A New Frontier (2022)

Take control of one of six unique Corporations and vie for dominance in the Alpha System by utilizing a mix of Marketing, Exploration, R&D, Politics and Operations. Focus on building up your infrastructure and set yourself up for a strong finish or go for fast and immediate rewards. Use your Influence in the council chamber to make sure things progress according to your wishes, or resort to outright aggression to dominate the competition.

In your quest to become the foremost power in the Alpha System you will need to balance Actions, Credits and Prestige. Every time you attack you lose Prestige and if it reaches zero your workers go on strike. In addition, Prestige is used when playing Politics and when you Explore and try to ally with lost Colonies. Credits are mainly used for bids, bribes and to buy ships.

You start each turn by hiddenly planning your strategy, where you use your Actions and Credits to focus on the abovementioned planets and/or areas. You can play 0-2 Action tokens on each Planet and support area (Marketing, Exploration, Politics, R&D) depending on what you want to focus. Once the planning phase is over you must make tactical decisions during each Action Phase you participate in.

R&D actions allow you to research any of the 60 technologies in the tech tree. The tech tree is divided into 10 different branches and the deeper you go in a branch the better, but also scarcer, the techs.

Marketing actions allow you to choose marketing missions that must be accomplished during the upcoming turn. These will yield immediate rewards but also victory points by game’s end.

Exploration actions allow you to try to ally with lost colonies, as long as your prestige is high enough. These alliances will yield immediate rewards but also victory points by game’s end.

Politics actions allow you to initiate political agendas that will influence the game during the next turn. All agendas are decided by bidding on them and the more prestige you have, the more influence will you have for bidding on agendas.

Build actions allow you to build ships and upgrade your mines, which will make them yield higher income. If you upgrade your mines far enough they will also give you victory points by game’s end.

Attack actions allow you to attack your neighbors in order to gain victory points and/or to try and steal their credits and perhaps destroy any facilities they might have.

After 5 turns have been played, the winner is the player who has amassed the most victory points.

-description from designer