The Arcs board game lets you build an empire in the depths of space

Who doesn’t like a good space opera? There are worlds to explore, chock full of exploitable resources and strategic positioning. There are mysteries to unlock, maybe relics of precursor races or more contemporary natural enigmas. There are cool spaceships, with improbable engines and blistering with firepower. And, of course, there are alien species that you can meet, greet, and blow up. Good times. Arcs is one of the latest attempts to capture that classic space opera feel in a board game.

Arcs is a competitive game for two to four players, set in what it describes as “a dark yet silly universe” called the Reach. Each player takes control of a different interstellar empire — the member species of each is up to the imagination. Over the course of five chapters, each player tries to earn victory points in the form of “power”. Power in Arcs can come in many forms, be it economic, political, military, or more esoteric, and is gained by declaring and achieving what the game calls Ambitions. But once one player accumulates a critical mass of it, or if the game’s clock runs out with one player not quite there but still in the lead, the game ends and that player takes control of the Reach.

Image courtesy of Leder Games, background courtesy NASA

It’s all in the cards

Each of Arcs’ five chapters is subdivided into a number of rounds, in which each player takes one or more actions. The type and number of actions that each player takes, as well as the order in which they take them, is determined by a fascinating card mechanic that reminds one of classic card games like Hearts or Spades. At the beginning of each chapter, every player is dealt six action cards, each with a suit, a value, and one or more action pips on them. The player who has the initiative plays the lead card. That player can then take a number of actions equal to that card’s pips, of a type allowed by the card’s suit. The higher the value of the card they play, the more likely that player is to retain initiative and go first next round, but the fewer action pips they have access to. So if the lead player played a 2 of Administration, as pictured above, they’d be pretty likely to lose initiative during the round but would get to take a whopping four actions of the Administration type. If they instead played a 6 of Construction, they’d be pretty likely to retain initiative and go first next turn as well, but would only get two actions of the Construction type.

After the lead player takes their actions, play continues in clockwise order, with each player playing an action card in one of three ways.

• Surpass: If you have a card of the same suit as the lead card, but with a higher value, you can Surpass. Surpassing has two effects. First, doing so lets you take a number of actions of your card’s type equal to the number of pips on your card. This is the only way that a player without the initiative gets to take more than one action in a turn, so it’s pretty great to do if you can pull it off. But even better, Surpassing also grants you the initiative for next turn, allowing you more of those sweet, sweet actions.
• Pivot: If you can’t Surpass, you can instead choose to Pivot by playing a card of a different suit from the lead card of any value. This lets you take exactly one action of your card’s type, regardless of the number of pips on it. So if the lead player plays an Administration card, but you want to take a Construction action, this might be the best play for you.
• Copy: If neither Surpassing or Pivoting are in the cards for you, you must instead Copy. You do this by playing any card in your hand face-down, then taking exactly one action of the lead card’s type, regardless of your own card’s pips or suit. This is generally the least useful option available to a player, but since you can’t choose to not play a card, sometimes it’s all you’ve got.

In addition to Surpassing, Pivoting, or Copying, a player can also choose to Seize the Initiative by playing a second card face-down along with their primary action card. Doing so costs you the extra card, thus reducing the total number of action cards you can play in that chapter, but guarantees that you’ll have the initiative at the start of the next round, even if some other player chose to Surpass on their turn. With the complex decisions involved in choosing what action card to play on any round, managing your action economy well is critical to succeeding in your struggle for dominance of the Reach.

Image courtesy of Leder Games, background courtesy NASA

The Ambition to rule is a core game mechanic in Arcs

Victory points in Arcs is earned by declaring and achieving Ambitions, which are basically chapter-long goals. There are six different Ambitions available to choose from, but they all boil down to the same concept: having the most of a particular type of token on your board at the end of a chapter. Each Ambition declared is worth between three and nine points, depending on how far along you are in the game and how many Ambitions have already been declared that chapter. The lead player is the only one who can declare an Ambition, all the more reason to ensure you’re the lead player, but it does mean that they probably won’t be lead player for long: declaring an Ambition reduces the value of your action card to zero, making you trivial to Surpass.

The tokens you need to achieve your Ambitions come in different types, and each only count toward a specific Ambition. For example, the Tycoon Ambition is won by the player who has the most material or fuel resources on their board, which come from taxing cities on the right kind of planets, or from certain guild cards that you can earn through political influence. Meanwhile the Warlord Ambition is won by collecting the most trophies from winning space battles or bombing planets. Just be careful, because once an Ambition is declared, it’s won by whoever has the most of those tokens at the end of the chapter, which may not be you. Declaring an Ambition is a fast way to set the tone for an entire chapter of the game.

Image courtesy of Leder Games, background courtesy NASA

Expansions give Arcs even more space

One of the things that I particularly like about Arcs is that it comes with a multiple ways to modify the game’s complexity. The base game is actually pretty straightforward: it’s made up of a few simple actions that have complex interactions. The most challenging part is getting used to the action card system, and even that’s not that hard. After your first game, though, you can easily add in one of the two available expansions to add a few small twists to the game. The Leaders expansion gives every player a Leader card at the start of the game, tweaking your empire with the addition of a strength, a weakness, and modifications to your game start position. The Lore expansion adds a number of new Lore cards which allow players to apply some wild effects to the game as it goes on. And once you really have your feet under you, there’s an optional campaign mode. I haven’t gotten a chance to try them myself yet, but flipping through the cards I can see some potentially very interesting interactions with game strategy.

Arcs is a fascinating board game that I found I really enjoyed. It feels like a classic 4X computer space game, like good old Master of Orion 2, but condensed down to its very essence. Even the main game board goes for a simple aesthetic, eschewing the traditional star map and instead depicting each system as an arc of a circle. Personally, I really dig it. Check it out, maybe! Arcs is published by Leder Games and is available for pre-purchase now.