The full rulebook for Gale Force Nine’s Star Trek: Ascendancy is now available for download.

 Click Here - Download the Star Trek: Ascendancy Rulebook (July2020 Updated) (4.8 MB)

Be on the lookout for more news about Star Trek: Ascendancy later this summer, including information on civilization expansions which will add more players to the game commanding the Cardassian Union and the Ferengi Alliance as well as other game add-ons and accessories available later this year.  

The launch of Star Trek: Ascendancy is only the beginning.

A Planet may be convinced to join your civilization through diplomatic means by way of a Hegemony Roll. This roll represents the lengthy negotiations and treaties required to convince a world to join the larger galactic community or switch allegiances from one faction to another.

Hegemony is the result of costly negotiations and normally requires spending at least two Culture Tokens to accomplish; one to make the attempt and another to place a Control Node on the planet if the attempt was successful.

The Hegemony Resistance of a System is equal to the number of structures on the world plus the Ascendancy of the civilization who Controls it. Starbases and Nodes count as structures and each add to the Planet’s Hegemony Resistance.

To attempt Cultural Hegemony, a player must Exhaust a Command Token and spend a Culture Token. The player then rolls a die and adds their current Ascendancy as well as any applicable Advancement bonuses. If the player rolls more than the target number, they may spend another Culture Token to place a Control Node on the planet, taking control of the world. If they fail the roll, negotiations breakdown and another attempt must be made later to bring the planet into the fold. While challenging, adding worlds to a civilization through Hegemony means that they contribute to it’s growth immediately without spending additional resources.

When a Level 1, 2 or 3 Warp-Capable Civilization is discovered, the Exploration card will direct the player to develop some that System’s Capacity and place a number of Warp Tokens on the System. This is an independent, space-faring civilization that must be conquered or convinced to join a player’s faction. 

A Level One Civilization has a Weapons Hit Roll of 5+, a Shields Modifier of 1 in Planetary Invasions, and a base Hegemony Resistance of 1. A Level Two Civilization has a Weapons Hit Roll of 4+, a Shields Modifier of 2, and a base Hegemony Resistance of 2. A Level Three Civilization has a Weapons Hit Roll of 3+, a Shields Modifier of 3, and a base Hegemony Resistance of 3. A Level Three Warp-Capable World is a significant presence in the Galaxy that fledgling civilizations may not be able to deal with right away.

A Command may be Exhausted to initiate a Space Battle with rival Starships in a single Adjacent Sector, or in a single Sector occupied by rival vessels. If a player has Ships in more than one Adjacent Sector, all of those vessels may participate in the Battle when the Command is Exhausted. A Space Battle consists of a number of Rounds of Combat in which both players roll to Score Hits, take Casualties, and then decide whether to Retreat of keep fighting. The player who initiates the battle is the Attacker.

Combat in Star Trek: Ascendancy is very simple. Both players involved roll a number of dice equal to the number of Starships involved in the Battle. On each player’s Control Console, the Weapons System slider will point at the number a player needs to roll to hit in order to destroy a rival vessel. An opponent’s Shields can modify that number, making the “Hit Roll” more difficult.

Every Hit destroys a rival Ship. Both players Roll to Hit and then Take Casualties simultaneously. If there is a choice of where casualties are going to be taken, the player who inflicted the Hits chooses how to allocate the Hits. For instance, if a player is facing both a Fleet and individual vessels, the Fleet may be targeted in an attempt to break it up (remember, normally a Fleet must contain at least three Ships).

Starbases may lend support to a Space Battle. When a civilization has Ships in Orbit of a System they Control that contains a Starbase, that player may roll an additional to Hit die in the Battle. Starbases may never be targeted or taken as a Causality and cannot fight on their own.
 

After Taking Casualties, each side must decide to continue or retreat from Battle, starting with the Attacker. Retreats are made at Impulse Speed and via Existing Space Lanes. All of a players Ships must Move and end their Retreat in the same Sector. If rival Starships are blocking the Space Lanes, Retreat is impossible.

Some Advancements grant Ships and/or Nodes (in a Planetary Invasion) a First Strike in the initial Round of Combat. In a Battle with a participant who has First Strike, that player rolls their To Hit dice first, forcing their opponent to Remove Casualties before rolling To Hit. If both sides have First Strike, than neither may use it in the Battle.

When a player’s Ships Occupy a Developed System that they do not Control, a Command may be issued to Invade the Planet. A Planetary Invasion works much the same as Space Combat, except the invading Ships roll off against the structures built on the planet. Starbases do not participate in Planetary Invasions. The weapon and shield levels on the Control Console apply to a civilization’s Nodes as well as their Starships.

Every hit by a Defending Mode destroys one of the Attacker’s Ships. The goal of the Attacker is to take Control of the Planet, ideally with minimal damage to its infrastructure. Hits by the Attacker don’t necessarily destroy Nodes, but the number of Hits does determine the results of the Invasion.

Starbases are too valuable to destroy. Once a Starbase has been placed in a System, it remains there for the remainder of the game. When Control of a System changes hands, Control of the Starbase does too. The controlling player takes one Command Token from the former owner and places it face down with their own Commands, to be refreshed at the end of the turn. In this way, a civilization may Control more that the three Starbases they are allotted to commission.

Will your Fleets be victorious in Battle? Tale command when Star Trek: Ascendancy hits stores later this summer. Next week, diplomacy prevails where combat fails as we look at adding worlds to your civilization through Hegemony and diplomacy.

One Command can be issued to Move a single Starship or an entire Fleet. There are two types of Movement in the game, Impulse Speed and Warp Speed. 

Warp Speed permits a vessel to cover vast distances in a short amount of time. In the game, when a Ship is commanded to go to Warp Speed, the Ship is moved just off the Sector it currently occupies and placed on the table next to the cardboard map section. A Warp Token is placed next to the Ship, pointing at the Sector in which it went to Warp. At the end of each game round a Ship is at Warp, another Warp Token is placed next to the plastic Ship. Additional Warp Tokens may be placed next to the Ship by issuing a Command. 

When a Ship is ready to come out of Warp, another Command must be issued. Upon Exiting Warp, the Ship may be moved a number of Systems (both Planetary Systems and Interstellar Phenomena) equal to the number of Warp Tokens next to the Ship in addition to the number of Warp Tokens pictured on completed, active Advancement Cards. A Ship may elect to move through fewer Systems and drop out of Warp earlier than the number of Warp Tokens permits.  Ships at Warp that do not stop in Hazardous Systems do not have to make a Hazard roll, they bypass the System without incident.

Where will you chart your course when you take Command in Star Trek: Ascendancy? Next week, prepare to raise shields and go to red alert as we look at Space Combat in the game.

Chart the course of the Galaxy’s great civilizations and empires with Gale Force Nine’s Star Trek: Ascendancy hobby boardgame. Send single Starships on missions of exploration or command vast fleets to seize alien worlds. Commission new Starbases on the edges of the galactic frontier or open diplomatic talks with potential allies. The choices you make will ultimately lead your civilization to prosperity or ruin.

In the Command Phase of the game, players will make the critical decisions to grow their civilization. Each player has a number of Command Tokens they can Exhaust each turn to perform actions. Players begin the game with five Command Tokens and will have the opportunity to earn more through Advancement research and the establishment of Starbases. The more tokens a player has, the more Commands they can issue on their turn. Every Command costs one Command Token to execute and the same Command may be given multiple times in a turn.

A Command may be spent to Launch New Advancement Projects. A player may draw two cards from the Advancement Deck and add them to their Research Area. The number of blue Research Nodes they control on their worlds is the maximum number of Active Projects they may have in their Research Area. Any Projects a player discards are returned to the bottom of the Advancement Deck. Research is committed to Advancement Projects in the Building Phase.

A Command is also issued to Commission a Starbase. A Starbase is a major strategic construction; a civilization may only place three Starbases over the course of the game. Each Starbase a player Controls increases the number of Command Tokens in their pool, there is no limit to the number of Starbases a player may Control. New Starships may be constructed at a Starbase, allowing a player to build up their forces far from the civilization’s homeworld. Starbases can also contribute during a space battle in the system they are located in.

A Command may be spent to Commission a Fleet.  Fleets may only ever be formed at a civilization’s homeworld or at a Starbase under their control. Ships in a Fleet act as one, only one Command is issued to move a fleet for example. And many Fleets have a special purpose, represented by a Special Rule for the Fleet while it is active.

Advancements, Starbases and Fleets are valuable tools to grow a player’s civilization. What will be your orders when you take command Star Trek: Ascendancy? Once our engineers finish cleaning the plasma conduits, we’ll take a look at issuing a Move Command and how Impulse and Warp Speed work in the game.