Overall, Ad Astra is a good-looking and lavish production. The two panel board is made up of a scoring track and 15 numbered slots for the placement of the action cards; the board is the game’s least decorative component. The real play-area of the game is made up of thick, glossy cardboard tokens of stars (9) and planets (43), arranged into randomized star systems. These are very attractive, although some of the stars could have been more visually distinct from one another. The cards are glossy, on thick cardstock. Making the cards miniature was a good choice, and keeps the game from being the “table buster” that Laget’s Mare Nostrum is. There are 150 resource cards, which are produced, traded and spent throughout the game, 11 “alien artifact” cards granting single-use special powers, and 5 sets of player action cards, 11 cards per player. The cards are sturdy and good looking, although the distinguishing artwork on them is small. The plastic pieces are the game’s most visually appealing component. Each player gets a set of custom pawns representing spaceships, colonies, factories and terraformers. I tend to like plastic pieces better in a science fiction themed game, and these are quite distinctive and cool-looking. However, they are made of hard plastic and I suspect that the spaceship and terraformer pawns may prove to be somewhat delicate. The game provides half-sheet sized player aids that are fairly complete. Aside from these player aids the components are entirely language independent.
Setup
Each player takes a set of pawns, and a set of action cards enabling resource production, building, spaceship movement, trading, and scoring. While each player has the same types of action cards in the same proportions, each player’s production, movement, and scoring cards vary with regard to the specific resources, locations and game elements they focus upon. As a result, player color needs to be randomized in this game. Each player starts with 1 card of each resource. The “start system” star has a number of planets equal to the number of players placed around it, face down. Each player reveals one of these planets, and puts a factory pawn on it, as well as placing a spaceship in the area between the star systems “deep space.” The remaining planets are placed face-down, randomly around the other stars, so that no system has more than 7 or less than 3 planets.
Gameplay
The object of Ad Astra is to gain victory points, primarily from a variety of scoring actions selected by the players. Each turn has two phases: “planning” followed by “action.”
In the planning phase, each player places 1 action card face down in turn order until all the action card slots are full (the number of slots used varies with the number of players). The card slots do not need to be filled sequentially, although the temptation for novice players is to do just that. The players need to build their strategy around what their set of action cards best allow for, as well as build upon what the other players are doing.
In the action phase, the player’s action cards are then turned face-up and implemented, one at a time, sequentially. The action cards trigger variable phases involving all players, phase order beginning with the player who played the action card.
Production cards each depict 2 of the six resources; the pairings vary among the player’s action card decks. Upon revealing the first player chooses 1 of the 2 resources to be produced by all players. Each planet is capable of producing just 1 type of resource, except for alien planets which produce no resources but provide immediate victory points when resource-producing structures are built on them.
Movement cards each depict 2 of the 9 star systems, and in each player’s deck 3 systems do not appear on the movement cards. Players can move starships to planets in those star systems, between planets in one of those star systems, or from planets into deep space (providing a discount on later movement). Movement always costs energy resources, making the obtaining of an energy-producing planet imperative in the early game. Upon arrival in a star system, a player can examine all the face-down planets, and only reveal the planet they choose to land her starship on. Discovering an alien planet gives a player an alien artifact card, which is a one-use special power. The game includes 2 alien artifacts which are described as optional, because they can affect the outcome of the game considerably.
Build cards enable the first player to build as many pawns as she can afford, and enabling the other players to build 1 pawn each. Each type of pawn has a specific resource cost to build. It is rare for a player to be able to afford more than 2 pawns in a turn. Spaceships, colonies and factories all enable resource production on planets. Terraformers provide immediate victory points when built.
Trade cards enable resource trading with the first player, and also allow the first player to trade resources 2 for 1 with the bank. This means that the first player has no incentive to trade at a better rate than 1 for 1, although non-active players may occasionally have incentive to do so. Trading is usually needed in the early game to enable players to get the needed resources to build.
Scoring cards each depict 2 of the 6 kinds of scoring actions, and upon revealing the first player must select 1 of these to trigger a scoring phase for all players. While all other action cards return instantly to the players hands at the end of each turn, scoring cards remain out of play until the player has used all of her scoring cards. Thus each player must use all her scoring cards an almost equal number of times over the course of the game. Strategy revolves around the timing of playing the scoring cards. The different scoring actions involve points for: number of spaceships, number of terraformers, number of colonies and factories, number of systems occupied, number of different resources spent for points, or number of resources of the same type spent for points. In each case, if a single player scores the most points she gets a 3 point bonus. This scoring bonus can be quite powerful in the early game.
Game End and Victory Conditions
The game end can be triggered either by one of the players reaching 50 points, or by all the planets being turned face-up. In either case, the current turn is finished. The player with the most victory points wins. No tiebreakers are described in the rules.
Game Design
Ad Astra’s rule set is simple, and first time players will not find it unduly daunting. There is very little down-time in the game. The secret programming makes the planning phase move quickly, whereas public programming would probably have been quite slow. Each card in the action phase gives each player something to do, while never involving more than 1 real decision point. There are no legitimate opportunities for analysis paralysis here, so your friends are playing slowly feel free to smack them. That said, the game is quite challenging. In particular, making decisions about how and when to use the scoring cards is quite tricky. The amount of scoring scales up considerably during the game, and can vary significantly from turn to turn. Thus the game end and the winner can be a surprise, without seeming abrupt or random. In some of Laget’s earlier games like Mare Nostrum and Senji, the non-identical player assets seemed unbalanced and problematic to me, although I do like both of those games. In this game, the variance between the player-sets of action cards seems balanced, and forces the players to thoughtfully take somewhat different paths to victory. I think part of what makes Ad Astra more balanced than Senji is the absence of combat, which also gives Ad Astra a more European feel. While I enjoy combat in an expansion game, Ad Astra has plenty of player interaction without it. When playing with less than 5, players should probably take note of which movement cards are out of the game. The only element of the game which doesn’t quite pull its weight are the alien artifact cards, which are mostly a little too feeble to be interesting or worth pursing in the early game. I think the 2 optional alien artifact cards are probably best left out of the game.
The fun factor is definitely present for this game; it has a lot of consistency between its theme and its feel. Without duplicating the mechanics of their previous games, Ad Astra does have the familiar feel both of a Faidutti game and Laget game. The one-at-a-time revealing of the action cards is reminiscent of Faidutti games like Citadels and Mission Red Planet, while the distinctive set of action cards for each player is reminiscent of Laget’s Senji. The variable phase mechanic puts Ad Astra in the same family of games as Puerto Rico, San Juan, and Race for the Galaxy, however it is the first such mechanic I am aware of to involve a significant programming element. The intersection of programming and variable phase mechanics, along with a novel and interactive scoring mechanic are a lot of what make this game original and enjoyable.
Summary
Ad Astra is an excellent game of expansion and resource management, which will appeal to the fans of both its creators: Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget. The addition of a prominent programming element differentiates it from other variable-phase games like Race for the Galaxy, and its novel scoring mechanic makes it faster more dynamic than most incremental expansion games. Ad Astra is an auspicious beginning for the Nexus series.
