Eclipse is one of the best games that I have ever played. And it is absolutely not as complicated as it seems for the first time. Good choice!

07:36 "But as the game progresses, there is a bag." - Tom Vasel, 2011

15:20 "Each turn, you can have these discs." - Tom Vasel, 2011

A couple of points: -- If you don't attack and other people do, you are VERY unlikely to win. Most of the victory points in the game come from controlling territory, and gaining reputation from attacking. -- The system of removing cubes is brilliant! You don't have to count up your economy every turn like most 4X games. In Eclipse you can read your economy right off your player board. This makes the game play faster, and you don't have to stop the game to update your economy every turn. Great design. -- 4X stands for: Explore, Expand, Exploit, & Exterminate. -- I really like that the game is short. A four player game can be finished in around 3 to 4 hours. Longer than that, and games are unlikely to hit our table. -- You didn't like drawing Reputation tiles (victory points) from a bag. But this is good design. First, not knowing who has exactly how many VP, prevents adding up points and then pointing fingers at the leader. Second, it rewards those who risk early battles (they get first chance at the most valuable tiles). Third, it punishes turtling. If you have two players who are active in fights, it is rare that they diverge by more than 3 points over the value of their victory tiles, so this rarely is decisive. (It could be, but rarely is.) A great game. Warm regards, Rick.

holy moly that intro! goooood.............alllllrighty today....... haha love your channel though

What's with the awkward intro?!

12:06 Cutting edge special effects! XD

Good review! Maybe if Tom didn't throw all his components into a giant pile setup would be easier lol. Seriously though, we keep the types of pieces in separate ziplock bags and setup is pretty quick once you are familiar with the game. He makes it look nightmarish. The blocks may seem like a lot, but what's genius about them is that the shifting of the card doesn't really matter. If they used one block then you could forget how much resources you had. But even if the blocks shift, there are a finite number of them on the board so it's easy to move them back into place and know where you're at. The tiles are 'lucky' but the luck is mitigated. The larger and more ships you destroy, the more point tiles you get to draw and select from. So there is a curve that goes up as your achievement goes up. More importantly, you keep those tiles face down so your opponents can't know exactly how many points you have - which is crucial to the 'last turn' syndrome games like this can have. What's great about this game is that it quenches your strategy game empire game thirst, but doesn't result in so much player elimination and king-maker inclines. And, it is actually playable within a reasonable time, unlike Twilight Imperium.

Hy Tom Vasel! I love your reviews and watch them all the time. But I haven't found a review of Civilization the board game by FFG. Do you think you could review this game? That would be great, thanks!

Great review Tom! You managed to made a review that would address all the important points of the game without making the video a mess. Eclipse is a game that I will prepare myself to play! It looks very good indeed!

God I love space games. Its just the amount of pieces in this and twilight imperium is immense. I would love to play these two products but I doubt anyone would have the patience to learn the rules.

7th-most-watched Dice Tower review (as of November 28, 2016).

I really love that customizable spaceship concept

Review = 4X Space epic game Tom's T-shirt = Find X Appropriate!

I am a big fan of this game, I own it and played it at least 5 times. I start to see some flaws in it, but not that will prevent me of playing it again. It mixes so much amazing concepts in a single game, it really deserves many awards. Unfortunately, I never played Twilight Imperium, so I cannot compare them, but I have this feeling that Tom still rather play TI than Eclipse. Overall, I would give it 9 in 10.

Tom, thank you. This was an excellent review. You're the best!

One thing I really think is odd that Tom says drawing the tiles is chancy but he loves rolling dice! The dice and tiles are both randomizers that the game doesn't have purely deterministic combat. You can't bash the other and love the other unless it's the feeling of holding dice in your hand that matters. (In which case it's not the games fault) never the less nice that Tom likes the game, he should really try Phantom League also. Eclipse and PT are maybe the most played space games in our gaming group (not only that they are both Finnish but also rather quick for 4X games)

There is an Eclipse tray you can purchase that will hold the cubes in place. Can't post a link in the comments, but if you do a Kickstarter search for "Laser Cut Game Parts" you'll find it.

At 6:21 that is valid move to upgrade your cannons. These are alien ships with extra two power. So 4 power on canon one on drive = 5 which is correct in this ship without upgrading source:) Good video - made me buy Eclipse several years back. I am here again to check how your review looks after so many years :) Still ok.

Eclipse is amazingly fun... I love this game! I highly encourage anyone who's into design and deep strategy that you play this soon.

have this game in back order for 3 months now....thanks for review Tom.

Best review I have seen without having to watch an hour long video

1:33 LOL I guess it's pretty odd that Eclipse was the first board game my group started playing regularly. Although, setup is made easier by keeping tiles such as ship parts in their bags, then drawing these tiles only as they are needed. 12:30 I think you've understated the advantage you get in drawing when you can lead strong offensive campaigns. 16:40 I've actually won a bunch of games despite almost totally neglecting build. Above all, you just need to be careful with your ships.

I was checking this review because of the KS version for the second edition, this help me a lot deciding not to back it on KS, since it is not type of mechanics I like even if the space part looks amazing.

Well I was wrong about you! Actually seem like a pretty honest, cool person. :)

Is this with the expansion?

Though you shouldn't go in with the expectation of it being a "Twilight Imperium 3 light". The only thing those two have in common is, that both are scifi 4X board games.

I had a cake decoration for the longest time that looked very much like the smallest spaceship piece.

I'm in a Twilight Imperium or Eclipse dilemma of which one to buy right now? I watched both your videos about the games. Hard to choose...I like Twilight Imperium outlook much more but its length would make it a rarely played game with friends. Eclipse can be played by 2, so even with my girlfriend only and its shorter so can be finished by 1 night and doesn't require a day. But TI looks much more EPIC than Eclipse for me...hard to choose :)

I like the reviewing style. Only so much you can go over in 20 minutes. Tom offers more opinion on the 'flavour' and feel' of the games he reviews. Other reviewers, (like Starlit Citadel IMHO) tend to get into the rules a bit more. Both are great reviewing styles, I think you just have to watch them both. I tend to go to Tom, Startlit, and Drake's Flames, and try to read three different reviews.

what do you recommend: Eclipse or Twilight Imperium?

I'm feeling the weight of a thousand school finals through Tom's face and body language.

I like the video's of the dice tower although this was with a strange intro. Why aren't there any video's on the expansions? It seems like people are giving the expansions high ratings so would like to hear your opinion.

GooOoood.... Alrighttty today..

Priority Mail. Fracking love that game!

So much alike Exodus Proxima Centauri revised edition.

Hello, I saw youre message and I wanted to respond. Just bought Robo Rally, a game you can play from 2 to 8. This is a game were you can have a lots of fun with friends, really. Easy to explane to new players. Watch some videos on the web, but for me its a great game.

I wonder if we would ever get an incredible game like this through Kickstarter. Just kidding. Of course we wouldn't.

Man, what a difference five years makes.

I'm not sure what sort of board games you are accustomed to playing, but 10 minutes is certainly not unusual or particular long in my way of thinking for today's complex board games, or for that matter have been for many years. Axis and Allies is one that springs to mind.

Xploration, Xtermination, Xploitation, and Xpansion.

Try posting your question in the "recommendations" forum at BoardGameGeek - you will get more answers than you will know what to do with ;)

guys ! i need advise ! I got Puerto rico but my friends get confused and bored cause the game is a bit too serious and complex , hard to pickup easily .... so i guess what i m looking for is a fairly easy game to explain ( but ofcourse not totaly dumb...) that people can fairly pickup quickly, and that is hilarious and fun to play... it would works for about everyone and could be good with friends , used of playin boardgame and other that dont... not taking forever to finished or explain too

Full time dice tower, gogogogogogogo

You dropped the entire universe on that one ship D:

Dropping all the pieces in a big pile like that made me a little queasy.

well. I'm sold. I gave up my copy of twilight imperium because it was just a little too much for my group, but I think this will be right down their alley. but man.... the ever ending problem continues... so many other great games sitting in my closet... that just don't get played enough

Where is the reprint?!

I am waiting for the anniversary edition where hopefully they will upgrade the parts and add cube trays. Right now it looks like a mess.

just love eclipse

I dont get your t shirt . Its a SSA problem but what is it supposed to mean

Those look like the same ships that are use in Eminent Domain.

Cosmic encounter ... i just bought it ;)

Are there any other "slimmer" games in this space? I'm struggling to convince friends to get into twilight imperium so I'm hesitant to buy it and eclipse seems a bit too euro game for me. I dislike euro games but I love conquest empire games. Basically I'm looking for risk with some cosmic encounter asymmetrical negotiation functions thrown in. Not risk legacy.

main problem with this game lets compare quantum and eclipse, in quantum you move your ships every turn and also attack very often, in eclipse you spend a lot of time upgrading, exploring, building, and little time fighting with your ships, and that is what kills the fun among many players

The iPad version is nice! And the game and AI work very good.

5:55 A "gauze" shield?!? Pretty sure it's a "Gauss", as in the mathematician Carl Gauss. I used a gauze shield once and really regretted it.

Pretty good and shorter alternative of Twilight Imperium

0:19 Strangest. Intro. Ever.

Those cubes need magnets.

Looks interesting but there are waaaaay too many small components. Shame though, it's my type of game.

Sorry, was in a bad mood while posting that. Didn't mean what I said. Please forgive me. In case you were not aware I'd really appreciate if you made some sort of tutorial videos or rule overviews on the games you recommend! Because I enjoy watching your videos and your videos always convince me to buy great games. But I think you can understand my disappointment when I realize the rulebooks are sub par and hard to understand. Thank you for your consideration and I hope to hear back from you!

....so many components that could go bouncing around the room to be lost forever! lol

Banana smoothie

So folks, this or Exodus?

Sounds like you need some coffee :)

Could you review eclipse 2nd edition please, I watch alot of your video's and that game gets no love, yet it seems to be a big release.

@madeinfrance Try Ticket to Ride or Dominion

eclipse is good, steam, imperial 2030, age of industry - check boardgamegeek you can do an advanced search on both rating (for examle 7.4) and complexity (3.8) with 100 votes.

...you didn't think to fix the intro during the edit? are you drunk there or just really tired?

There really aren't many videos showing the different intricacies of the game. Was hoping Tom might like to fill us in.

twilight imperium, 30+ mins set up time XD worth every second

check out boardgamegeek or the boardgames subreddit on reddit; you'll get a lot of people helping you out find a game you need.

check out small world. it's fun, not too complex, easy to setup, has tactical gameplay and also varies quite a bit each time you play. you can get a good picture of the game on tabletop episode 1: youtube.com / watch?v=X9QtdiRJYro

I like the iOS version better. Decent game overall.

no drama tom, you are absolutly right! but the ultimate mess of this game is that all the huge efforts of exploring, growing, improving your stuff will end in luck with dice throw or randow picking of victory point.

Hilarious start to the video. Nose picking , mouth twitching and a few false starts.

I played this game with 2 friends. One of them got lucky with very good tile draws while exploring in the beginning (that +8 thing), I got unlucky, and from then on out I was just hopelessly behind for the rest of the game. I tried to catch up, but it was just impossible, and I only kept playing out of courtesy, as having no chance at a comeback wasn't fun. Imo what exploration tiles you get in the beginning is WAAAY too swingy, and can put players either too far ahead or too far behind based purely on luck. Ofc luck should have an impact, but not this massive. It's a shame, cause the game has some good features and ideas with the customizable spaceships and technologies, but the way too swingy early tiles just ruined it for me. So less swingy tiles and more comeback mechanics would vastly improve the game imo.

orange, pink, and brown. Sounds like what I had for lunch. Her name was tanya...

Tom? You ok man? Need coffee or something?

Ah shit, 6 months late!

Time to re-review. I find this game ends before your engine build is complete. Have a fat geared fleet and then the game ends.

OmG! I was reading the comments and saw a shameful post of a dude calling Tom disgusting. Then he tried to do a UTurn as it was written by his 7y brother. Don't know if I have learned English well but something that Tom and his crew is NOT is disgusting. We, in Brazil, are big fans of them. Plus they seem to be good vibes people. Thank you, Dice Tower!

Kinda reminds me of Lords of Waterdeep but in space

The cubes must be the worst part of the game? What if they used three ruler/bars to slide across.

eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate.

"Huge Amount of Setup time" is very inaccurate. The game setup is 10 minute at best.

wheres the describe ?????

"Find x" -here it is

You look super tired. Your efforts are greatly appreciated though!

a game of thrones the board game 2nd edition

Sounds like you need new friends. :)

If you want less serious, humorous game to play with friends play Munchkin. Very funny and quick to play but also very good.

Eve Offline

That IS disgusting, isn't it? Huh?

Shame the plasma missiles break the game

Is Tom OK? He seems ill or something. Eclipse and Twilight Imperium are in the same genre, but the execution is very different. Eclipse in more Euro in its approach and, IMO, puts a greater emphasis on combat. By contrast, TI3 is more about fulfilling goals for VP. Eclipse has some very good design and mechanics, especially the way it handles economy tracking, ship upgrades, and technology. I strongly disagree that a game with the humans is "bland". Also, the ships are not the best part.

I cannot buy this game util the fix the cube situation.

Tom, go to sleep! :)

What an utterly strange comment. This is a review/impressions video. Why would he go on about the rules? That sort of thing is best reserved for a "Let's play" kind of video.