Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant

After understanding the slightly confusing rules this game is actually not too complicated to play. There is no downtime and the trading experience is a great way to make the game feel peaceful whilst being competitive. Nobody feels bad when they lose because it's all about helping each other.

My new favourite heavy game :-)If you like negotiating but also enjoy engine building mid-heavy eurogames I couldn't recommend this enough. The game is split between a trading phase, where everyone is bartering and wheeler dealing to get advantageous trades. Here everyone is trying to trade resources they have excess of, for ones needed to run their machines OR get resources to research new technologies (give you points).The second phase, people run their economies, using cubes they acquired previously - this normally means increasing the general wealth of all players but changing the types of resources (there are different colours and sizing, with different approximate costs). Here any technologies researched are also shared between players, so everyone benefits when new tech is found. Technologies give you new 'factories' or can be used to upgrade your existing infrastructure.The final step, you bid on an array of planets or new technology cards using ships (another resource).There is no downtime as everyone is always either trading with each other, running their engines or bidding. Included in the box are NINE, different alien races which completely change how you approach the game. Some examples: one alien race has amazing converters that simply multiply what you already have.....but you yourself can't use them! So you have to lend them out to other people while trying to make a profit for both of you. Another has relatively weak factories that produce a few wild resources - you have to trade wisely to leverage their use in the games economy.The game plays smoothly, is asymmetrical and loads of fun, if you enjoy negotiation games but want to push some cubes around too this is a must buy for you. The first play through can be slightly odd as it can be hard to see how you win (I'm making cubes but where are my points?!) but you'll be having fun making deals and getting rich (in cubes) so who cares? :)