Eclipse: Fleet Admirals Part 1

So, after nearly a year's hiatus from playing Eclipse, Danielle and I hosted a 5-player game of it tonight for our Decathlon. I actually sat out to admin instead of play, but just watching has me chomping at the bit to play Eclipse again. It truly is one of my favorite games, and scratches my itch for a really rewarding 4X game in a way few others can.

It also is unfortunately one of the more complex games we play, and our games have historically been plagued by newer or more timid players not understanding the meta-game and letting their neighbor farm uninterrupted to plasma missiles. The difficulty of introducing new players to this game and bringing them up to speed should dissuade me from trying to make it more complex, and yet....

Anyway, a couple years ago I created and began testing a few fan-made races Danielle and I came up with on a canoe trip. We even got plastic miniature ships printed for one. They were....meh, I think I landed on one moderately good idea for a race and 3 decidedly lackluster ones. On another note, I have a basic campaign story written up and legacy mechanics more or less developed in a Google Doc for a Legacy version of the game I keep telling myself I will get around to making - if for nobody else for me and my friends. Eclipse unfortunately has too many structural problems that prevent it from ever being a good Legacy game.

At any rate, all this is a prelude to say I'm continually thinking of ways to mod the game, and improve elements I think are lackluster (the tedious and bland combat being my least favorite aspect of Eclipse since day one). And while Eclipse Legacy will continue to lay nascent for now, tonight Dani and I came up with an idea for a fairly modular expansion I now want to put together.

Eclipse: Fleet Admirals

The basic logic is to give fleets a more flavorful feel and make battles have more personality than they do currently. Currently, the idea is to have a market admirals in the game that any player can buy at the outset of one of their turns. They would be represented on the board by tokens (which I play on stealing from Pandemic), and would follow around ships. No more than one would be allowed per sector, and in the event a fleet with one is completely destroyed, they would die and return to the box.

In my mind, players would probably buy 1-3 per game, and it would give them a chance to tailor their play-style and make battles more engaging.

In terms of what they should cost...right now I'm leaning towards costing 3-7 money each. I like the idea of giving players an incentive to save up gold early and slow their expansion for a bigger bonus late game. Additionally, it would serve as a badly needed stealth buff to the Eridani. Tuning them so that they cost enough gold to be impactful while not so little that they provide too much value could be hard though, and indeed, it might be better to make them not cost gold, or make each one cost a unique combination of resources.

Simultaneously, this idea puts me in the mind to just introduce a full suite of advisors to the game who would have similar effects without an on board avatar. I have a few ideas to that end too, but for now, I'm going to focus on developing ideas for admiral effects.

I'll add to this list in time, but at the moment, here are some of the effects I have in mind. All titles are stand-ins for admirals who will eventually have unique monikers.

Generic Buff Admiral - Once per round of combat, you may tap this admiral to reroll one of your dice.

DeBuff Admiral - Once per battle, you may tap this admiral to force your opponent to reroll one of their dice.

Sato - Once per battle, you may tap this admiral to replace one of your dice with a dice of any other color. You must replace the die before rolling

Riekkan - Once per battle, you may tap this admiral to prevent a ship from immediately dying, it will be removed after the next time it fires.

Initiative Admiral - At the outset of battle, choose a ship class. All ships of that class receive +1 initiative for the duration of the battle

VP Admiral - This admiral is worth 2 VP at the end of the game.

First Player Admiral - At any point in the game, this player may discard this admiral to take the first turn token for themselves.

Pillaging Admiral - Any time this admiral conquers a player controlled sector with planets and places an influence marker, the player may choose the cheapest technology available that they do not already have and place it on its corresponding technology track.

World-Cracking Admiral - After taking a sector and placing an influence disc, this player may discard this admiral to destroy one planet in this sector.

Tank Admiral - Place this admiral on one ship at the outset of battle. That ship ignores the first damage targeted against it each round of battle.

Explorer Admiral - Any time this admiral wins a battle versus ancient ships, the player may draw one discovery tile.

Recycling Admiral - At the conclusion of battle, collect 1 material immediately for each enemy unit you destroyed.

Inspiring Admiral - At the outset of battle, choose a ship to mark with the admiral's token. That ship gains +2 for up to 2 of its rolls each round.

Bastion Admiral - When defending a faction's home sector, all ships under this admiral's command get +1 to all rolls.

Emergency FTL Admiral - The first time a cruiser or interceptor is destroyed in a battle, you may tap this admiral. The ship instead reappears at the faction's home sector.

Gale-Speed -  Once per turn, when you select a movement order, you may tap this admiral. Up to 2 ships in this admiral's fleet may add 1 total of one to their move range for one move activation.

Cloaking Device Admiral - Once per turn, when you select a movement order, you may tap this admiral. One ship cannot be pinned while moving.

Fortress Admiral - Starbases under this Admiral's campaign get an inherent +1 to all rolls.

Spynet Admiral - Once per game, you may discard this admiral to look at an opponent's reputation tiles (not including special reputation tiles). After looking at them, you may swap one of yours for one of theirs.

Sabotage Admiral - Once per battle, tap this admiral and mark an opponent's ship with your admiral token. For the next round of combat, that ship does not benefit from it's shields or computers.

That's my first crack at this concept.

My second pass will likely be broad nerfs, as I think most of these are too strong at the moment. My challenge is I want to create something flavorful, but not game defining. I don't want your game to come down to if you get a certain admiral or not, but I would like to provide players a neat way to tailor their fleets to have more character, and supply yet another option for players who are looking for a way to grind out a couple more VP as Round 9 approaches.