Bunker Project Log

Having forced Mrs. G to take part in the Twilight Imperium nerd festival, I didn’t feel right trying to get her to play another game that wasn’t meant for two. So, I opted for a 4-player game by myself. Best… husband… ever.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love the Catan games. I like having the possibility of getting something every turn, whether it is mine or not. I also like having the possibility of trade outside of my own turn. It makes me like I am playing more than just waiting for the other people to hurry up and finish.

In this way, Starfarers is much like the original. Production is the same, with some re-theming of the actual materials produced. Also, The concepts of of settlements and cities are intact, with a few mutations.

One of the four Catanian colonies at the start of the game

Where it starts deviating is in the third phase of the player’s turn. This is the “Flight” phase. Instead of colonies being connected by roads, they are flown to the next cluster of planets by transporters. A player’s entire fleet of transporters is defined by the upgrades that were made to the player’s mothership.

A fully tricked out mothership

At the beginning of the Flight phase, the player’s mothership is “Rolled”. That’s right, that silly looking rocketship also serves as dice, because inside it are four colored balls. When shaken and stood upright, two are displayed in the bottom.

The thruster showing the current speed of each of the player’s ships (blue: 1 + red: 3 = 4).

There are two kinds of ships, each with a different goal. Colony ships move toward planet clusters. Colonizing planets ultimately mean more resources, and more jumping off points for space exploration. Trade ships move toward alien outposts.

The outposts are where the “Longest Road” and “Largest Army” concepts come in. If you are the first to reach an alien outpost, you get that alien’s “friendship chip”, giving the bearer two victory points. There are five spots at each outpost though, and that chip is held by the player occupying the majority of those spots.

The Diplomat friendship chip is shown in the lower left

The Merchant Alien outpost gives us the “harbor trade” concept from the original game. By creating a trade outpost, you are able to pick a card allowing 2:1 trades for the resource specified on the card.

Finally, the concept of “Events” from the Card game and Cities and Knights is incorporated in the Mothership roll. An event is triggered when a black ball appears.

To resolve an Event, the player to the left pulls the top event card and reads it aloud to the active player. These generally have a flowchart of actions triggered by the answers given.

Here is an example of an encounter where the alien must be given a gift:

And a sneakier gift card:

And finally, a pirate encounter:

As I played through my turns, I found that events happened quite often, so it is probably wise to keep a few extra resources around to pay tribute to the aliens.

By the fourth turn, I was convinced that I would love this game in actual real humanoid play. The space theme is nice for the nerds, the bits are pretty, and the core Catanitude guarantees goodness.?Having to race up to the planets and alien outposts adds tension,?and the sheer amount of space to be covered eliminates the claustrophobic feel of the original.

The event cards were a little irritating, though. Mainly because I have legendarily bad luck. If/when this game actually gets played, I will blame them on my inevitable loss. 😉