MEK OP Game Night: Space Empires 2v2

After the previous attempt to play Space Empires: Close Encounters, I decided it would be more prudent to try team play, to avoid the "3 versus 1" dynamic that can emerge in a free-for-all. (Once one player starts to lose fleets, everyone wants to show up and snag some undefended colonies!) We played with diagonally seated teams, the more offensively-oriented of the configurations. I played with first-timer Jarrett "Sherlock" Locke (green and blue), and Kyle and Kim played as the other team (red and yellow). Empire Advantages are

• Green: +1 attack when attacking, -1 attack when attacked
• Blue: Immunity to black holes, can always use slingshot
• Yellow: Adaptive, gains better bonuses the longer combat continues
• Red: Rolls two dice for experience checks, uses better result

Opening moves saw Red take an aggressive expansion strategy, moving colony ships and the flagship along with scouts despite the risk of a black hole. The other three players took a slower approach, and Blue and Yellow focused on building up a network of pipelines for faster movement.

After two turns, Red is in the lead with 5 colonies.

Red's expansionist attitude extended into the border zone, and turned up three mineral markers. The Green side of the border was less rewarding. (I've just hit the Danger at the top and lost a scout!)

Notice two Red colonies about to build up on the border.

The lure of all those resources was enough to provoke outright hostilities. Green pushed its flagship forward into the neutral zone, staking a claim to the resources. Red, with only scouts in the region, quickly scraped together a fleet of destroyers and the flagship to challenge the claim. The battle results in a moderate victory for Green, as Red loses both destroyers in exchange for a fighter, before retreating with the flagship.

Green's reinforcing fleet is a carrier and two fighters.

Meanwhile the opposite side of the board looks like this:

Bug-infested space rocks, stay away!

At this point, Blue swung to hit Red in the exposed rear while Red tried to shut down the invasion with bases and cruisers. Rather than pulling back to regroup, Green pushed deeper into Red territory-- running into a hard line of three cruisers which quickly drove off the small invasion force. Meanwhile, a reinforcing Green group met the Red flagship with a fully loaded carrier... and lost.

Aftermath of the Green attack, retreated to cover a miner swiping those resources!

This came at the price of completely ignoring Blue, which methodically blockaded two colonies and wiped out one of them. At the conclusion of the game, the board looked like this:

That's my daughter Molly, surveying the wreckage.

If you look closely, you can see Blue's incursion into Red space, the retreating Green fleet, and two Yellow fleets about to take pressure off Red. This is where we called it, after seven turns and about five hours. I think the attack just about sufficed to remove Red's head start, but I still regard this situation as fairly balanced and able to swing both ways. Yellow has taken no losses and has a very nice Empire Advantage for long end-game battles.

Kyle and Kim are already planning for a rematch, and want a copy of the game to plot new strategies!