Board Meeting

Board Meeting: Stellar Conquest

The Heavens – A home to the ancient gods, an infallible guide to the traveler, inspiration to the poet, the ultimate enigma to the scientist, a wonderful and beautiful mystery to us all – now become the battlefield of the future.

Or so the back of the box for Stellar Conquest reads.

Stellar Conquest is a strategy board game published in 1984 by Avalon Hill, but it was formerly published by a game company called Metagaming Concepts.  Avalon Hill purchased the rights to the game, and touched it up.

At the start of play, four alien societies are poised to invade a large and hitherto unknown section of the galaxy.  Its recent discover has provoked much speculation among these civilizations over its suitability for settlement and exploitation.  Detailed studies show, however, that its relative youth when compared to the rest of the galaxy promises an abundance of habitable planets and mineral deposits without the threat of an indigenous society advance to a sufficient level to defend it.  Each player accepts the command of a Captain of the expeditionary fleet of one of these societies.  His mission is to gain control of the most habitable planets for his society.

Stellar conquest can be played by two or three players though it is best suited for four players.  I can vouch that the game is much more fun with the full complement of players, as the few games I’ve gone through with just two people took longer and were less interesting, as I only had to tailor my moves to counter a single opponent.

Stellar Conquest is no longer in print, so I bought a “near mint” copy off Noble Knight Games.  Since it’s an older game, the pieces representing the ships are cardboard squares.  Despite that fact, the board is rather nice and detailed, and though the system cards aren’t very heavy, they should hold up well.  The game includes a pad of player manifests, to write down you colonies and research, and to keep track of the systems you’ve explored.

The rules are very detailed, as are most of the Avalon Hill games.  However, they should be pretty easy to pick up – do a quick read through ahead of time for the first time you play.  I would suggest not spending too much time nitpicking over the exact rules, but there are some specific details that can fall through the cracks.  For instance, the first time I played, we missed the rule that scouts can ignore the eight hex range limit.

The game can get pretty confusing in a 44-turn session, especially if you have a lot of colonies.  There is a lot of math involved, but since you write it down as you go, it doesn’t get too bad.  I wouldn’t rule out a calculator, either.  Keeping track of your ship pieces can get pretty convoluted, but the task force board helps with that, as you can replace any group of ships (that you want to move as one) with one letter-based task force piece.

With four players, the gamesmanship gets pretty exciting, and keeping your plans and forces secret is a must.  The secrecy adds another element of fun to the game, and (at least with my group of players) the back-and-forth of the conversation gets pretty intense.  With the right group of players (e.g., people who don’t mind a lot of intellectual play and numbers) it can be extremely fun.

Yes, it’s an old game, and there are others out there that are better, but if you enjoy classic strategy games, this is a pioneer of the space genre.  I highly recommend it, especially if you have an interest in board games and are somewhat of a collector.