But at this point, it’s not terribly ingenious and the only real innovation that GALACTIC EMPEROR brings to the table is that the lead player can also determine the turn order- clockwise or counterclockwise- which alleviates some of the turn order binding found in previous games with this mechanic. Unfortunately, the game also doesn’t allow for some of the friction and tough choices that other games (like TI3) with this mechanic provide. Most of the role choices are either obvious or seemingly inconsequential.

One thing that I really did not like at all in GALACTIC EMPEROR is the economic model. It is one of the points where the game veers much too far into Eurogame territory for my taste by presenting the players with yet another iteration of the “change cubes of one color into cubes of another color” mechanic that has kept Eurogame designers in favor with bean counters, middle managers, and IT personnel for years now.

Each planet produces either food or a combination of energy and metal. Each planet requires a food to make stuff. The “Merchant” role causes all your food planets make a green cube, and you change those green cubes into blue or yellow cubes when the “Steward” role comes around. Then you store your blue and yellow cubes in an eight-space card that limits your production. There is also a fluctuating, semi-random market on which you can buy and sell these goods for money- so there’s a currency element in there too. Players use a combination of energy, metal, and money to build one of three different classes of ships and to convert control markers into space stations, where new ships can be placed.

The problem is that for one thing, it’s a relatively static, too-predictable system that never really seems to produce the kinds of bottlenecks and dilemmas of shortage and surfeit that make economic mechanics interesting. Sure, you’re in big time trouble if you can’t produce enough food to power your production planets but that has never really happened in any of the games I’ve played. For another, there is no trade or commerce between players so it feels remote and not entirely integrated into the larger system of the game. In most games of this type, the need for resources to power your empire drives your expansion and conquest initiatives but with a tight resource cap and abundant planets, that impetus is never there.

Combat is based on the time-honored AXIS & ALLIES-derived system—different classes of units fire simultaneously and in a proscribed order. Dreadnaughts fire first and flip over on the first hit, Cruisers get to roll two dice, and fighters are the cannon fodder. Ground forces didn’t make the cut from TI3, apparently. Strangely, the system tends to result in a lot of zero-sum outcomes where in evenly-matched battles both players lose roughly equivalent amounts of materiel. The game also seems to favor “turtling” strategies and a Cold War-like buildup of arms over small battles and skirmishes. I almost felt that avoiding battle was a better strategy, but the game eventually forces you to fight just to get your control markers on the board. I definitely like that the game encourages combat, but without technologies and overwhelming force it too often feels like the gain is not proportional to the risk and potential loss.

There is a second type of conflict that feels incongruous with the rest of the design: the “Regent” role sort of replaces any and all of the political machinations and non-combative colonization represented in a typical 4x style game. Each player gets to place influence markers on existing planets in an attempt to take over systems without military conflict. The benefit of the role is that the chooser gets to place his or her tokens last- which is a huge advantage. Each player gets two markers but has the opportunity to buy a third. Once all the markers are placed, any system with those from more than one player go through a one-to-one removal process exactly like the conflict resolution in CIVILIZATION until only one color remains. There is some negotiation in this stage, but it never gets beyond the very basic “if you don’t put your piece there, I won’t put my piece here” level. It sort of feels like clutter in the context of the design, but it does seem to fill the “political element” slot of a “TI3 in 90 minutes” design template.

In one of the game’s weirder contrivances, the “Scientist” role that allows players to purchase the game’s very basic and somewhat generic technologies eventually gets removed from the game as the central sun goes supernova and turns into a black hole. The black hole becomes this super powerful warp whereby you can jump ships in and then jump them out anywhere on the board with an uncontested first strike attack. It’s a huge advantage, and it’s one of the ways in which the game seems to force a certain trajectory toward conflict. Additionally, when the whole map is filled up with tiles the “Explorer” role turns over to a second “Warlord” one. It feels artificial, as if the designer realized that something had to move the game to a more aggressive footing.