Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy rules refresher

Read the refresher

You win by having the most victory points after eight rounds. You get them by controlling sectors, researching technology, fighting battles, controlling monoliths, and forming diplomatic relations, so you spend the game expanding outward, colonizing planets, and building a fleet good enough to defend what you took.

A quick word on setup. Draw tech tiles at random into the tech tray until you have the number of regular tiles for your player count, twelve at two players up to twenty at six; rare techs drawn along the way go in the bottom row and don't count. The outer sector stack is trimmed by player count too, from five sectors at two players up to eighteen at six. The galactic center goes in the middle with a facedown discovery tile on it and the defense system miniature on top. Each player's starting sector goes in their starting zone with the arrow facing the center, and any empty starting zones get random guardian sectors, each with a facedown discovery tile and a guardian on top. Guardian sectors are not used at six players. Pick one blueprint tile of each type, ancient, guardian, and defense system, for the game. On your own board, influence discs fill your influence track, and three spare discs stay in your tray unless you research the techs that grant them. Population cubes cover squares three through twenty-eight on all three population tracks, and your storage markers start at the values printed on your species board. In your starting sector you place one interceptor, one influence disc, and one population cube in every population square without a star.

Each round has four phases. In the action phase, starting with the start player and going clockwise, you take one action at a time until everyone has passed. Then the combat phase resolves battles and conquest. Then upkeep, where you pay your civilization's cost and produce materials and science. Then cleanup, where discs come back, new techs are drawn, and the round marker advances. To take an action, move the leftmost influence disc from your influence track to the matching action space on your action track. The six actions are explore, research, upgrade, build, move, and influence. Each one gives you the number of activations printed on your species board for that action, so one action may let you do the thing once, twice, or more. You may take the same action as many times as you like, as long as you have discs. When you pass, flip your summary tile to the reactions side. The first player to pass takes two money and the start player tile for next round. After passing you may only take reactions: one single upgrade, build, or move activation, with no tech bonuses applied. The action phase ends immediately when everyone has flipped.

Explore lets you pick an unexplored zone next to a sector where you have control or at least one unpinned ship. Flip the top tile of the stack matching that ring and either place it, oriented so a wormhole connection is made back to you, or discard it, which ends that activation. A placed sector with a discovery symbol gets a facedown discovery tile, and any ancient symbols get that many ancient miniatures on top. You take the discovery tile immediately only if there are no ancients, and you must reveal it and choose the reward side or the two victory point side before finishing. You may then place an influence disc to control the sector, again only if there are no ancients.

Research means paying the science cost of an available tile from the tech tray and placing it on the leftmost open space of its track. Every tech you already have in a category discounts the next one in that category, but each tech has a printed minimum cost you can never go below. You can't research a tech you already have, and rare techs, of which there is only one copy each, may go on any track.

Upgrade modifies your blueprints, and all ships of that type change instantly wherever they are. With each activation you may first return any number of ship parts to the tray, then place one part from the tray into any empty or preprinted space. You need the matching tech, energy consumption may never exceed energy production on that blueprint, drives can't go on starbases, and interceptors, cruisers, and dreadnoughts must always keep at least one drive. Taking and returning parts costs nothing.

Build puts one ship or structure per activation into a sector you control, paying materials. Interceptor three, cruiser five, dreadnought eight, starbase three, orbital four, monolith ten. Starbases and structures need their tech first, and a sector can hold at most one orbital and one monolith.

Move sends one ship per activation up to its movement value in sectors, only along wormhole connections, never into unexplored zones. Pinning is the thing people forget: each opponent ship in a sector pins one of your ships, and pinned ships may not leave. Pinning is recalculated for every move activation, and the galactic center defense system pins everything in its sector.

Influence gives you activations plus the right to flip up to two used colony ships back faceup. Each activation moves one disc from your track or from a sector you control to an uncontrolled sector with no opponent ships that connects by wormhole to a sector where you have a ship or control, or to an uncontrolled sector where only you have a ship, or back to the rightmost empty space of your influence track. You may not use more than one influence activation in the same sector in one action. If you pull a disc off a sector, all your population cubes there go back to your population tracks.

Separately from actions, at any time during your action or reaction you may flip faceup colony ships facedown, one per population cube, to move cubes from your control board into empty population squares in sectors you control. The cube must come from the track matching the square's color; gray squares take any; starred advanced squares need the matching advanced tech; orbitals take science or money only. Colony ships are the only way to get population onto the board. And with four or more players, at any time during your action two players may agree to exchange ambassador tiles, each with a population cube, if they have a wormhole connection between sectors they control and neither has ships intruding on the other. Later, having ships in a sector where that player has a ship or control at the end of your action is an act of aggression: the relations break and you take the traitor tile, which blocks further diplomacy and costs two points at the end.

The combat phase runs six steps. First identify every sector holding opposing ships, then resolve those battles in descending sector number order. In each sector, players fight two at a time in reverse order of entry, and whoever controls the sector is always the defender and fights last; ancients, guardians, and the defense system are always defenders. Determine initiative by totaling initiative symbols on each ship type, with ties going to the defender. Missiles fire once, by ship type in initiative order. Then repeat engagement rounds, each ship type activating in initiative order and choosing to attack or retreat, until one side is gone or has retreated. Rolling a burst is always a hit and a blank is always a miss; otherwise add your computers and subtract the target's shields, and six or more hits. Damage equals the number of bursts, damage beyond a ship's hull destroys it, and excess damage can't spill onto another ship. Retreating ships move to the edge of a neighboring sector you control with no opponent ships, and complete the move on their next activation; they can't attack but can still be shot until they leave. After all battles in a sector, players draw reputation tiles in order of entry, up to a maximum of five: one for taking part, one per interceptor, starbase, or ancient destroyed, two per cruiser or guardian, three per dreadnought, and three for the defense system. You keep at most one, facedown on your reputation track, and return the rest. If all your remaining ships attempt to retreat, you lose the participation tile. Then, once all battles are done, remaining ships attack enemy population cubes in their sector, each ship attacking once with its non-missile weapons against zero shields. Then, in any sector with your ship and no population cubes, the controller's disc is removed, and you may place your own discs where you have ships. Then undefended discovery tiles are claimed by ships sitting on them. Then all damage cubes are cleared.

In upkeep you may still use leftover colony ships, but not into sectors containing opponent ships. Compare your money income, the highest exposed number on your money track, with your upkeep cost, the highest exposed number on your influence track, and gain or pay the difference. You can never go below zero money, so trade resources at your species board's trade rate or abandon sectors until you can pay; a player who still cannot pay, or who ends the combat phase with no ships and no sectors, is eliminated. Then gain materials and science equal to the highest exposed numbers on those tracks. In cleanup, draw new tech tiles into the tray, five at two players up to nine at six, return all influence discs from your action track, move graveyard cubes back to your population tracks, flip colony ships and summary tiles faceup, and advance the round marker.

The game ends after the eighth round. Score one to four points per reputation tile, one per ambassador tile, the printed one to four per sector you control, three per monolith in a sector you control, two per discovery tile kept victory point side up, and minus two if you hold the traitor tile. Each tech track scores by how many tiles are on it: four tiles is one point, five is two, six is three, and seven is five. Add any species bonus. Most points wins, and a tie goes to the tied player with the most total resources in storage.

A turn, played out

It is round 4, your turn in the action phase. You hold 6 materials, and 2 of your 3 colony ships are faceup. Your home sector borders an unexplored zone in the outer ring, so you take explore. Your leftmost influence disc slides onto the explore space, and your species board gives you 1 activation. You flip the top tile of the outer stack. It shows a discovery symbol and no ancient symbols. You turn it until one of its wormholes meets a wormhole on your home sector's edge, and place it. A facedown discovery tile goes on it, and because there are no ancients, you take it right away and reveal it. You pass on its reward and keep it victory point side up: 2 points at game end. Still no ancients, so an influence disc from your track goes onto the new sector. That exposes a higher number on your influence track, so your upkeep cost goes up. Still during your action, you flip one colony ship facedown. That moves 1 cube from your materials track into the new sector's materials square. Its gray square could take any cube, but you save your last colony ship. The empty space on your materials track means higher production at upkeep. Play goes clockwise. On your next turn you take move, and your board gives 2 activations. Next to your home sector, joined to it by a wormhole, sits an uncontrolled sector holding your cruiser, your interceptor and 1 red interceptor. That red ship pins one of yours, so one may still leave. Your cruiser has a movement of 2. It goes along the wormhole into your home sector, then along the wormhole you just connected into your new sector. For the second activation, pinning is recalculated. Your interceptor now faces the red ship alone, so it is pinned and cannot leave, and that activation goes unused. Your interceptor will fight red in the combat phase, and whatever happens, you draw at least 1 reputation tile for taking part, as long as you do not try to retreat with everything you have left.