Review of Star Trek: Ascendancy - Vulcan High Command Player Expansion Set

Blurb from the publisher: 'Live long, and prosper.

Discover new star systems, encounter new exploration cards, plus more space lanes and resource nodes!'

What you get: Your EUR 35 or USD 35 or GBP 25 will buy you the Vulcan High Command Player Expansion Set for the Star Trek: Ascendancy game line, a 4x board game that can accommodate 3 players at around one hour per player (even longer during your first games). This expansion increases the number of players by one, a number that may be further increased through the use of additional expansion sets.

In addition to the 6-page English rulebook that can be also found on the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following items: 10 Exploration cards (5 Crises, 2 Discoveries, 3 Civilizations), 10 Systems discs (Vulcan included), 5 Vulcan Ambassador figures, 30 Vulcan Starships with 3 Fleet markers and cards, 10 Vulcan Control Nodes, 15 Vulcan Advancements, 10 Vulcan Agendas, 3 Vulcan Trade Agreements, one Vulcan Turn Summary card, one Vulcan Command Console with 2 sliders, 19 Resource nodes, 76 tokens, and 27 Space Lanes.

Gameplay: The most logical, and one of the oldest space-faring sentient races plays a different game. Not only the Vulcans start with an Ascendancy of 3, they also follow their own agendas and may win the game based on them alone. At the beginning of the game they draw two out of the ten available Agendas. One is visible to all players, while the other is only known by the Vulcan. If at any point in time the Vulcan fulfills the condition of either of the two, he wins the game. Examples of agendas include controlling ten systems, fully upgrading all weapons and shields, or occupying six phenomena. This does not preclude the Vulcans from also winning the standard way...

The Vulcans are not aggressive against the weak. They do not invade or attempt to hegemonize systems controlled by a rival with a lower Ascendancy. Woe to you if you have higher Ascendancy, however. They can also move other players' ships, provided they have a trade agreement with that player and he allows them to do so. Seeing how the Vulcans were out there long before anybody else, they can spend Ascendancy to colonize any uncontrolled system irrespective of whether they are connected to it or not; this is in fact the only way they have of colonizing systems. If their Ascendancy ever drops below their number of fleets, they must disband fleets to compensate. Their fleets are small and not really oriented towards battles, they are however pivotal towards using Ambassadors, the new thing that the Vulcans bring to the game.

Ambassadors are placed in systems instead of star bases which the Vulcans cannot build. Ambassadors may be moved to connected systems, while rival players may remove them from their own systems. Vulcan Advancements mostly relate to Culture and are interlinked, to a certain extent, to their Ambassadors. As an example, and with the right advancements, systems with Ambassadors roll an extra die on planetary invasions, the Vulcans may gain extra Command, increase the value of their Trade Agreements, increase the uptake of Culture, etc.

The strong points: Elves. In. Space! They were there before us, they know things we don't, and that's why they play by their own rules. Known additional victory goal; hidden additional victory goal; an exclusive new way of colonizing seemingly irrelevant systems. The price they pay is heavy, since they pay in Ascendancy, this however onlys makes each of their moves an exercise in balance and calculation. They are not an aggressive faction. In contrast to the Andorians who will pick every single battle with a weaker fleet, the Vulcans are prohibited to invade rivals with lower Ascendancy. Noble, until you realize how they can drop their Ascendancy by building new colonies, and then obliterate you where you stand... if they calculated everything correctly when it comes to available fleets.

The Vulcan Ambassadors are a marvel to behold. They are fully intertwined on the Vulcan playstyle, partially mobile and powerful in many different circumstances. They provide culture, defenses, improve your retreats in space battles and many more. This is an advantage that no other race has.

The Vulcans partially play like the Ferengi, in that if you trust them near you, you can also gain something out of what they do, like Culture and Trade. Thankfully, the Ambassadors cannot be instantly turned into a danger like a Ferengi ship can, on the other hand however the Vulcans neither need to nor aspire to doing anything as crass as brutalizing you. Back to paragraph one: they win in three different ways, and you don't even know what one of them is!

Once again, the 'more of the same' elements of the present expansion are top notch. Take the Singularity Cluster as an example. Brave the phenomenon, and you might earn up to 3 science. Risky, yet not bad at all.

The aesthetics and production values are at the same level of the base game. Vulcans go for orange, and their ships' iconic designs is well reproduced in miniature size. I love the many small-sized Sareks, or at least that's the person I project on the diminutive plastic Vulcan Ambassador. Ascendancy keeps on nailing it when it comes to how its components add to the theme.

Don't forget that you may either substitute one of the starting races with the Vulcans, or you can use the Vulcans in order to add more players around the table. If you don't like the premise behind them, no worries; there are another three additional empires to choose from. If you like them all, you can ultimately turn Ascendancy into a 7-player game. It will cost you, and a game will last more than seven hours. It will be however a blast.

The weak points: The main thematic problem with the Vulcans and the Andorians is that they shouldn't have existed as separate factions. Both races are integral to the Federation, which is one of the basic game's main factions. Fielding all three of them together while facing, say, the Borg, feels out of place, and I am not the most hardcore of Trekkers. The obvious mitigation is to remove the Federation when fielding either of these two factions. Alternatively, consider the Federation as its precursor, namely humans in space, playing in the timeframe before its formation in 2161. Thematically unsatisfying, but what can one do?

I have the same feeling for the Vulcans that I did for the Ferengi in the past. Why is a race that plays so radically differently to everybody else not featured in the basic game already? Even more so, there is zero advertisement anywhere about how differently they behave, ultimate game goals included. This fantastic, praise-worthy asymmetry is now buried; not even the publisher's blurb mentions it. Unless fans read reviews like this one, they have no chance of knowing how radically this expansion changes the basic game, since what these guys do here is unprecedented. What a way to shoot oneself on the foot and not advertise a game's patently strong point.

Having said that, the Vulcans is not a race I recommend to anybody that starts playing the game now. Start from the more standard races before you touch either these people or the Ferengi. Before breaking the rules, you must know the rules that everybody else plays with.

The rules relating to the Vulcans could have been better written. There is some confusion about the placement, movement, and removal of Ambassadors, and a few other issues. Most of the issues have been officially solved by now. Answers can be found on BGG, if the official FAQ didn't answer all the questions it ought to. I suggest you consult both before your first Vulcan game, so that you have no question about how things work.

Taking the Vulcans' patent asymmetry into account, I am under the impression that games that include them last longer. My number of playtests is be statistically insignificant of course, and the insertion of a new faction always entails delays. All I am saying is that you should keep it in mind, even though if you finish in five hours or five and a half doesn't ultimately make that much of a difference.

Like with all other expansions, the cards contained in this expansion do not have a distinct sign that would allow a player to retire them from the game and play only with the base game's cards if he so wished. Indeed, in some cases no signs like that are needed, and many cards relate to the Vulcans themselves. That however is a further argument in favour of including this material in the basic game, and not selling it separately.

Conclusion: If you want to play totally differently to everybody else the Vulcans are the only logical choice with the Ferengi now coming a distant second. They were everywhere, they had everything, they don't care about the rules, and now they are back. Judge them by the size of their ships and their alleged aversion to battle and you are sure to lose.

For more info on Star Trek: Ascendancy and Gale Force Nine, visit www.gf9.com as well as the dedicated Star Trek game line page.

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