Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy

The original base game supports 2–6 players and lasts nine rounds, each with action, combat, upkeep and cleanup phases. For Terrans, prepare technologies and outer sectors for the player count, then place the starting sector, population, an Interceptor and a control disc; alien species modify their starting resources and abilities.

During actions, proceed clockwise, choosing Explore, Influence, Research, Upgrade, Build or Move and spending a disc from the influence track. Actions may repeat. The first player to pass takes next round’s start marker. Passed players may still spend discs on weaker move, build or upgrade reactions on their turns; the phase ends immediately when everyone has passed.

Explore an empty space beside a sector containing your disc or an unpinned ship, drawing from the corresponding sector stack. Place it with a legal wormhole connection or discard it. A legal new sector without hostile ships may receive another disc for control; Ancients or the central defense normally must be destroyed first. On receiving a discovery, immediately choose its benefit or keep it for two points.

Flip an available colony ship to place a matching population cube from its track in an empty square of a controlled sector. Advanced squares require technology, gray squares allow any resource and Orbitals allow money or science. Influence moves up to two control discs and refreshes two colony ships; withdrawing control also withdraws the sector’s population.

Research spends science on one available technology, with same-category discounts but a minimum cost and no duplicates. A Terran Upgrade places up to two parts, maintaining sufficient energy and drives on mobile ships. A Terran Build creates up to two ships or structures in controlled sectors for materials; some types require technology.

A Terran Move grants three ship movements, possibly moving the same ship repeatedly, each up to its drive range through explored wormholes. Normally both edges need wormholes. Each enemy ship pins one of yours, leaving excess ships free; the central defense pins every ship. Wormhole Generator permits connections with a wormhole on only one side.

Resolve battles in descending sector-number order. Multiple parties fight pairwise in reverse arrival order, with the controller fighting last. Missiles fire once in initiative order, followed by repeated cannon attacks or retreat; the defender wins initiative ties. Natural sixes hit and ones miss; otherwise roll plus computers minus target shields must reach six. Draw at most five reputation tiles per sector and keep one; conquest still requires clearing enemy population.

Upkeep first allows remaining colony ships, then adjusts stored money by money production minus influence cost, followed by science and materials production. A shortfall requires trading resources or withdrawing sector discs and population and recalculating; failure collapses the civilization. Cleanup returns action discs and graveyard population, refreshes colony ships and replenishes technologies.

After round nine, score reputation, one point per ambassador, printed values of controlled sectors, two per saved discovery, three per Monolith on your sectors and species bonuses. Each technology track with 4/5/6/7 technologies scores 1/2/3/5 points. The Traitor card costs two points. Ties compare the total money, science and materials in storage.