My favorite recent crazy-over-the-top game, Sidereal Confluence. So much to like here, plus it’s actually a clean, tight design despite the sprawling footprint. That’s not to say it’s easy to tackle; it’s not. But it’s challenging because you have a ton of options, not because the rules are hard to learn or the systems difficult to grasp. At 6 turns the game length is perfect and the fact that 80+% of the game is trading phases everyone is engaged pretty much all the time. My top tip on this is that you have to be really mindful of building up your production infrastructure. A lot will depend on which species are in play and what the trading metagame is (how willing players are to engage in trading that is mutually beneficial but maybe significantly more so for one side), but all the species need a solid base of production, and getting that going over the first couple turns is really vital. Resources are really tight early, and you don’t want to make big tech investments early unless they’re helping to upgrade your converters; the early points from tech are large, but you can’t win on a few big early tech bonuses if they cripple your economy. Anyway, really fun game which I always enjoy the heck out of but am also terrible at and since I can only get a game in every 6-9 months I rarely remember what I learned last time I played 😄 Joins Millennium Blades and Argent: The Consortium as my favorite great, bonkers games. #bgg #boardgames #boardgamegeek #wizkids #siderealconfluence https://www.instagram.com/p/BvYcib6DFQ8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qk07ks0u6kau