Game 2
Game 2 of Star Charter played very similar to Game 1 (but I traveled clockwise). At the end things looked like this.
Now, I almost certainly had 3 fuel by the last hand which could have got me out to the middle ring. But I missed the rule about half price fuel when traveling from, or to, a hub world, along a space lane. Or maybe I thought it didn’t count when you first traveled to the hub world. Either way, I played like this, and had an 18 card deck with 12 worlds; 2 in each of the inner sectors.
Game 3
Game 3 I also start from 33. Stepanov. I create a third world in both 44. and 55. before revisiting the hub world in 66. I have the fuel to get to the middle ring on my last turn of the game (or maybe I finally understand the rules correctly) and I can go to 65., 61. or 54. I settle on creating a new Hub world, 61. Garde, and a space lane connecting that world to 66. Carax.
Game 4
I have created 3 new worlds in each of my first 3 games, to add to the 6 prologue worlds. So at the start of game 4, the deck has 15 cards with worlds on them, and only 3 blanks remain. Hands of cards have changed from being mostly blanks with the occasional world, to all worlds, with the occasional blank.
My journey starts at 11. Parajong & I play 22. Tranmere from hand on my first turn. It takes some thinking about, because it’s worth 5 fuel if I keep it in my hand. But extending the journey, and making better fuel cards, is worth more in the long run. But that’s the only useful card I have, and my replacement cards don’t help. So I create 33. G’mina with the last blank card in my hand. But I have drawn a heap of fuel, so I can safely head to the middle ring to chart the next 2 new worlds.
Adding Cards to the Deck
From 33. I can travel to 21., 34. or 32. It’s a coin toss really, but I choose to create the hub world 34. Zhetikara. Mostly because it’s directly opposite 61. which I created last game. Because I have no blank cards in hand, I draw a blank one from my stack of empties, and place it to the right of the travel line. As well as the usual steps in creating a world, I also have to assign it a number. I do this by discarding a card from the deck, and adding 1 to the revealed number (unless I discard a 6, in which case I make it a 1). In this way, the numbers in the deck should even out over the long term, but could get distorted in the short term, affecting the draws of the tables. I discard a 5, so 34. Zhetikara becomes a 6 card.
I’m traveling to a hub world, so I create a space lane between 33. and 34. and it only costs me 3 fuel. Because I created the new world with a new card, and not one from my hand, I have only used 1 card this turn (for the fuel), and so for the first time I just draw 1 from the deck. This lessens the chance of me drawing useful cards, but it also gives me more control of knowing what cards I will have in future turns. This alters the game play a little.
I do not draw a blank card, so I need to use another new one to create 32. Al-Fateh. Again, I discard a 5 from the deck when numbering this card, so another 6 is added to my deck. This is my first time in this sector, so another space lane is created between these 2 new hub worlds, and my fuel cost is again halved. It generally costs 12 to move around the middle ring, but these first visits will only cost me 6.
After Game 4
At the end of game 4, the map is starting to get a bit more character, and I have a deck with 20 cards, 2 blanks, and 5 sixes, compared to only having 3 of the other numbers. I also have 34 total fuel in the deck, split over 12 cards, so more traveling to, and around, the middle ring is definitely in the future.
This is a post (tangentially) about the design and development of a currently unnamed Shipwreck Game. You can see the other Blog posts at the Index for the Game.