Arcs ►►► How does it play?

hey everybody today on R we're running through arcs but before I begin please turn the subtitles on to the Klingon channel so that if I make new rules gos you know what they are now I hope I don't make any rules Goose cuz on top of playing this today I also have a tutorial video for ARS on my channel rtfm so please check that out if you want to learn how to play there's a link in the description below and again I don't think I'm going to get anything wrong but it's still important to have those Clan subtitles on because anytime you play a game sometimes you mess up anyway so let's talk about arcs arcs is set in space as you can clearly see U now this if you don't know anything about it is a new game by Cole worly later games makes games like root and oath and all kinds of stuff like that uh it's also Kyle faren R2 for my money is I I think I'm pretty solid in saying that I think Kyle far is my favorite artist in board games I just love how much character uh the cards have but that's not the gameplay of the game that's probably what which probably what you want to see so I want to talk about ARs and start and let's start playing it uh we've got two different factions I am playing with the leaders and lore module that's included in the base game basically just means I've got some slightly different factions uh at work so on the left brain uh I've got my upstart um who's really good at declaring Ambitions which is sort of choosing the scoring criteria for the round and then I've got the Elder who is difficult to attack or gains a benefit when attacked uh and then we've got some uh lore cards as well do some extra little abilities ancient Holdings an extra spot for resources Galactic rifles I can shoot from farther away this game if you don't know about it is a Space strategy game but it is also kind of a trick-taking game and the way that that works is each of us has a hand of cards these cards have different numbers and Suits the suits determine which actions they allow you to take the numbers uh tell you sort of how many of those actions are available and uh also what type of ambition you can de Clare um so six can declare the empath ambition which is weird because it's aggression but that's okay um and that is sort of determining how you're going to score for the round uh the first player is going to lead uh the trick or the the play um with one of these cards and then the others can choose to follow suit or not now left player has the initiative that's what this big token's about so I get to choose which card I'm going to play first first and I think I want to start off Strong by declaring an ambition and the reason I want to do that is because as the upstart whenever I declare an ambition I can gain a resource so I want to declare empath because I already start with a psionic uh resource token and the empath ambition is all about having the most psionic resources so I'm going to play aggression into the lead spot here and when I do that I uh because there are two Pips on the aggression card I get to take two aggression actions the aggression actions are battle move or secure moving and battling are are probably have an idea of what that means securing is how I gain Court cards these uh Guild and Vox cards that are on the side these are ongoing abilities or immediate one-time effects but you can't get them until you've influenced them by sending little agents to those cards and I haven't done that yet so all I'm going to be able to do here is Battle or move but before I do that I am choosing to declare an ambition so I take this ambition declared thing place it on top that just shows that uh this going to be really easy to surpass I'll talk about that in a second and then I'm going to choose one of these Ambitions to declare actually I'm not choosing I have to declare empath because it's the number six and I play a six so I take the highest value score token I place it on M PA and there we go oh you know what there's one thing I have forgotten to do which is a two-player thing which is that uh you might be able to tell that there are these black tokens along the top two uh clusters on the board these are not in the game they for all intents and purposes they don't exist and in a two-player game something that you do is you take uh resource tokens that correspond to all of the different uh planets because each planet corresponds to a resource token and you uh take take those resources and place them next to the Ambitions which is sort of like an NPC trying to score those which means it's going to be pretty difficult to score Tycoon because four resources are up there already um or at least to win it um but that's okay I'm going for empath and yes the the non existent NPC player is uh has one of those tokens already but I start with one and I control an empath Planet here a pionic planet so I think I'll be able to produce more resources than my opponent so I have declared the empath ambition and my upstart here has the special abilities when I declare an ambition I can gain any resource might as well gain a psionic but I also kind of want to use the psionic resource because these resources give you extra abilities during What's called the Prelude the Prelude is after I've played a card but before I've taken the actions on the card I can spend these resources to take extra actions and the psionic resource specifically lets me take any actions that are on the lead card so battling moving or securing I want to be aggressive I played the aggression card aggression is what I'm going for so I'm going to ooh I could be aggressive but I could also do a little bit of moving and building because I also want to make sure I can secure some spaces on the board so I'm just going to take one ship I'm going to move it moving is one of the actions on aggression so I I've spent my cionic to move just one ship here and then I'm going to spend this material this little Cube here for a build action materials that you build or repair and a thing that I want to build is another city uh because I have a friendly unit in this place I can build a thing there so I've built a city this will allow me to gain fuel because it's a fuel Planet fuel will help me move um and it also opens up a space for me to put more resources so I've done all that now I'm taking the actual action battling moving or in uh securing I'm going to battle I'm going to battle there are a couple ways that I could battle normally you have to move into an enemy space because I have these Galactic rifles I can use these blue dice attacking an adjacent space the blue dice are not that impressive they have a lot of blank sides to them but they also have no way to hurt me in the process so I feel pretty safe uh using them I do kind of like the idea of getting rid of these white chips that are kind of in my business over here I could also try and take out these guys I think I want to go here though because I've got four ships here which means I collect four dice so I'm using my Galactic rifle so I can attack from an adjacent place and I'm going to uh go after these two ships here uh so I got two hits now in combat in arcs the attacker does all the work the defender just uh lies lies there and sees what happens so with my two hits I can apply them one on each ship in which case they will both be knocked over they're damaged whereas before they were fresh or I can put both of the hits on one ship each ship has basically two hit points if I were to take this I would take it as a trophy and that is good but the Elder over here has their own ability which is when they defend in battle uh if the attacker takes any trophies they get to influence which is putting those agents on the cards and I don't necessarily want them to have that so I'm going to spread the damage out like that so that was one attack that I've done I have another attack or move that I can do I think I'm going to do another attack from here to here with just I only have two ships here so I'm only rolling two dice uh and just one damage that's fine they also have a building here but I wouldn't be able to attack the building until I destroyed all the ships so that is my turn I've taken my two actions that I got from the aggression I took all those prel actions a while ago that is where I am and now we go over to right brain now I have some different cards one I have my own aggression card and because they declared ambition the value of their cards is zero so this two will surpass it that's important because if you surpass you get to use all of the Pips on your card whereas if I wanted to do a different action card so for example if I want to do an Administration instead which gives me a different uh array of actions I will only get one action of this type doesn't matter how many Pips are on this card I'll only get the one so do I want to be aggressive I think I probably do I mean they have swung in pretty hard and I don't appreciate it so I think I want to go in for the attack I'm going to play aggression on the one hand I'm going to get the initiative next turn because I have surpassed them and it's a two-player game no one else can surpass me any better than that so with my two of aggression I get three actions that I can do and I'm looking at the psionic because they have declared empath I want to get empath uh empath sorry I want to get psionic tokens because psionic resources and signment cards will help me towards that goal so I wouldn't mind taking uh this location or at least I wouldn't mind controlling it so I want to move here now normally when you move you take any amount of ships and you just go a space but if you have a starport you can do what's called a catapult move going as far as you want dropping off ships on the way if you want to um unless you are blocked by enemy ships controlling a system uh so I have moved in that's one of my actions and you know what I'm going to spend this Cube uh during the Prelude before I move to build because there's a starport here I can build a ship so I build a ship and then I I take my actions I move in now it's four ships versus their four ships I'm I could take bigger dice with me but these red dice while they do deal damage they also can hurt me they have these little fire symbols on them or even worse is The Intercept ring and I don't want to roll that at least right now so I want to soften them up a little bit first so I'm going to be rolling with four blue dice at the beginning and then I have one more action for this I'm probably going to roll with better dice afterwards so so exactly what I wanted so this is four hits and I could take some trophies but what's much more interesting to me is dealing one damage to each one of their ships there's a couple reasons I've done this one I want to uh be able to start taxing their their system two as the upstart see every identity has a pro and a con and their con is they can only tax cities if they control them they no longer control this location so I have come in I have taken out a lot of their ships and now I'm going to hit them even harder but I don't want to destroy the city because there's penalties for destroying cities so I'm going to come in with two red Dice and two blue dice I would like to destroy a lot of their ships cuz get a lot of trophies from that trophies are important for the warlord ambition um but I don't necessarily want to destroy the city because that will provoke outrage so I'm just going to roll Two Reds and two Blues yeah this is pretty good this is actually kind of exactly what I wanted I got four hits but I also got two little fire symbols so so you can see here this means that I'm going to deal four damage so 1 two 3 four that's destroying all of their ships but I'm going to take two damage as well and technically I take my damage before they take their damage and I could split this up so I could completely destroy one ship and leave the other three there and you know what I'm going to do that I've destroyed one of my ships which means they're going to get it as a trophy but I'll got four trophies so I'm pretty sure that I can do a little bit I'm going to do a little bit better than them trophy wise o but there is also the chance that they won't take any trophies oh this tricky this is tricky you know what no I'm not going to give them a trophy I'm just going to take two damage and I'll I'll try and repair soon so I've taken four of their trophies um I haven't destroyed their city but that's uh that's okay that's kind of what I wanted um I'm a little spread out but I think this is a good position to be it so at the end of the round I have surpassed them with a hire card so I'm going to take the initiative and then these cards are going to be discarded so now as as the initiative holder I'm going to play a card I'm going to lead and I'm wondering if I want to declare the warlord ambition because I'm pretty good on trophies now so I think that might be a good thing to do and I want to start taxing them H this is the where the uh trick taking element comes into play I could play this four of administration this would give me a tax ability it's also giving me a repair ability and an influence ability I want all of these things I get three actions there that's decent uh could be nice to have more but that's okay and if I play the four I can declare warlord because warlord is number four I want to declare I want to declare Warlord but if I play the six I know that my opponent can't surpass me which means that's more likely that I'm going to hold on to the initiative which means I'll then get to play the four later they can't surpass me but they could seize the initiative they'd have to burn a card which is a big cost but they would take the initiative back and to that's the question do I think do I want to sort of wait and and try to get a a lot of actions but potentially lose some of my um you know if it doesn't work I I lose kind of a lot of momentum that way or I can try to uh have a much bigger swing and uh try to you know make that work instead I think I've earned the right to be a little bit cocky I'm going to play the six of administration I'm not declaring an ambition um so now I just get two actions uh taxing repairing or influencing but I want to do those things so I'm going to first I'm going to tax my opponent has a city on the scoic building and I control the system so I can tax it which means I get a resource of the type um I really want to keep this pionic thing and I have these normal spaces for resources and when you get a resource you can rearrange the resources on your board that's important because some of these are more easily stolen than others and I have a special ancient Holdings card which can hold another Resource as well and it's really hard to steal this I think this is important to have so I'm going to place this thing here but also when I tax an opponent I get to take one of their agents as a captive and that I think is a pretty good play so that was my first action now I can't tax this space again can only tax each City once per turn I could tax uh my own space which is going to give me a cube um that's a a material that's a good thing to have let you build or I can put an influence on one of these Fort cards I think I definitely want to do that I like influencing um I would really like to get a relic Planet there's one right here I wouldn't mind controlling this whole side of the board that would be nice but I can't do that just yet so with my relics or with my influence action I'm going to place a cube on one of these cards there's a few things here actually there's a little bit of overlap so there's silver tongues this one uh during Prelude you can discard it to steal a guild card or resource that's not bad could steal their um psionic but also it is itself a psionic uh card which counts towards the empath ambition it's called to Arms which does a similar thing but this is an immediate use actually no sorry this is a different one uh when secured I draw an action card from the bottom of the action discard pile and then discard it that's cool because that's a really going to give you an extra action um but you don't really know what it is and then there's mining interest this gives you a new action whenever you take a build action you can manufacture instead gaining you one material that's pretty good or you can discard it to get a bunch of materials so I like that a lot I like all of them I want all of them but I can't have all of them so I have to make a choice I think the call to action is pretty cool and I would put more out in the future so I'm putting one of my agents on call to action but that's my two actions so it goes over to left brain and what do I have well I do have an Administration card but it's lower it's a lower value than the card here um so the question becomes how do I want to deal with this well if if I don't surpass I have two other options I can copy playing any card face down and then I just take one action of the matching type or I can play a card of a different suit and take one action of that type construction would let me build a repair mobilization let me mover influence these are all good but honestly I am worried about them holding on to the influence so I I think I'm going to do what they were worried I was uh what they were worried I was going to do and I'm going to seize the initiative but the question remains what action do I want to take in the meantime I know that I want to well I need to rebuild my fleets so I kind of need to build I can build a ship here I could o the problem is building is kind of slow but I do have this construction so maybe I build another starport that could be a thing that I do but building and repairing I don't have a whole lot of options here oof oof there's not uh I I really got kind of hosed in this first round it's not like I can't make it back from that but there's definitely some situations that I I'm I'm finding myself in that are not ideal I'm going to be a little cheeky and I'm going to play construction so I'm pivoting um I'm also going to play a card face down underneath and this is me seizing the initiative doesn't matter what else I've played this means that I'm going to have the initiative on the next round I'm also going to have one fewer card and that's going to be painful but uh I think this is important and the pivot action I'm doing is actually I'm going to build in this uh psionic location I can't afford to let them just uh take this space and because I still have a piece here I can build in the other uh location however because they control it my piece comes in damage so I built a star Port there but it is damaged and that's not ideal however I can start to uh fix that in the next round now I have taken this I have seized the initiative the rest of these cards go away and now I'm going to play another card and the question is what am I going to play I know when I when I seize the initiative or sorry when I declare ambition I can just get a free resource and that wouldn't be too bad getting another resource would give me more like building and repairing actions maybe what I'm going to do is I'm going to uh come in with construction and I I might declare ambition which would be Tycoon this is a two so I'd be declaring Tycoon Tycoon wants you to have fuel and materials now they currently don't have any of that but they have a city on a material place but winning Tycoon is tricky to begin with that being said this would give me a free resource and getting a free uh material would help me build more things so I think I'm going to do that I'm going to declare ambition it's whatever they're they're going to surpass me and take it back I kind of expect Ed that playing it too um but it's okay I get a material for free because of my upstart ability now I have uh well one I'm going to spend this material to to build or repair and I'm going to uh build guess I'll build a starport at my fuel uh planet next I'm going to uh have four actions so I will build a ship in this space uh it's comes in damage because again I don't control it I'm going to repair it that's two actions and then I'm going to build two more ships one here and one here so now I have a bit of a fighting force if I can be a little bit aggressive in the future that would be great unfortunately I don't have any aggression cards which puts me in a weird position um what I don't necessarily know is that it seems like all the aggression cards are in the discard pile because there are a bunch of cards that we didn't play with um that just didn't get drawn out so I have played construction passing it over to right now I can use construction myself I can repair some of these ships which is not a bad idea and then I'd surpass I think that's a good idea I think I'm going to do that so I'm playing construction I'm just going to repair three times I'm going to repair repair and repair Oh but before I do that I'm going to spend my Relic so this is pray lud AC I have to do it before I take my other actions um so maybe that'll change things I don't know I'm going to spend my Relic to secure this court card whenever you spend a relic you can secure a card so I've secured the call to action card this draws an action card from the bottom of the action discard pile and I got an aggression card uh left brain's in trouble I think so I've secured I'm going to do the same thing that I did D do and because I surpassed with a higher value I'm going to take the initiative right back all right these go in the discore pile so now I know oh yeah I forgot they they claimed ambition they claimed Tycoon so the current things that are scoring are empath and Tycoon I don't oh I do have a pionic we're tied for empath uh so is the NPC but that doesn't really matter um so I want to be oh yeah we got a new card up here I would like to I I I want to to win some of these so I'm going to play mobilization mobilization lets you move or influence I don't really need to move well I can um you know it's good to to spread out and I like the idea of getting another uh Relic world so I'm going to move one ship there my damaged ship then I'm influencing silver tongues silver tongues the ability is you discard it to steal a guild card from your opponent they don't have any Guild cards I'm getting it because it has a pic uh resource on it anyway that's my two actions and when it goes over to Left Brain well that puts me in a rough position because I can either copy or pivot I can't I mean I could seize the initiative again but that would get me nothing because I only have two more cards so maybe I want to make it difficult for them to get silver tongues so I'm just going to uh I'm just going to copy even though this is the same uh thing play face down so that they don't see what I have and then I copy I'm going to influence one so I'm going to take my agent and put it on Silver tongues in order to take an agent you have to have more agents on it than anyone else so now I've kind of blocked them being able to take it but that's all I could really do um so these cards go away initiative stays with right brain and now what I want to do I think let's see I could they only have one card left I have two so I the card I'm playing right now is basically well what I know for a fact is that I can do all of the actions on all of these cards I'm in a very good position right now so what do I want to do with that position well I probably want to declare warlord except that I'm only going to get two points from it because the last ambition tile that's left is only a two-point tile that's not nothing but it does mean I'm going to send all my trophies back so I might not want to declare that if I think that I could get second place on Tycoon no you know what I don't know that I'm going to declare any more Ambitions I could gain the points for the trophies but I think it's better to wait until next turn when I can get more points for it so I'm so with that in mind I want to win empath that's my full goal I'm going to administrate uh I will Tax Repair or influence uh I'm going to tax their psionic again so I get another psionic resource I also get another one of their agents um and then I can repair influence I want to influence silver tongues again and might as well put another influence somewhere else I do like the mining interest guy oh the new one that came out cord enforcers uh gives you a new ability you can instead of taking a battle action you can update D you capture all rival Agents from a card in the court that has fewer rival agents than your total weapon icons from resources and cards that's a little complicated it's not super helpful for me right now but you can also discard it to place three ships in a system you control neat but I think the other ones are a little more interesting at the moment so I have put out two influence and I taxed and I think that's it for me oh you know what instead of putting out the the second influence I'm going to tax this fuel location I want to get a fuel I want to be in the running for the Tycoon ambition because I'd like to get two points for that I'm not going to win it but getting two points me get now luckily I actually can surpass this because I just happen to have a higher Administration card on my next turn I will get the influence but I'm going to have to give it right back cuz I'm out of cards however I get to take three actions here so what am I going to do well again I don't want them to just be able to take the silver tongues hard they do have more empath than me and or psionics than me and I can't do anything about that because I can't tax my place because I don't have the I I I don't control it that's I didn't think this was going to be a big deal that's a really big deal so what am I doing instead I'm going to tax to get some fuel I'm going to tax to get a material um because I do have these two and that currently puts me at a higher position for to get second on Tycoon and then I'm going to influence once again influencing silver tongues so they can't get it I would love to get it in the future um and if in the future I do get it then I can also get all those TR those uh agents as captives however I am also putting myself in danger they're going to have two uninterrupted turns if they have another way to influence they can influence and if they have influence and secure they can do that I don't know if they have that it would be safer probably to go somewhere else and at this point they're beating me on empath so I I can't really do anything about that so you know what I don't care there let them have it I'm going to go to mining interests instead so at the end of this I would take the initiative but I do have to pass it back because I don't have any cards right brain does have cards and it so happens that I do have exactly what they were afraid of so that was a a good play though it also kind of doesn't matter because I can do both of these things um so moving or influencing I like having a lot of people on the board so I'm going go one two and then I'll put one on cord enforcers as well no one else can can do anything about this so I drop that one and then I play this aggression I can secure two cards and I'm going to secure silver tongues and Mining interests which gets both of these two as cap Ives I get my agents back and I'm going to get both of these cards now I would do it one at a time and I draw new ones after each but as it is I think that's okay um to say in the interest of time so that's the end of the round or the end of the chapter I should say I'm move it over here because this will be little important that's the end of the chapter so a few things are going to happen uh first off I'm going to score um and I need to uh go EXC me from top to bottom scoring each one that was declared ignoring all the ones that weren't so for Tycoon the uh NPC wins that one they have four of these resources and then for second place uh we're looking at Fuel and material I've got this fuel token and I've got the mining interest which has a material on it as well so that's two for right brain left brain also has two which means they tie for second place which means neither player gets anything empath though uh I definitely win that one because I have two psionics actually three um to their one which means I'm uh right brain is going to get Five Points the NPC and left brain are tied for second which means they get nothing and that's uh the end of that so we clean up moving these back uh to the top but then we flip the lowest value one which it moves it from a 20 to a 42 and so now Ambitions are worth a little bit more so even though that was kind of a rough start for Left Brain there's a chance that they can uh you know pull it up I think they they can manage this if we play smart and Counterattack back here I think that's definitely doable but it's really going to depend on how the cards play out so we are advancing the chapter at the the game will end either after five chapters or in a two-player game if someone gets to 33 points or higher and Five Points that's not uh that's still pretty far away so the next thing we need to do is draw out the cards again there are 20 cards in this deck and we get six cards each so there's eight cards that are not scene but in the beginning of the game if you do not have the initiative and this is a two-player game only after drawing out the cards if you don't have the initiative you can Mulligan your hand discarding your hand and drawing six more from the discard pile so I'm looking at my hand what I want is aggression and I do have two aggression cards so I am a a little bit worried about uh trying to find something better in here though there is always the thought of by remembering what I have in my hand and drawing six more cards I now have more information about what is in the game I know what my opponent doesn't have so I know that they don't have any of these cards specifically I definitely could do that that's maybe the way to go is it worth it though because I really do want to make sure I have some aggression I need to be able to fight back uh from this current situation which is bad so I think I want to keep it my concern is taking the initiative I only have one six but in a two-player game you can take initiatives with five and if they they're probably going to declare early on and I do have one of each suit so I'm I'm going to keep my hand I'm not going to mull it now right brain starts us off we have a lot of mobilization that's interesting I have no Administration I have a lot of mobilization which is good for influencing I mean I would try and do empath again because I have a lot of psionic and and it would be difficult for them to catch up if not impossible unless they steal something from me but they could steal something so starting with mobilization and and declaring empath I don't know if that's uh a great idea but what I also know is that because I have the 6543 because I know how trick tiing games work if I play any of these he can't play anything higher because I have all the higher things so maybe I something else now you know what yeah I'm going to take mobilization and I'm going to declare ambition I'm going to start by declaring the warlord ambition because I've got so many trophies to begin with and if he tries to come at me and takes and destroys some of my ships takes more trophies that also benefits me as an elder if I'm defending in battle um when if the opponent takes trophies I get a free influence so I I don't mind this at all now this is G me three movement or influence actions I am going to uh move I think maybe just one ship out I I want to start building do I have construction I do have construction so I could build a few things um this is maybe a little bit Reckless but I'm going to move one space out there um but the other two I'm going to spend on influence and I'm going to influence oh yeah what' we get here so we got unions the arms Union and the construction union both of these uh Union cards do kind of the same thing and they're a way to get cards back uh this is a really useful thing to to grab so I think that I want to um I if I could get both of them that would be I think really good so I'm going to spend my other two actions to uh yeah I'm going to uh you know go for both of those and I'm declared warlord all right so left brain H uh I could oh so right brain was so freaking smart they're like oh I can declare an ambition they won't have anything higher than me but I forgot that you put a zero there and so left brain here has a two of mobilization normally this can never surpass uh in two-player game anyway but today it can so I am going to surpass I get two of mobilizations so I can do some movement which is great I'm going to move this one here I'm actually going to move into the space that's one move um this one also has a has a star Port so I can catapult move these as well I'm going to do a big Counterattack here but I've got two more so I'm going to to put out uh two agents now I could try to block them but I think instead I want to oh you know what I'm actually going to take back this move so I can put out three agents I'm going to put two on the arms Union I'm put one on construction union I want to block them at least but I also want to take uh that arms Union card I really want to take that card so at the end of it because I surpassed I get the initiative and now I think I'm going to be aggressive one it'll allow me to secure the an arms Union card um so I I do like that now the three or four it kind of doesn't matter unless I am declaring an ambition I hm declaring so with the three or four I could declare a tyrant or warlord I could put a lot of effort into warlord and really just try and take it from my opponent there's value in that for sure but it's also tricky because I'm not in a good position for it right now i' have to be really you know pretty cocky if I to think that I can make it work but I do think I can make it work and I kind of need to make big plays so the other option is uh declaring Tyrant which they also have four captives to my nun and I think that that's not inpassible and also they're worse at scoring at scoring Tyrant if Tyrant gets declared they can only get second place for it uh because of the Elder ability or penalty um so but but the point is I don't think I would get anything from it I think I need to try really really hard um so I O but if I declare you know what I'm not going to do it yet what I'm going to do is I'm going to play the three of aggression if they're going to surpass me they're going to do it uh this turn anyway they'll play a higher card I'll sort of find out if they can do that but I'm going to get some attacks here if I don't get to P if I keep the initiative I'll then play my other aggression card and by then I should have a lot more trophies so I get two actions but first i'm going to spend my fuel to move and now I'm going to move these ships in so now I have five ships in this location my target is here though um or at least my first Target is there because I've got my Galactic rifles I can attack an adjacent system five blue dice that could have gone better um I would really like to destroy their ships um but for now I'm just going to damage them and for my second attack oh I could attack them again but instead I want to make sure I get the card so I'm going to take a secure action and secure the arms Union so I've secured the arms Union I get my agents back I take his agent as a captive that's starting me off on that path at least and up we come with a lattice spies uh prud before any your actions you may discard this to seize the initiative ooh that's pretty good and it's a psionic card so I've got that now right brain gets to go and what are we doing well we do have this five of aggression so we could do this and take the initiative back that's not a horrible idea and then we could do more mobilization I guess I'll secure the CT enforcers maybe fight back here um yeah I I at least want to take the initiative back so I'll play aggression because I'm surpassing I get two actions attacking here is not going to do much attacking here I could take another one of his ships's trophies and potentially destroy his starport so yeah I'm going to do one attack action and then I'm going to uh o or I could move some ships over here and really try and attack these the ships that have come to uh uh come to fight me back and if I wanted to be smart about it I would spend my fuel move in attack twice because you you start by softening them up with the blue Dice and then you come in with the red dice so they can't really Counterattack that's not bad it's not bad it's not bad can I do I have another five I do so I could go really hard on warlord yeah okay I want to win I'm going to play my fuel to move he I'll just move all my ships here um I've got three damage ships three fresh ships but even damage ships uh contribute dice so I'll take my first aggression action rolling six blue dice wow okay well blue dice are not great so that's that can happen Okay I need trophies so I'm going to go in the second attack action with three blues and three Reds this has the potential to backfire pretty hard and it kind of has okay so I dealt four hits but I got this Circle uh intercept here which means I'm going to take four hits that's one hit for each fresh ship the enemy has that's not ideal um but I want to take trophies so that's going to be one two three four and then I I take four hits I'm doing this out of order I should be taking the hits my own hits first um I don't want to give him trophies so I'm going to go one two four he's going to get one trophy from me all of these ships are now damaged um but I am going to take three trophies and because I uh because I surpassed I'm going to seize the initiative or take the initiative unfortunately I can't um I can't attack again because I don't have oh and I didn't think of numbers right I thought I had a four I didn't so I can't take warlord again well that's what you call a bummer um I'm going to I guess mobilize I want to put out a lot of influence I think oh you know what I kind of want to repair I have all these ships I would love to repair them so I'm going to construct I guess and you know what even though I don't have a good like I don't get a lot of points for uh Tyrant I'm going to declare ambition on Tyrant because I do have four spies um so I'm going to get three build or repair actions I think I want to build a city on this Relic space and I'm going to repair two of these ships I could build another city here but I think that's that's a better thing to do yeah okay so they've done that I luckily have a five of construction so I'm going to play that I'm going to take the initiative back uh I'm definitely going to build a ship here um I don't really have anything to repair I could build another ship in one of these spots or I could repair my starport I'm going to build another ship I'm actually running out of ships but I will get all of them back when Once uh warlord gets declared so I'm going to build a ship there now now what now now what uh well I've taken the initiative back which means I can once again be aggressive though I don't know H this is this is tricky I mean they have seven trophies I have one if I destroyed all of those I wouldn't be able to to get get them back but I got to do some work on it I guess the other option is I go for empath I can tax um I have Administration I can tax here and get some more psionic tokens with that in mind and feeling a little bit cocky again I'm going to go with aggression I'm not going to declare an ambition even though that would get me a a token um so I'm going to be attacking here they have three fresh ships to not fresh ships but I kind of want to move in for first uh but first before I do that I'm going to spend my material build My Last Ship in this space use these three to attack or I move the three ships in and then attack with red dice yeah you know what I got to be bold now so I'm going move all three ships in here um means I won't be able to tax later though you know what we're talking about being bold I'm going to spend my empath to get an extra uh action here that's the extra action is going to be the movement in and now I get to take my two actions so first off I'm just going to attack them with with blue dice I I can't afford to take hits so I'm going to do as much as I can here right one damage all right now I need to be wild I'm coming in with a red dice for my second attack oh my God this is awful these dice can do so much better um so I take I'm going to take three damage I mean screw it who cares if you have trophies at this point I'm not going to catch up with that so you can take one I'll take one damage I deal three damage so let's go one two three two on the fresh ship one on that so I'm going get a couple trophies I'll get second place on that which is not nothing but it's not great that could have gone so much better um that's unfortunate uh right brain over here well I don't have anything I only have mobilization so I could copy yeah you know what I'm going to copy to secure oh uh sorry the one thing that left brain is going to do before this is done is take arms Union um and use this uh so this prel abilities I may place this card next to a face up aggression card I should have done this before I did any of the attacks um basically I take this card I place it here once this round is done I'm going to get this card back it's going to get me another action in the game in in the chapter so over here well that's unfortunate that means they're going to get another action I can't take uh I can't take the initiative from them so I'm just going to copy I'm going to take one of these put it face down I'm going to copy I could fight them back but what I want to do is influence I'm going to get the court enforcers or sorry secure so I've secured I got the court enforcers I mean if I really wanted to I could spend my psionics he spent bunch of his and empath isn't even on the on the board right now so if I spent one of these that would get me maybe a free attack or it give me the free secure yeah I'll spend I'll spend the psionic to get a free secure we'll see what else has come up Elder broker um whens a new tax action you can choose a rival City you control swap one resource with that rival take a resource of that City type from them and give them a resource they don't have interesting you or you can discard this to get a material Fuel and weapon it's a really good card I like it a lot um but for now I'm going to take two battle actions I think and I'm just going to try and this is just the bloodiest Gateway system that ever there was I'm going to start with these three blue dice I get a damage uh I'm going to knock out one of their ships and then I'm going to do one blue Two Reds I have the potential to lose a lot here but they can't beat me in trophies so I'm not as worried uh yeah o that's going to be three damage coming my way which is going to destroy all of my ships this is a bad uh choice that I made um I deal two damage to them so I'm just going to destroy their other two damaged chips uh they lose three mind the the Galaxy's looking pretty uh pretty sparse these days and I'm not the better for it but oof uh this is I certainly have a lot of trophies at least uh anyway I that's the end of the round arms Union goes away these cards get discarded left brain retains the initiative oh the one card doesn't get discarded I get to keep it so if I want to I can be aggressive again at the very least I can move something here um so I don't know what they have I I am a little worried about taking uh take systems uh okay what what can I do let's say I'm aggressive I'm not going to attack but I'm going to move I they didn't they copied my last one so I don't think that they're going to be able to surpass this I'm just going to move I'm going to move one ship here and and I'm going to move uh oh I'm going to move let's say one ship back here because I need to control this system in order to actually tax it um because of the upstart normally you can tax your own systems regardless but in this case I can't so that's all that I've done um right brain gets to go they uh I'm gonna I'm going to Pivot because I want to influence I would like to influence the construction you know I've seen them do the arms Union that was really good I want the construction union so I'm pivoting I get an influence action U and now these cards are gone uh so coming back to me I want to do some taxation is it possible that I could get Tyrant from them I let's see I could tax them once here I could potentially do that twice and I and if I can get a relic then I can take two agents from them there but if they influence back this is tricky I don't know that I want to commit to this just yet so I'm going to start by doing a normal Administration my six I'm going to influence in the construction union and I'm going to tax this uh Relic City so I get one of their agents as a captive and I get a relic oh I won't be able to get the construction union though if I do it that way because I won't have enough agents there so I have to take a chance again got to make big big swing so let's say I did an Administration instead I've declared ambition which is basically just me putting another thing there they can always just copy and put an influence there so that's not so there's no way that I can get it not that way anyway which means okay sorry folks just trying to work things out you know sometimes you got to you got to go through all the variables um I'm blocking them I'm taking captive here that's the situation as we see it right brain uh I can copy I can do anything I kind of want to put myself in a better position for the construction union so putting another agent there isn't bad how much else I can do I can't build anything which is unfortunate I could copy and tax to get a material or a relic myself that's not horrible yeah I think I want to do that or I could also get a weapon weapons are interesting because they don't give you extra actions but they do let you battle in future rounds but uh no I need building so I'm going to copy I'm going to tax and I'm going to get a material and when it comes back to uh left brain on the next round they're in a sticky position because I could declare this ambition and this is where I should have thought through okay if I had been thinking through I would have put an extra agent on the construction union because when I declare an ambition I can just take a resource of my choice in which case I would have been able to capture them so I could have declared Tyrant with this I would have captured them uh with the Relic that I would have just gotten from declaring the ambition um and then I would have been able to tax and I would have should been able to win Tyrant and if I declared Tyrant that would have been worth a lot of points I haven't done that sometimes you make mistakes in this game uh but I can Tax Repair or influence I just want to like prepare for the next round so I'm going to tax them again that doesn't actually help me really I get another captive but I'm going to be giving away captives so I'm going to influence putting another one on construction union I know I'm going to start the next turn so I'll be able to to take it from them so long as I have a majority so I'm going to influence twice and I'm going to tax I think I'm going to tax another Relic because I know I'm going to use it right away so that's the end of the chapter again white has done very well for themselves but at least blue is going to get a few points um so for tyrant uh White has four captives to uh their two but when scoring Tyrant I only uh gain the second place um score for it so we both effectively get the second place score which is going to be two points it's not like I get second place you gain the power for second place if you got first then we return the captives warlord scores I am going to win that cuz good Lord um so that's going to be five more points but they get second for that they'll get two this is a pretty big uh disparity in points but uh left R is in a much better position at the end of this round than they were at the end of the last round especially in terms of the board State um but all and all of these ships are coming back so if they can do some good building they might actually be able to pull it off uh in a in a surprising way but that's all these this gets flipped over now things are worth quite a bit and it becomes chapter 3 now I'm I think that's giving you a pretty decent sense of the uh gameplay of arcs there's definitely a few things we haven't seen um The Raid dice for example these orange dice let you steal things from opponents if you get these key symbols you can take things from your opponents based on the key values that those things are in each of these Port cards has key values they can be stolen um the uh what what else uh we haven't seen provoking outrage if you ever destroy a city that provokes outrage take one of your agents placing it on the resource value you don't have the agent anymore you also can't use those resources anymore um for their Prelude action but you can still collect them and they'll still be useful for Ambitions but it's a really rough thing to do so putting out cities is like is useful you can usually be sure that most of your cities Will Survive for the rest of the game uh but yeah there's there's all kinds of stuff this game is is really deep I think strategically and tactically um so if you want to hear my final thoughts on this uh game you can click on the link in the top right corner if you want to uh teach watch me teach you how to play this game you can find a link for that in the description below but if you want to watch Final thoughts I will see you folks there in 3 2 1 bye-bye