by vandevrande
First of all, I love Eclipse. I think this game has interesting mechanics and dynamics that fit a special niche within my play group. My intent with writing this is to open the dialogue to explore advanced tactics and strategies for this great game. This is not meant to be a formula for do exactly this to win, but rather an exploration of the key things to think about to elevate your gameplay. Much of my strategic thinking has developed from reading strategy forums, so many of ideas captured here are summaries of strategic discussions on this forum. I am open to feedback, critique, or new ideas.
This is also not meant to explore the statistics of combat, as that is better covered elsewhere. The only thing I will mention here is that beginners tend to wait to attack until they are in an overkill position, where advanced players attack earlier with lower, yet still attractive odds, or they attack with less desirable odds to counter a player about to runaway with the game. Advanced players do need to understand the stats in order to know when it is better to, for example, add a computer rather than extra cannons, or other similar ship blueprint decisions.
I've separated this into sections based on tactical themes, and I follow each with a summary of how these themes impact certain species more drastically than others. This is based on the base game of Eclipse without expansions, but one day, it will be interesting to add the expansions into the discussion.
Feel free to jump to and read/comment on certain sections, if you don’t have time to read it all.
Politics: Eclipse is a game heavily influenced by politics. The nature of the game encourages table talk, informal alliances, and strategic verbal manipulation of your opponents. Often, you can influence your opponent’s actions by pointing out an advantageous maneuver for them or threat from another opponent, thus creating a distraction from what you are planning. However, be careful not to be labeled a “ringer” in your play group, or your opponents will gang up on you frequently, which can be difficult to overcome (spoken from personal experience).
Species tips: Hydrans want to be left alone in the early game until they build up their technological advantage, so watch for distractions created by them. Mechanema are the best race to play in order to respond to frequent ganging up by your play group, since they can switch their ship builds quickly to counter ship builds of different opponents.
Early Exploration: the early rounds of Eclipse are heavily devoted to exploring hexes, but it can be difficult to choose which rings to explore (1, 2 or 3), so there are a few things that every explorer should keep in mind:
1. In games with 4+ players, connecting to and forming alliances with neighbors (even if planning on breaking them later) is very beneficial for the extra production.
2. Never let someone else place your Ring 1 hex connected to the center as this can be a major disadvantage.
3. There are limited Ring 3 hexes, so don’t let everyone else snatch them up.
4. Control your boundaries with your neighbors. Most species should seek to have multiple connections to neighbors (not just through the center) to increase opportunities for end game maneuvers. Highly defensive races (Planta) should try to create walls with neighbors (not even half wormhole connections) and have only one or two choke points where ships need to travel through.
5. Aggressive species should consider moving inward as a priority to take the center.
6. Limit the “turtling” of defensive species (i.e. don’t let Planta create zero or one access point to the rest of the galaxy).
7. Don’t overextend yourself unnecessarily through exploration as actions become very expensive quickly. The final Ring 2 hexes can usually wait in smaller games if your borders are already well established.
8. Try to place hexes (especially Ring 3) in a manner to create more options for exploration, to avoid getting blocked by ancients.
9. Some options for Ring 3 hex placement are to explore in nearly a straight line away from the center (e.g. to protect far away hexes for later monolith placement) or to “curve around” and return to Ring 2. The first Ring 3 hex should try to connect a path to the Ring 2 hex adjacent to, but not accessible by, your homeworld hex.
Species tips: Orion, Eridani, and Mechanema are aggressive and should tend towards the center. Draco should snatch up as many Ring 1 hexes as possible due to the value of double ancient hexes. Planta are highly defensive and should avoid the center and even consider blocking off a path to the center. Hydran should be defensive early but leave options open for later aggression. Terrans are balanced and could play aggressive or defensive depending on neighbors.
Turtling: minimizing the entries into your territory though hex placement can seem like a safer proposition since those entries are easily defended, but those funnels are also easily defended by your opponents and leads to a boring game of stalemates. However, some species have an advantage with turtling (Planta), so they should seek to minimize access to their territory. Hydrans want to turtle early, but then explode out later once they have their technological advantage. For most races, multiple connections tend to lead to better point values in the end, though it may create nerves throughout the game.
Species tips: Planta can win by completely cutting themselves off from the rest of the galaxy, so don’t let this happen.
Virtual Fleets: if you are in a defending position, it can be extremely valuable to maximize your action efficiency by waiting as long as possible to build your ships, or build them in response to an attacker invading your territory. As long as you have sufficient materials, you can exert a threat of your “virtual fleet” countering whatever your enemy does. This is especially helpful for starbases, since they cannot move, so you want to place them only where they are needed. Note: sometimes it is an important tactic to pin ships as a defense to minimize your losses, and virtual fleets do not help with pinning.
Species tips: aggressive races such as Orion, Draco, Eridani, and later in the game, Hydran, are less likely to have virtual fleets, but even they should consider keeping spare materials ready for a reactive build.
Attacker’s Actions: the attacker has a distinct disadvantage in actions. It takes a relatively high number of actions to build and move ships into enemy territory, especially when facing a defender with a virtual fleet, because they can just build ships in the hex that you invade without using a move action. Thus, it is extremely important to strike as late in the round as possible, ideally after the defender has passed. Keeping your plans secretive can help mitigate the attackers’ action disadvantage by making it action expensive for the defender to react (either they are bankrupt or doing less efficient reactive actions). However, sometimes waiting in the round to attack can allow the defender to create a better pinning position for themselves by either creating a choke point of less expensive ships, or more aggressively pinning your key ships in your own territory.
Species tips: Eridani are effectively crippled with their two action discs removed, thus their strategies are usually executed early enough into rounds for opponents to have plenty of time to react. This single-handedly makes Eridani extremely difficult to play with and are only recommended for advanced players.
Accumulating Actions: passing last in the later rounds of the game, once the “good” techs are snatched up, is a very powerful position by acting after your opponents plans are all laid out. Make sure you correctly value techs such as Advanced Robotics, Advanced Economy, and Quantum Grid, as well as managing your supply of money. It isn’t necessary to purchase all these techs to win, but be aware of where your actions supply is relative to your opponents and try to get more actions than them by the end of the game. Don’t hesitate to drop low production and/or low value hexes (via tactical bankruptcy) in order to have more actions available on following rounds. You can always influence them back up at the end of the game to get the points.
Species tips: actions are vital for any species, but perhaps only slightly less essential for Terrans due to their 3 Move capability, which counters part of the attackers’ action disadvantage.
Tactical Bankruptcy: to save unnecessary actions, it is very useful to intentionally execute more actions than you can “afford” based on your money income, in order to be forced to remove influence disks from low value hexes at the end of the round (discovery tile hexes with no production are prime candidates for this). This saves you an unnecessary influence action to remove those disks. Note: make sure that you are following the rules correctly when doing this at the end of the round: first move your money marker up the track according to your money income, then remove influence disks from hexes until you can afford the influence cost, returning any population cubes from those hexes to their respective tracks in the process, then pay the influence cost by moving your money marker, then finally collect your science and material incomes. Doing it this way is not explicitly stated in the rules, but I believe it is the correct way for this to be done based on automatic upkeep on the iPad version of Eclipse.
Species tips: Eridani not being able to tactically bankrupt in the early game due to their high starting money further makes it difficult for this action poor race.
Discovery Tiles, to Keep or Use: discovery tiles can seem like a strong benefit to use them for their bonus rather than keep them for 2 victory points, however, in almost all cases, keeping their bonus will not net you 2 or more victory points in the end, so it would have been better to keep them for points. For example, the shard hull may seem really nice, but it is better to have an even number of hulls since most advanced weaponry (plasma cannons, missiles, and anti-matter cannons) attack with even damage, so two plasma cannon attacks will kill a ship with one shard hull or one improved hull, but adding a second improved hull requires a third plasma cannon hit to kill. Many other ancient ship parts are too situational to be useful. I only consider using discovery tiles when they get me a bonus in science beyond what I accumulate in one round, or materials, if I need materials badly. Conformal drive interceptors with neutron bombs can be very fun, though, especially with a wormhole generator.
Species tips: No major differences, but Hydran may consider using the Ancient Technology tile, depending on their research progress.
Pinning ships: this single-handedly can separate great from good players. Basic pinning strategies include littering your territory with less expensive ships or starbases (when you are at a weaponry tech disadvantage) to prevent opponents from progressing towards your more valuable hexes. However, advanced players will know when to aggressively pin enemy ships in their own territory to prevent those ships from moving into their territory. Using a sacrificial interceptor to pin a deadly dreadnaught can mean the difference between losing that valuable hex this round and buying time for you to catch up on the technology tree. Besides, suicidal attacks can be beneficial for getting reputation tiles. Players need to also be aware of pinning “leapfrog” opportunities, such as using lesser ships to pin all enemy ships in a hex, then using a better ship to invade past the pinned ships deeper into enemy territory. However, be cautious about freely supplying lots of reputation tiles to an opponent who has not collected many already. Protip: ships used solely for pinning can be upgraded with hulls built over weaponry in order to better survive a retreat to pin again another round (if reputation tiles are not desired). Ships are allowed to not have any weapons.
Species tips: Terrans have an obvious advantage at pinning with their extra move capability. Terrans can pin two ships and move a third past the pinned ships all in one action (provided the ships have better drives).
Countering Plasma Missiles: the all-out plasma missile build (basically no weaponry but missiles and computers and no hulls) seems broken to beginner players, so everyone needs to know how to counter this type of build. The basic counter is to load up on Improved Hulls and Phase Shields, with one cannon, potentially just the basic cannon, and no computers. The idea is to survive the onslaught of the missiles, then the attacker has no choice but to retreat (if possible) or lose all ships. Some missile builds add a cannon to still have a chance to win the fight if the missiles don’t wipe everything out. Another counter is to pin the missile ships and invade the attacker’s territory. Try to avoid letting the plasma missile player accumulate massive numbers of ships. Better to chip away at their materials, killing a few ships at a time, even at less desirable odds, rather than wait until they have a massive fleet. Missiles are a game changer when they enter play, but they do not break the game. Missiles cannot remove victory points earned through discovery tiles, reputation tiles, or technology (unless you get completely wiped out of the game, which is unlikely).
Species tips: Terrans can execute the pinning/invading counter well due to their extra movement. Hydrans can snatch up the missiles earlier than others, usually.
Focused Ship Building: in most games, the amount of available actions that can be efficiently devoted to upgrading ships tends to allow for two types of ships to be upgraded. Spending actions to upgrade three or all four types of ships is usually preventing you from opportunities to increase your final score. Usually the choice comes down to interceptor or starbase plus either a cruiser or a dreadnaught. The choice between cruiser and dreadnaught is difficult and is heavily influenced by board position, available tech, and your species. I tend to favor dreadnaughts due to action efficiency for movement, plus how well one dreadnaught holds up in early ancient battles. Remember, ships with basic blueprints can still be built and used for pinning or invading unprotected hexes, they just won’t destroy many ships.
Species tips: Terrans and their extra movement tend to work well with interceptors and cruisers, but favoring starbases over interceptors if they are in a defensive position. Eridani almost have to favor dreadnaughts due to their action deficiency.
Technology is not all equal: some technology is better valued than others, and some are almost automatic buys, so below is a proposed tier distribution of the technology tiles. Note: certain situations can change the value of tech, including your species, so this is just a general guide.
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Extremely valuable (auto buys in most situations): Improved Hull, Advanced Robotics, Neutron Bombs (Neutron bombs don’t need to be rushed in round 1, but should be researched in most games)
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Very Good (helpful in most games): Neutron Bombs, Plasma Missile, Advanced Economy, Fusion Source, Positron Computer, Quantum Grid, Fusion Drive
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Average (occasional benefits): All the rest
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Weak or Highly Situational (should be rarely researched): Antimatter cannon, Orbitals, Tachyon Drive
One important comment on action efficiency is that you should try to avoid researching the medium and advanced versions of the same tech (positron/gluon computers, plasma/antimatter cannons, fusion/tachyon drive, etc.), unless doing so for victory points or for denial. Also, usually you should try to build from the same tech track for points. The Grid tech track is often considered best, followed by Military, then Nano, but don’t let this restrict your thinking on track selection.
Species tips: Hydrans often research less valuable tech to boost their future tech discounts and for victory points. Orbitals/Monoliths are nicer for Mechanema due to their discount, but are still situational. Aggressive species will tend to value drives more highly, but the initiative bonus and opportunities for counter attacks make drives nice for all species.
Check scores often: you need not count everyone’s score all the time (impossible anyway with reputation tiles flipped down), but you should frequently check your relative score to your opponents (i.e. see how many more/less points they have in discovery tiles, hexes, and tech) since the game leader is not always obvious based on board position.
Species tips: Don’t be too concerned with species that are leveraging their species advantage (e.g. Hydrans have more tech points than you), but do be concerned with someone having a 6-10 total point lead over you and plan accordingly to close the gap.
The Draco Maneuver: every species is allowed to move a ship into the center in round 1 (sacrificial ship that gets pinned) then explore/influence a Ring 1 hex on the other side of the center. For most species, this is not usually a smart move as an opponent can conquer that hex from you relatively easily (if you were unable to avoid a wormhole connection to their homeworld hex). However, Draco’s have a special advantage in influencing a hex with ancients (especially double ancients) to help defend that hex. Thus, they can quickly form a foothold in enemy territory and be very aggressive. At least do it once to get a reaction from your play group.
Species tips: Obviously, this works better with Draco, so don’t neglect the possibility of this opening, especially against Planta. However, other species should be aware of similar opportunities to use sacrificial ships (or non-sacrificial ships) to explore/influence beyond ancients to secure their territory during the explore phase.
End Game Maneuvers: in the last 1-2 rounds, the focus shifts entirely to gaining immediate victory points. Final actions become very precious and efficiency at gaining victory points becomes paramount. Surviving ships do not net any victory points, except if they are in empty hexes and you can place an influence disc at the end of combat, so the game encourages all-out war in the final round. However, if your reputation tiles are maxed (all 3s or 4s), then you should avoid battles that only give your opponents reputation tiles. Every ship action should be taken to gain or avoid losing victory points on hexes or to gain reputation tile points. But there may be better paths to higher scores. Some end game maneuvers to consider: building monoliths, researching wormhole generator and invading high value hexes that are poorly defended, researching tech just for points, or killing any remaining ancients (there should not be any left at this stage anyway unless Draco is in play). All remaining materials, money, and science should be spent to gain victory points (e.g. researching tech), but don’t throw them away for nothing since they break ties. Artifact Key can be a useful research to net lots of materials for monoliths or extra science for more tech research.
Species tips: Mechanema can turn a virtual fleet into a devastating single action four monolith build with their final action. Hydrans often research to fill their tech track and can do a surprise monolith build or wormhole generator invasion. They also can usually research for a lot of points in the final round, so Hydrans are particularly lucrative with their final actions if left unpressured with military invasion.
Good luck all and please share your key strategies/tactics and thoughts.
Weak or Highly Situational (should be rarely researched): Antimatter cannon, Orbitals, Tachyon Drive
