Exile Sun (2012)

Game Play Description

Exile Sun combines some of the most compelling strategic mechanics in a way that delivers a streamlined, integrated, and fast-paced game of competition and conflict. Simplified deck building, hand management, simultaneous hidden worker placement, a card draft, 6 unique player advantages, and a revolutionary zero-luck combat resolution system ensure that playing Exile Sun is like no other game. Private and public card-based objectives give players options for points, but they must choose carefully when allocating their limited resources. The player with the most points accumulated at the end of three game cycles wins.

A Game Round

The game simply consists of cycles where each player in turn makes four fleet moves and then ends their turn by moving a pawn on the 'Timer Track'. The 'Timer Track' triggers events like 'Supply' and 'Battle' that effect all players simultaneously. Once each event is resolved, the player turns continue.

• Moves - These moves can be regular movement, scanning an enemy fleet, launching a decoy fleet, and initiating a battle.
• Events - The battle and supply events are resolved with a mechanic that may be best described as simultaneous hidden worker placement. This unique mechanic involves the use of a control card with 10 sliding tabs. The resulting game play is tense, intuitive, and intensely competitive.

Theme Overview

Far off and forgotten, orbiting the Exile star, a fragmented group of Colonial powers is struggling to exist in the harsh environment of their foreign home. Having been unexpectedly cut off from contact with Earth over two hundred years ago, the process of gaining some economic recovery has been slow and arduous. With dissension rising among the populace, these leaders must compete to gain military, economic, and technological advantages over each other in a race to lead the united colonies in a mission to contact Earth. Time is short. While an outright planetary assault could express dominance in military power, perhaps luring out and destroying an opposing Flagship or Construction Shipyard can have the same effect using fewer resources. Or hit and run assaults with fleets of strike craft can be equally effective. But be warned, leaders dare not neglect their own colony resources, or their supporters will lose faith in them and they’ll fall quickly out of the race.