WizKids | Sidereal Confluence: Remastered Edition | Board Game | 4 to 9 Players | 120 to 180 Minutess Playing Time | Ages 14+

Product Information

Just look at this game’s contents. Look at how much is crammed in. That isn’t a typo, there is actually an alien race called “Kjasjavikalimm,” who don’t even have the silliest name. What even is this game? After trading, the economy round happens simultaneously, with all converters that meet their input requirements activating at once, ensuring that you can’t fuel a converter with resources created in the same round. What makes Sidereal Confluence unique is emblazoned in the title of the game – trading and negotiation. Though it may seem like the gameplay is about maximizing your engine, the real core of the game is about how well you can negotiate with your opponents. The box art doesn’t make it jump off my shelf Gameplay Overview With the resources you have you can either make blue cubes or an octagon. Clearly you want to make the octagon, despite you being the most efficient at making blue cubes. Someone else at the table might be in a similar situation but their best bet is to keep churning out the blue cubes.

Each alien race also offers unique twists on the game’s fundamental mechanics, from the Kjas empire tiles letting them build a self-sustaining economy fuelled on planets, to the Faderan “Relic Worlds,” a tabletop slot machine of random benefits that can impact the entire table. Every race warps the game in a different way, with the harder races to play requiring better communication and negotiation skills to take full advantage of their powers. The Execution phase is simple: run any converters you have. Each converter can only be run once, and they are run simultaneously so you need all of the resources at the beginning of the execution phase. The orange player can run her three converters at once assuming she has the resources. Confluence The final phase of play is the Confluence phase. During this phase, the great races come together and will first bid on colony planets and research projects that will add to new tech being developed. First, any player that managed to research tech during their turn, will then announce to the other players that this tech has been shared. When a player researches a project during the trade phase, they will immediately gain access to the tech and gain one or more victory points. Now, all other players gain the tech and can use it next round to run even more conversions, or possible to upgrade one of their existing technology cards. Each tech card also provides the sharing bonus which is 6 points for the first 2 rounds and will be only 1 point in the final round.Sidereal creates a virtuous circle - good behavior is rewarded, which creates more good positive behavior that is in turn rewarded…players tend to be so nice that Sidereal is the only game where a player can go "Can I just have this and I'll owe you one?" and you might say "Yeah!" Because a favor is valuable, and that is a really interesting game mechanic." This latest edition should also be highly lauded for its gorgeous makeover, overhauling a lot of the so-so first edition design and presenting a sleek, clean look that not only looks like it belongs in the future, but it actually makes playing easier and simply looking over a game in progress a delight to behold. Finally, the game round ends with players sharing technologies so everyone has access to any newly developed tech, followed by bidding from a selection of new planets and research teams.

Asymmetrical gameplay - Play as one of 9 unique alien species, each with a unique story and playstyle to match Asymmetrical gameplay– Play as one of 9 unique alien species, each with a unique story and playstyle to match

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For a game inundated with components, the core mechanic is brain shatteringly pure. Players will only win if they’re able to score the most points, which are best earned through developing technologies. However, this tech costs a lot of resources to produce, basically trading power for points. You have to look for gaps in the market, find out what’s most in demand that you can exploit for leverage over other players. In Sidereal Confluence, you and 3-8 friends are all different alien species coming together to develop technology to better all of your races. In each round of the game, your goal is to collect the resources you need to develop new technologies. Whenever you develop one of these technologies, you score points for sharing it with the other players. Each round is divided into three phases – Negotiation, Execution, and Confluence. Each type of cube has a name, but after about the first ten seconds everyone will be shouting “who has yellow cubes, I have green” like a classic game of Pit Negotiation The game took four hours to play, far too long to show publishers. Still, when I got an invite to Alan Moon's Gathering of Friends, I brought a copy along to show anyone who was curious. When I first set out to design "Trade Empires" (which would someday become Sidereal Confluence), it was a game created for Doug and me. We both liked huge, long games, so it was designed to be eight hours long and support nine players. Doug hates randomness, so where ACiv (and most trading games) used card draws to generate resources, I had converters that produced the same things every turn. This meant that there was no good way to hide one's resources — but that didn't matter since this was going to be a game about open trading, not haggling from a position of ignorance.

Each round starts with open trading. Players begin with a smattering of resources and cards representing planets and research teams that produce resources and develop technologies respectively, as well as a unique selection of converter cards, machines that input resources and output more in quantity and/or quality. Almost everything is tradeable - Not just your resources! Planets, ships, technology, future production and more. Inspired by 7 Wonders, I decided to use seating position as a placeholder for map position. Military and Nomad fleets moved around the board from one seat to the next. Colonies pointed some number of seats right or left to open a trade link. The Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl had an easier time trading with people who were farther from them, and their fleets moved 2-3 seats at a time, but not one. I tore out the old multi-step combat system and introduced a single-step combat system that was more flavorful and involved custom dice.

Improved rulebook flow for easy setup and learning - includes more visual examples and clear key terms It’s something of a cliche by now, but this is precisely what Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is about. As people decide what they want and make trades to pursue those goals, emergent patterns form, adjusting based on the supply and demand of each good, even if every individual person involved has at most a vague understanding of what the overall supply and demand actually are.