Many centuries ago, the Gatarian race came to its final evolutionary stage and, before leaving our space and time, set up the Citadel of Knowledge at the center of their empire. They knew that one day all of their achievements would be discovered. In order to prevent it from being received too soon, they placed obstacles in their space that only those who were ready would be able to overcome. Now you can pit yourself against your opponents to reach the Citadel and claim this sector and its technology for your people.

The Game

The Space Conquering is a board game variant for use with your Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game (hereafter STCCG) that can be played with one to six players on the Conquering board that was included in SHADIS #17 (a smaller version appears later in this article).

Using a two-dimensional rather than a one-dimensional playing space gives a greater "open space" feel to playing Star Trek. While these rules may seem daunting at first, realize that The Space Conquering plays like STCCG about 90% of the time, with changes only to match the nature of the two-dimensional board and multi-player nature of the game.

Seed the Galaxy

Just like in STCCG, each player first selects cards to seed this sector of the galaxy. Next, the players seed the board/sector, playing dilemmas under the mission cards. Players then move around the board. completing missions in an attempt to accumulate 100 points.

Once a player has achieved 100 points, that player moves to the center of the board (at the citadel) to complete the final mission and win the game. It is important to note that the game does not end if a player runs out of cards: a player can only win by gaining the secrets of the Citadel.

If a player runs out of cards, then they have simply run out of resources that their affiliation assigned to the project. Unless specified later in this article, all rules from STCCG apply normally to The Space Conquering.

The Deck

While your group can decide on any limit on deck size, we have found that a 70 or 75 card limit works very well. Each deck must have at least one outpost, and exactly seven missions (an additional mission is needed to seed the Citadel). Al1 seeding cards (Artifacts, Missions, one Outpost, and Dilemmas) may make up at most half of your deck.

Placing Cards

In a game with more than two players ownership of each card on the board may become unclear, especially once all of the missions/dilemmas are placed and the players' ships are moving around the board. To prevent confusion, do two things: first, when you play or move one of your cards, arrange the card so that it faces your starting Outpost.

This way each of the six players will have their cards facing their direction and it will be easy to identify the owner of each card. Secondly, take your time: if you are careful and methodical, you will not disturb the layout of the cards and mix them up. You do not need to be slow to be careful. Finally, card sleeves that have been labeled with a marker are an outstanding aid to keeping ownership clear.

Seeding the Sector

The first thing that each player does is to take the highest valued mission in their deck and place it on the Citadel (the owner chooses one in the event of a tie). You may want to place these missions off to the side of the board to be able to see all of the missions and to minimize clutter. Then, players select a starting position on one of the outside comer spaces (the "Places of Power" in the Conquering) and place their starting outpost on that space.

Starting from a randomly selected player and proceeding clockwise, players place their missions onto the board. Each player may only place one mission in each of the six "subsectors" on the board. A subsector is defined as the area three spaces from (and including) the starting space to (but not including) the Citadel, as well as the three spaces to the immediate right of the first three spaces.

The six subsectors can be seen on the map below. This rule encourages players to move all around the sector to complete their missions.

After all of the missions have been placed, the players will play dilemmas onto the missions in the sector as well as in the citadel. As usual, space dilemmas and planet dilemmas must be placed on their appropriate missions. Each player may only play two dilemmas onto each of the missions on the Citadel.

After all of the Dilemmas have been placed onto missions, each player may, in turn, place ships under the missions in the citadel. These are considered drone ships controlled by the Citadel and defending it from intruders.

Each player may not play more than two ships per mission and may only play them onto the missions in the Citadel. See the section on the Citadel below for more details.

Empty Space

Any space in the sector without a mission on it is considered "empty space". Empty Space has a "span" of three. New Outposts can only be constructed in an empty space. When a mission is completed, it is removed from the board, creating an "empty space".

Game Play

This section is rather short because The Space Conquering plays like STCCG. Some cards have had their effects altered due to the two-dimensional nature of the game. These changes are listed below. Play proceeds normally until a player has accumulated 100 points and wishes to head for the Citadel.

The Citadel

A player may cross the Citadel before accumulating 100 points, the Citadel is considered to have a span of seven. Combat cannot occur between players on the Citadel space.

To win the game, a player with 100+ victory points may enter the Citadel space and attempt to complete any one of the missions there. When a player does this, the player must advance past the Dilemma phase and the Drone phase before attempting the mission. If the mission is a planet mission, then the order is: Drones, Dilemmas, Mission. If it is a space mission, then the order is: Dilemmas, Drones, Mission.

Dilemma Phase

This is unchanged.

Drone Phase

In the Drone Phase, all of the ships that were placed as drones on this mission come out of the Citadel to attack the player's ships. All of the ships thus placed are sorted by affiliation to create "waves".

The current player chooses the order in which he or she wishes to deal with the drone waves. For each wave, each drone will "take on" one ship which is on the Citadel space. If there are more drones than player ships, the drones will begin doubling up after each ship gets assigned a drone.

The player to the right of the current player declares the drone assignments. Ship to ship combat occurs normally, except that drones do not receive damage normally; a single hit destroys a drone. After a round of combat, the drones may be reassigned by the player to the right. The current player may retreat after any round of combat with the drones.

If the current player decides to retreat, all of the previously destroyed drones will be reformed by the Citadel to await the next "visitor". When all of the drones assigned to a mission are destroyed, the drones will not be repaired, and the player may proceed towards the next phase.

Mission Phase

If the player survives the Drones and the Dilemmas, he or she may win the game by solving the mission that was selected. If the mission is successfully completed, the game is over.

Card Alterations

For playability, the rules on certain cards were changed to fit the nature of a two-dimensional board. If your play group can agree on a way to deal with these cards, go ahead.

Borg Ship -- The Borg ship moves in a straight line towards the opposite end of the board. It will not choose a path that takes it through the Citadel, and will opt for the longest path it can take. The Borg Ship will choose the path to the "right" of the Citadel if there are two paths of equal distance.

Supernova If it destroys a space, that space has a span of seven. Supernova cannot be played on the Citadel.

Where No One Has Gone Before allows side to side "wrap around" for one ship and is discarded after use. The ship moves from one edge space to the edge space directly opposite it on the board. The ship so moving must pay all normal movement costs.

Suggested Changes:

Red Alert is discarded at the end of the turn on which it is played.

Raise the Stakes - If players do not wish to play for ante, we recommend that Raise the Stakes allow the owner of a discarded dilemma to retrieve any dilemma he or she owns and place it on a mission of their choice.

Limit Artifacts to one per type per person.

Limit these cards as follows: Kivas Fajo -- 2, Res-Q -- 2, Palor Toff --2.

These two cards are banned: Q and Static Warp Bubble. (Q is banned because of the difficulty in changing the entire board, unless all players agree to allow "him". Static Warp Bubble slows down game play extensively and should also only be allowed if all players agree.)

An Optional Rule

Players may decide not to assign all of their space dilemmas in order to "seed" them during play. Note that if you do this too much, you will make U easier to complete missions and will not be drawing useful cards as often from your play deck. This is a strategy best used sparingly.

These dilemmas may only be played during your turn, are considered events, and can only be played onto "empty space", face down. If a ship (or ships) move onto a space with a dilemma, then they encounter the dilemma, turning it over and dealing with it. A dilemma played in this fashion is also considered an event for the purposes of card effects.

Star Trek is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures. Star Trek: the Next Generation Customizable Card Game is a registered trademark of Decipher Games. The use of any trademarks in this article is in no way to be construed as a challenge to those trademarks, not even a little bit.

Related:

More MultiPlayer Star Trek: Official Varient Rules