Rules Posted

Is there an option to disable random events? I can see some people getting really mad if they're screwed over by RNG.

Ok...I have had a read though this a couple of times. I think it is an incredibly interesting rule set and I am looking forward to seeing how a game plays out and giving it a try myself. It does indeed have incredibly strong board game vibe to it.

Things that I really like / especially stood out to me:

-Starting map exploration and the scanning of tiles and picking of claims.

-Different colony types for different play-styles/variety

-Building adjacency bonuses.

-The hacker array sound incredible. Deliberate planned manipulation of the player economy? Awesome.

-Takeovers of other players

A few questions:

-I am not sure I understand the difference between claims and tiles. Am I over-thinking this and a claim is just a player owned tile or is it something different (a group of tiles of specific size perhaps?)

-I read that the adjacency of your claim to other tiles impacts the shipment of your goods, does the elevation of the terrain do the same or is that just a factor for the certain types of production?

-When you talk about a colony stretching across multiple tiles do you mean the initial colony takes over space and the other tiles are used as more storage or do you mean the colony just expands (as in you build your other buildings) from that initial tile.

- I am (maybe?) gathering there is something of a 'race' at the start to found a colony? Obviously you don't want to spend a crazy amount without building while still revealing enough of the map to find a suitable spot to put your claim. Is that a fair assessment?

- With shipping do we have control over the rail layout or is is something that generates automatically according to tile layout? Are the three methods of shipping different in terms of the speed to get resources to their destination? (I am assuming a blimp will take longer than a train).

Apologies for the somewhat rambling reply. Can't wait to see more.

I like the sounds of the rule set so far and can't wait to begin playing.

I assume the tiles are the game board sections, and a claim is where the player takes control of the tile, similar to the gold rush when miners would take control (stake claim) of a section of river where they thought they would find gold, and would have rights to the section, as long as they continued panning. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_claim) 

The colony founding sounds like it takes up a 4 to 7 tiles and automatically claims those tiles letting players starts utilizing resources on those tiles by building on them. Founding will probably  be similar to Civ where you want to explore your general area so your border growth will encompass more resource tiles. However it sounds like growth will occur through the claim system, instead of population as in Civ. The claims will be used to take control of the additional tiles to collect resources from. Additional claims will be auctioned off by the "mars government" and the players will bid on those.

Are the claims auctions are going to be silent. If so it sounds like the growth system (and possibly others) will be identical to that from Zapitalism.

what's the adversarial setup of the game?

like would it be played as a 2v2 or 1v1v1v1?

I'm wondering how players should respond to sabatoge

if it's a 2v2 I know who to retaliate against.

if it's a 1v1v1 I don't, and it sounds like that might get frustrating/random if I'm playing a PC game with strangers on the internet instead of a board game with a group of friends on the same table

it sounds like an economic game where getting a bigger economy requires a bigger economy

is there any viable counterplay if you have a smaller economy?

if it's a 1v1, would the faster player or the guy with a better start just win the game easily?

Thanks for the kind words!

- A claim is a "claimed" tile which only you can build on.

- The different elevation levels prevent claims from being connected by rail, so blimps will be necessary.

- Each colony type has a specific footprint, which stays the same over the course of the game.

- Yes, founding early or late is an important decision, and there are bonuses for founding later to help balance things.

- Rail is always better, but the claimed tiles have to be contiguous.

The auctions are not silent and are an important moment in the game. However, most of your claims will come from upgrading your colony...

So far, it's only free-for-all, which means 1v1v1v1v1... It works much better than other RTS games in that format. However, if you don't like having so many different players, 1v1 is totally viable, and I expect a lot of players to play that format exclusively.

Soren, I am looking for a comprehensive list of key commands, do you guys have a list somewhere  ?