It all started when the Imperium seized control of Earth and declared martial law, sentencing those who opposed their will to immediate death or worse fates. It seemed as if all hope was lost, but before their edict could be carried out, a group of defectors managed to wrest control of the Ridback, a Class–II jumpship, and flee with as many of the condemned as they could save.
It has been close to seven years that these refugees from Earth have called the Ridback home, and finally the crew has found a planet with promise. They have managed to establish outposts around it, and now the great burden falls on you to expand these small “alphas” into a full-fledged Beta Colony. Success will mean that your people will be able to begin life anew on exoplanet 14 Bos c, or, as they have renamed it, "Victus" — Latin for "way of life".
In Beta Colony, you play as one of five Directors working to create prosperous colonies. If you earn the most Confidence Points (CP), you will be elected as the first leader of Victus. Players will collect the needed building materials to produce and erect colonization pods – Defense Stations, Science and Tech Towers, Living Quarters, Agriculture Pods, and Water Treatment Centers – on the varied terrain of Victus.
Using a unique "rolldell" mechanism (dice + rondel), Beta Colony is a mid-weight strategic game for players of all levels. Each round, the start player rolls their set of four colored dice. All other players duplicate that roll with their own dice. Players take two actions each round, one action at a time in turn order, with each action using two dice. Players will use one die to move and one die to activate the location to which they moved. Die color and value affect how each of the seven unique locations are used. Players will build colonization pods at each of three colonies to gain the confidence of the settlers and lead them to glory!
—description from the publisher
How to Play Beta Colony
Beta Colony Unboxing
- Interesting action selection mechanic
- Good grey matter game
- Multiple ways to generate victory points
- Can feel like players are falling behind due to dice luck
- Lack of player interaction (blocking action spots is not possible)
- Area control scoring requires a chart which can be cumbersome
- Colonizing a planet, collecting resources and building pods
- A planet being colonized
- Castles of Burgundy
- Lorenzo il Magnifico
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Players choose two dice each turn to move their ship on a circular track with various actions.
- Area Majority — Players score points at the end of the game based on their presence in colonies.
- Dice mitigation — Players can use 'rocket fuel' to alter dice values.
- Dice Rolling — Each player receives four colored dice (black, green, blue, red), and the starting player rolls theirs, with others matching.
- Resource Management — Players collect and spend resources to build pods.
- Set Collection — Players collect pods and place them on colonies, aiming for area majority.
- Variable player powers — While not explicitly stated as player powers, the dice colors and actions suggest a degree of player agency.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The fashion world being a magnet
- I've never seen Devil Wears Prada you're dead to me
- this is a heavy euro I'm not talking like an imperial settlers he said this is a heavy crunchy euro heavy euros kind of have a niche market
- The art of those units that is so flippin cool
- there's going to be an Alexis skill such that there's going to be a standalone case that's narrated and handled by an Amazon Alexa its k-6
- this is to me personally I think this is trailblazing if other publishers don't see this going on and doesn't duplicate this they're crazy
- I think to this day that's - this is still one of my favorite two-player board games of all time
- The boxart for academics the art of those units that is so flippin cool
- I love economic games any I don't know why because it is so dry it is dry when you've got a market and you have a supply and demand and you drive up the price you drive down the price that sounds so boring to people when you explain it but I love love those games like stockpile
- The flowchart for how to play raccoon Tycoon which by the way if it's approved by bgg you should see it out there
- money is secret and if you had a bunch of stacks of coins and things like that it's not as easy as taking those paper bills fanning them out under the table to count them real quick versus a bunch of little tokens that you need to do
- The game ends when two out of the three items are void in other words the towns the railroads or the building tiles two out of the three have to be void before the game will end
- this game blew me away it is simple to play your flowchart is amazing
- Raccoon Tycoon top game for 2019 yes it's February imagine that
- it's always a fun tradition for us each year
- I can't believe it's our fourth annual fourth annual squirrely award I know I can't believe you came up with this four years ago amazing
References (from this video)
- space politics
- space
- Tiny Epic Galaxies
- Alien Frontiers
- Roll for the Galaxy
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dice Rolling — Mentioned as something the host likes in space games.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Rio Grande games was kind enough to send along this copy of beta colony
- it's about space politics which I thought was an interesting route to take
- I like games I like games that are set in space I like games that are set in space where you roll dice so I like tiny epic galaxies I like alien frontiers so exciting dice cool you've got me there
- these components and I'm guessing that these are gold cards so 8 points if you have six crew not adjacent to colony centers when you build you may spend an additional that's interesting that they went with punched card instead of you know a deck of cards
- it's hard to comment not a whole lot of picture examples next to the next to the text a few a few hard to say until you read through and actually play whether the instruction booklet does its job well enough
- I'm not a huge fan of these inserts I really wonder if they like if they partner with broken token or these other guys who make inserts and they're like okay here's the deal we're gonna make a really crummy insert and then you make good ones and then give us a cut of the money is probably that is probably not a thing but I just you know I have other other games from this publisher that just have these wells
- it would be nice but instead we have the massive trough
- holy cow that's a lot of wood
- no plastic baggies all you get is this gigantic one and this small one and it looks like there's a lot of wood to put away and nowhere to put it
- I recognize a couple of things in here so much wood
- I think that they are dumb in role for the galaxy
- I think that they're dumb because you're supposed to use them to indicate you're here I'll turn one like that you're supposed to use them to indicate your money level and this is not shaped like money this is shaped like a dude maybe with a space helmet
References (from this video)
- Gaining points for area control based on difference with the weakest player.
- Pods provide influence points and potential perks.
- Buildings and statues give end-game point boosts and immediate perks.
- Player mats offer unique special abilities.
- Cycle cards introduce ongoing effects and scoring conditions.
- Bonuses for placing pods in the inner ring or creating contiguous lines/clusters.
- Cubes and tiles are very similar in color, causing potential confusion.
- Limit of two cultural achievements per player.
- Cannot place a fourth pod if there's already a contiguous cluster or line of three like-colored pods.
- develop the three colonies of Victus to gain the confidence of exiled space settlers.
- outer space
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Players spend pairs of dice to move their ship and activate different locations.
- Area Control — Players gain points for having the most settlers on the different colonies compared to whoever has the least.
- Dice Rolling — The starting player rolls four dice, and all other players adjust their dice to match that roll.
- Drafting — Players draft player mats and are assigned player colors and components.
- Resource Management — Players gather and spend various resource cubes (plants, steel, food, palladium, polymer, water) and fuel tokens.
- Set Collection — Players collect resource cubes of specific colors to buy pods and build structures.
- Variable player powers — Player mats have special abilities, such as getting extra resources or changing die values.
- Worker Placement — Players place crew members on colonized pods and structures.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's the rules gremlin, come to warn us of something tricky.
- In this case, it's not a rule, but a design problem.
- I'm not colour-blind, but this game made me think i am!