). Secret Objectives are not used. Two player games are normally set on a two ring galaxy with home systems on opposite sides. It is recommended to pre-construct a map or use one of the 2-player maps in appendix 6. Victory is claimed upon reaching the required number of Victory Points (6-10) or eliminating the other player.

Strategy and Status Phase

• Both players picks three Strategy Cards, leaving two with Bonus Counters.
• Both Players receive one fewer Command Counter during Status Phase.
• Caution: If you are the Speaker and had Assembly during last round, you

may not choose the Assembly Strategy Card as your first pick.

Politics and Assembly To reflect uncertain votes from other players, additional votes shift in random direction. When the two opponents have placed their votes on a political agenda, roll one die and use the results below.

• Before the die is rolled, players may spend

one TG to buy one vote. For example, if Speaker pays 3 TG and rolls '4', the votes will shift to 2 in his favor.

• 10 = 10 votes for Speaker
• 9 = 6 votes for Speaker
• 8 = 3 votes for Speaker
• 7 = 1 vote for Speaker
• 6 = Abstain
• 5 = Abstain
• 4 = 1 vote against Speaker
• 3 = 3 votes against Speaker
• 2 = 6 votes against Speaker
• 1 = 10 votes against Speaker.

Ps! During the first round the numbers are only 1, 2, 3, 4 votes on each side of the die. A VoC election may not be called for during the first round. Vote bonus from VoC is only+3 (not +5) in duel games. There are no restrictions to who may receive Speaker Token, regardless of current Speaker.

Trade Races in duel games may only trade with themselves, but require permission from Trade Master as usual. The second option on the Trade II Strategy Card to break Trade Agreements breaks ALL trade in the game, not just those of your opponent. No Trade Agreements may be formed that round, and no income is received.

Altered Special Abilities

• Every other time Mentak uses the ability to steal Trade Goods,

they may also steal one from the public gaming area.

• When Jol Nar activate the Technology card, they may spend 1 CC

from Strategy and pay 2 resources to gain another tech advance.

• Hacan must only give 1 Trade Good to the opponent when using

Production Centers.

• If Xxcha activate the Diplomacy card, they may spend a CC from

Strategy and 3 influence to activate the primary ability once more.

Cards Modifications

• Whenever drawing a card that is obsolete or does not work properly

in 2-player games, discard it and immediately draw another card.

• Rise of the Messiah AC: No more than 3 Ground Forces may be

placed on the board playing this card.

• Public Disgrace AC: May not be played on your opponents first

Strategy Card pick.

• First Strike AC: You may not attack an enemy fleet with this action.
• Imperial Academy: When this law is active, players may purchase

any number of CC with the secondary of Leadership.

• Sharing of Technology PC: If the agenda goes FOR, players may

acquire a technology held by the opponent.

• Public Execution PC: Remove from the deck.
• Opening The Trade Routes PC, against: "The next three trade

goods a player receives this round are instead given to their opponent"

• All Objectives that requires to spend a sum of influence, resources or

TG have their values halved. For example; “I now spend 5 resources”

The two additional Special Objective Cards, Magisterial and Imperial, should not be used in 2-player games. Crimson Suns and Twilight Council are also unfit for 2-player games.

To construct a 2-player map using normal turn-placement: -Place a random red tile in the middle. -Remove all high-resource systems and deal 8 tiles to each player. -Place tiles normally. -Remove 2 blank Artifacts and hand 1 to each player for normal placement. -Add an Artifact at Mallice and one in the middle tile if possible.

Appendix 6: Tech tree

FAQ

under work