Joined in 2023 
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There are moments of compelling, puzzly squeeze as you try to figure out if you can wring an extra move out of your crew, grab a useful tech card, or perhaps promote an ensign to give you a double action. Sometimes other players snap up a mission you have assembled to perfect crew for, or grab the piece of tech that was going to synergise perfectly with your turn. Starship Captains puts players in control of Enterprise-like starships working together in the faction known as the Cooperative (in part because I’m guessing “Federation” was taken!). Recently promoted to the rank of Captain, each player has command of a small crew of specialists from across the universe. Hailing all Starship Captains! Get ready to boldly embark on a maiden voyage through the cosmos in this euro-style action selection and engine building game for 2-4 players. Yellow: Kill a pirate on a route adjacent to your planet. You take a damage but also gain a reward. Finishing missions will enable players to then upgrade their respective ships with powerful alien technology, thereby allowing them to take on more ambitious tasks. Players will also be able to earn medals they can use to promote and train their crew – thus making them even better at their jobs. As their reputation for success spreads throughout the galaxy, players will gain connections with three separate factions and acquire even more benefits. Whichever player becomes the most celebrated starship captain wins the game.
This is large euro game with so many paths to take, ways to gain points and a heavy emphasis on managing your actions efficiently. Players will start to question their actions and think about their turns heavily. Think you can handle being the captain of your very own starship? Time to find out! In this new game from publisher CGE, players will take command of their own garden trowel-shaped starship that will have you thinking about Trekking across space. PUBLISHERS: please, please, please, you’ve got to include player aids with your games if the iconography is even a minor challenge! Why are we still talking about this on the eve of 2023????? Another unique mechanic with these cards are the matching bonus symbols. At the sides of the tech cards are small icons. When placing a card down on the board, if an icon matches one next to it you can claim an instant reward. Each player starts the game with their own ship which contains spaces for medals, upgrade rings, mission cards and a queue path to push your crew after use.The tech board and large number of tech cards help give Starship Captains high replay value. Combining this with the mission and event cards and you’ve got a game that you can keep playing without the fear of it growing stale. Overwhelming Choice It’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite Star Trek film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Kirk (William Shatner) is baring his teeth and yelling from the bridge of the Enterprise at his longtime nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban, shamefully not nominated for an Oscar for his work here). Ensigns can be promoted to commanders by spending 3 medals. These upgraded units can be used to activate a room twice or bring across a matching coloured ensign from the queue into the ready room, allowing for more actions on future turns.
Finally, I did like the variety in the tech cards. There are a lot of ways to gain bonuses and break the rules with them. However, I think that some are just better than others. It’s hard to take a situational card like being able to upgrade your cadets to yellow for free (which you could use, at most, 3 times during the game), vs. a card that lets you jump to any planet when you move. Also, there are only 3 end-game scoring tech cards, which don’t scale at player counts. So in a 3-4p game, it’s possible they will all be claimed by 2 (or even 1 if players aren’t paying attention) players. Final Thoughts: Room techs can be activated as normal rooms later by a matching crew member, and each of these unique cards give your crew better options beyond the four basic rooms you have on the bridge of your ship On a player’s turn, they can take one of three actions: Activate a room, Complete a mission, or Pass. To complete a mission, you have to be the first player on that planet. You’ll then need to spend a crew member for each line of the mission. If the crew member’s color also matches the color line, you gain the bonus from said line. Afterward, the mission goes into your score pile. You’ll be flying your ship around the map to complete missions.
These cards can grant permanent bonuses, become rooms to activate with ensigns or be the limited omega tech which provide extra reputation at the end of the game if certain conditions are met. Missions are the heart of the game’s scoring. If you aren’t taking actions on a turn, you are completing missions—there are always at least five missions scattered across the universe to choose from. Flying to a planet before anyone else arrives ensures that the player will have first dibs on completing that mission. As a turn’s main action, you will have to assign crew members to the mission (never more than one of each of the game’s three ensign colors) and try to complete them. Another example: five commander rings are available to each player. These rings signify when you’ve achieved a promotion. The highest total number of commanders I’ve seen promoted by a single player is three. In that game, one player had a tech which allowed them to train a certain color of commander with only two medals, instead of the normal three. This allows everyone to gain an extra cadet, redistribute any bonus planet tokens and refresh their crew members. In addition to their ships each player begins the game with a tech board. These have slots for tech cards which players can obtain from a row below the game board.
Your crew consists of ensigns and cadets. Ensigns are coloured in either red, blue or yellow and are used to activate matching rooms of their colour. And while our major criticism of Starship Captains (aside from the fact I can’t go live with the androids) is that it’s too short, dragging it out might not serve the overall experience. The puzzle of how best to use your limited crew, and how to do so in a way that will set you up for success on subsequent rounds, only gets more complex as your crew grows, your tech improves, and you get a couple of crew promotions under your belt. As cool as it would be to have a fifth or even a sixth turn to take advantage of your fully-repaired, teched-out ship and highly experienced crew, things might slow down too much, damaging one of the aspects of Starship Captains that makes it a lot of fun to engage. Welcome aboard and congrats on the promotion! Your “new” starship is ready to embark on its first big voyage. Just scrape off some of the rust and she’ll do fine. And that crew? Might look a little green around the edges, but they’re your crew now. Make us proud. Final Score: 3.5 Stars – A well-produced game with a fun theme, but it’s hard to pin down what it excels at.At times it can feel like you are a restricted and you can run out of options but I found this approach not only keeps the game time down but forces players to carefully manage their actions. Managing Your Crew & Your Ship In Starship Captains up to 4 players compete for reputation and glory across the galaxy in this adventurous euro game.
Finally when players have exhausted all their options, or even before if they want to save some crew, they can pass. After everyone has done this a new round begins. Having options for rooms can be key. Some cards break the idea that only red ensigns can fly the ship, so in a game when I added the Jump Drive tech card to my board, this gave me more options for my yellow ensigns. Ability techs boost all the other actions, so combining some of these led to different approaches to taking on missions. And that’s one of the interesting things about Starship Captains. There is always something to do. From moving around the board, to completing missions, to upgrading your ship, I always wanted more crew to use. I did like the upgrade system that lets you spend medals to convert your cadets into crew members. This gave you some flexibility to get the right color at the right time. And once you upgrade them to commanders, they gain you double the bonus when taking actions. Only crewmen in your ready room can be used. I would contend that games like Starship Captains, similar to First Rat and other very approachable recent designs, are fantastic ways to introduce gamers to the hobby. The concepts in Starship Captains are easy to grasp, yet for experienced gamers there is still a lot to initially enjoy when trying to min/max each turn. Do you have what it takes to deftly command your crew and become the best captain in the cosmos? We'll see!If you match up the crew member color with the mission line color, you’ll get a reward (and possibly a penalty) for that line. For example, a mission might require a red ensign and a yellow one. You could use a cadet and a yellow ensign to complete the mission, but you’ll only get the bonus for the yellow line. That also means you’ll avoid any penalties that might align with the red section of the mission. Each player in Starship Captains gets their own ship and crew to command. Each crewman will be focused in one of three areas (movement, shooting, or research) or be a lowly cadet who’s only good at repairing your ship. You can load up your ship with a variety of tech.
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