Burning SunsBurning Suns - new ideas to the 4x genre?

As previously announced during weekly board game meeting organized by LimonkaGames at Fenomenalna Cafe (Warsaw, Poland) there took place test play of the new 4x game: Burning Suns using the prototype prepared in a print and play way. If you don't know what the "4x" is please read the article about Eclipse. According to the Author and quite numerous pre-fans ;) Burning Suns brings some new ideas to the genre. We tried to find out what they are.

Report

As soon as all enlisted testers gathered, Thanatos - who was the most involved person to the game project and also the owner of the prototype - explained the rules. Marcin joined us a few minutes later and had to make it up during the game.

Initially all of the imperial rulers (namely: Wlodzio007, Bartek, Marcin, Thanatos and Chmurnik) focused on taking control of the sectors adjacent to their homeworlds. At this stage of the game first alliances emerged (for example between Thanatos and Chmurnik or between Wlodzio and Bartek). Also there had pierced out faint seeds of future conflicts.

Thanatos was the first one to build his space fleet. Using his diplomatic skilled leaders he also managed to quickly subjugate a few subsequent sectors. Soon he attacked the galaxy center defended by numerous hostile natives. After winning space battle he conducted ground assault and he was also successful with it. All of these victories attracted greedy eyes of his neighbors assuming that central hex the key to winning the game (because of antimatter sources located in place).

Meanwhile, Marcin got into hot water. Every time he tried to implement his new ingenious plan someone spoke that this kind of action is not allowed ;) As if that was not enough mean neighbors exploited his weak points in... knowing the rules ;) Włodzio wiped out Marcin's fleet starting "defensive" battle in her sector  just after provoking his withdrawal from another hex. On the other hand Bartek using some fishy card commenced (successful) assault to his homeworld. Everyone had to admit that Marcin fought bravely facing extremely unfavorable circumstances to the glorious (but a little bitter) end. Many players in his position would just fled the battlefield or start grumbling. There are people worth playing with. Martin prove to be one of them.

During last turns Wlodzio strived to conquer the central hex mentioned above (with the antimatter generator benefit box). However her frontal fleet attack has failed. What's more she occurred to be the target of Chmurnik's offensive maneuver. His space ships was no so numerous, but very efficient due to his race parameters and installed improvements ;)

Finally won the Thanatos-Chmurnik alliance holding central antimatter sector and utilizing the agent benefitting in similar way and conducting successful battles.

Thanatos explaining the rules. Everyone is listening...
The game about to start

First comments

The Burning Suns seems quite interesting game to me, however it might need some improvements. During our little test play I often wondered if I could understand all the rules correctly - especially concerning subjugating adjacent sectors - could I conquer it with my troops or nor, might I use diplomacy to achieve the same goal or I may not? Probably well written rulebook with a few examples more should solve this problem. In my opinion there is still much to clarify.

I also noticed that anyone during the hole game had not bought a single building. I know that playing once the game is not enough to announce far-reaching conclusions, but it is possible, that benefits from buildings do not compare to the cost of placing it including both the price and needed action. Most of them are just limiting movement of enemy ships which is nice but not very attractive feature. It might be the cause of not using mission which seems to be ideal for destroying buildings for example (and almost useless targeting units).

Other thing worth to notice is case of extremely sturdy sector successfully opposing both Bartek and Wlodzio from subjugating it the diplomatic way. The main reason of that situation is that some races misses leaders with decent chance of convincing natives to join the empire. Maybe all the races should be reevaluated considering the question if the particular race is able to use diplomacy at all. I was lucky, playing that kind of race, I draw abilities useful for easy colonizing uninhabited worlds but not all the players had that luck ;)

The Burning Suns requires a lot of table space ;)
Just before the final battles.

Thanatos also wrote quite detailed report from this play: Test play of the Burning Suns prototype at Fenomenalna Cafe by Thanatos (03.10.2013)