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[Dekryr]

I'm looking for a fun game as a Christmas gift that I can play with friends. Eclipse won BGG's Game of the year for 2012. We don't mind long games, playing a decent amount of Spartacus lately, but was wondering if anyone played it and what they thought.

[theory]

Have you ever played TI:3?

[Dekryr]

TI:3 = Twilight Imperium 3rd edition?? No haven't played that. My friends have Catan, Spartacus, Ticket to Ride, and obviously Dominion. Dominion is what really got me back into board games. I haven't played the others much.

[DG]

Three friends of mine played Eclipse at a games convention. One thought it had some excellent game mechanics but ended up decided on the politics, another was less impressed but happy to have played it, the owner of the game sold it in the second hand games sale since it wasn't his sort of game. Some people like more interaction and more conflict between players so if that's up your street then it might be good for you.

[Captain_Frisk]

I have played Eclipse (1x), and Twilight Imperium (10x)

I think I prefer TI. 

Core differences:

Eclipse plays much faster (no more than 1/2 the time of TI3 game)
You get to design your own ships in Eclipse
There are more ship types in TI
TI has a simpler resource model
Combat is less meaningful in TI (~1/3 of your VP in eclipse come from combat)

I just found that as the leader, it was much harder to maintain control in eclipse relative to to TI3 - as you can't take away someone elses VPs, and if the other players want to gang up on you, they potentially harm themselves by doing so.

Thus, the end of the game politics were very frustrating in Eclipse.

I don't mind the extra time, but you have to realize that Eclipse is a game that you can potentially bring out on a normal game day, play it, and then play something else.

TI3 - that is your whole day and then some.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I've played Eclipse once; I want to play it again.

[Davio]

Three friends of mine played Eclipse at a games convention. One thought it had some excellent game mechanics but ended up decided on the politics, another was less impressed but happy to have played it, the owner of the game sold it in the second hand games sale since it wasn't his sort of game. Some people like more interaction and more conflict between players so if that's up your street then it might be good for you.

I haven't played it, but would you say that Eclipse also appeals to players who like Cosmic Encounter?
They're different games of course, but the interaction and conflict may be a big deal in both?

[Captain_Frisk]

Three friends of mine played Eclipse at a games convention. One thought it had some excellent game mechanics but ended up decided on the politics, another was less impressed but happy to have played it, the owner of the game sold it in the second hand games sale since it wasn't his sort of game. Some people like more interaction and more conflict between players so if that's up your street then it might be good for you.

I haven't played it, but would you say that Eclipse also appeals to players who like Cosmic Encounter?
They're different games of course, but the interaction and conflict may be a big deal in both?

I've never played Cosmic, but I understand there's alot of chaos.  Eclipse requires hard core strategic empire building types of decisions in addition to the politics

[Dekryr]

I have played Eclipse (1x), and Twilight Imperium (10x)

I think I prefer TI. 

Core differences:

Eclipse plays much faster (no more than 1/2 the time of TI3 game)
You get to design your own ships in Eclipse
There are more ship types in TI
TI has a simpler resource model
Combat is less meaningful in TI (~1/3 of your VP in eclipse come from combat)

I just found that as the leader, it was much harder to maintain control in eclipse relative to to TI3 - as you can't take away someone elses VPs, and if the other players want to gang up on you, they potentially harm themselves by doing so.

Thus, the end of the game politics were very frustrating in Eclipse.

I don't mind the extra time, but you have to realize that Eclipse is a game that you can potentially bring out on a normal game day, play it, and then play something else.

TI3 - that is your whole day and then some.

Thanks for the input. I think most of those differences would make me, personally, prefer Eclipse. I'd  rather get 2 games in in a day than 1. I like the ship building and importance of battling. The less endgame control is annoying, but sounds like Eclipse would be better for me. Again thanks for the input.

[Captain_Frisk]

I have played Eclipse (1x), and Twilight Imperium (10x)

I think I prefer TI. 

Core differences:

Eclipse plays much faster (no more than 1/2 the time of TI3 game)
You get to design your own ships in Eclipse
There are more ship types in TI
TI has a simpler resource model
Combat is less meaningful in TI (~1/3 of your VP in eclipse come from combat)

I just found that as the leader, it was much harder to maintain control in eclipse relative to to TI3 - as you can't take away someone elses VPs, and if the other players want to gang up on you, they potentially harm themselves by doing so.

Thus, the end of the game politics were very frustrating in Eclipse.

I don't mind the extra time, but you have to realize that Eclipse is a game that you can potentially bring out on a normal game day, play it, and then play something else.

TI3 - that is your whole day and then some.

Thanks for the input. I think most of those differences would make me, personally, prefer Eclipse. I'd  rather get 2 games in in a day than 1. I like the ship building and importance of battling. The less endgame control is annoying, but sounds like Eclipse would be better for me. Again thanks for the input.

You aren't alone.  Eclipse is in the top 10 on BGG, and TI3 is somewhere down in the 30+ range I think.

[Kahryl]

I played a few rounds of Eclipse with several friends; we weren't impressed.

Issues:

1) Lack of content. You'll see pretty much every tile, every PvE encounter, and most every playable race there is to the game in a single playthrough. Compare to Talisman where you have a knee-high stack of adventure cards or Dominion where you only see 10 card types of a 25-200 card repository at a time.

2) Missiles are overwhelmingly strong. There's basically no drawback to stacking them.

3) Fun three-way combat is prohibited. Combat rules, in general, seem determined to be boring and static.

4) Politics is not well calibrated. Treachery only matters if you're the LAST person in the game to betray someone. This means early treaties are essentially meaningless.