It is fair to say that for a lot of Board Gamers, SETI ticked lots of boxes when it was released in 2024 - mid to heavy euro, visually stunning, real table presence, intuitive ruleset and variable game play driven by a spinning solar centre that rewarded forward planning and as with most euros, never quite enough to do what you want at the end.
The alien species reveals gave you a game within a game and the opportunity to pivot from say, launching and landing to alien exploration - in short this game was epic on many levels. Add in a large variable card deck, dual layered boards and a table presence not easily matched and you can see why this is a BGG top 20 of all time - within a relatively short space of time!
A lot has been said already about SETI in terms of the gameplay, player counts (3 is best), 2 is a bit light on decision peril and 4 is probably a bit lengthy, but higher players counts help to drive some of the gameplay elements that at 2 players were the subject of some of the games’ criticisms - scanning being primary among them and a slow first round being the other primary criticism, as well as 5 alien discovery species being too few for replayability…
We’ve never found the latter of these three an issue even at two players but scanning was an issue in terms of the effort versus reward - a widely adopted house rule of using a neutral token to block a scanning space to sort of kickstart your scans has took off (pardon the pun) and is largely accepted and adopted.
Cleary one of the aims of any expansion for SETI would be to try to ease or resolve these issues. So has it worked?
Yes. Space Agencies does this and more.
As with the obvious comparison with Terraforming Mars the introduction of assymetric corporations as a starting base kickstarts your game with starting resources which can sometimes be slotted for income and might contribute towards an end game gold tile score or a few extra energy or money for your first round. This is important as the regular income levels are a bit lower than the base game but the corporations also have some buffs to use usually once per round - this might be extra moves for your probes, discount on data computing costs or lowering publicity requirements for researching tech for traces, all really useful and whilst they are all different they are not wildly assymetric - the advantage and weight of the one time uses depends on your game play and the timing of when you use them.
After about 20 games with the expansion only maybe one or two feel slightly advantageous - there are four intended as “entry” level corporations but that doesn’t neccesarily mean weaker.
To compensate for the introduction of the expansion and to get the game going, the number of rounds of gameplay is one fewer 4 instead of 5 so you need to sharpen your game play but as well as the starting corps you get to pick two from three starting cards for a few extra resources or placing an orbiter (makes landing at the same planet cheaper), All in an effort to get things going, now like I said above, I didn’t think the game was slow or difficult in the first round without the expansion but I have to say the introduction of the corporations and starting cards does make a positive difference and does get the game going in the right direction from the off. I wouldn’t go back to playing without them is saying enough.
The other addition aimed at imrproving the original critique are scanning tokens - these allow for one extra scan per token at your chosen location which makes scanning much more efficient and the elusive red traces more easily accessible - one thing that is more than welcome. Red traces are generally at a premium so being able to grab an extra data point and increase your chances of getting that red trace really has brought scanning back into the decision frame - something that especially at two players, was a lower reward option - without a scanning card or dropping onto an area already partially scanned by your opponent it was a tougher option - well, not tough but there were generally better options available.
Then, when you get to the point of flipping your alien tiles there are three new ones to choose from, each very different and three new puzzles to solve, we especially like the one where you have to use traces to unlock card bonuses and new levels of trace placements on the alien card - the game defintely needed more than 5 aliens and these three new ones are absolutely spot on. Great design and artwork - its such a brilliant gameplay mechanic.
So far so good. Gameplay improved, starting resources bagged, corporation choice nailed what more could you want? More cards? Well, there are alot more cards.
In the core basegame set there are 200 base cards offering launches, scans, traces, tech, cheap landers, end game bonuses or triggerable missions. All beautifully designed, impressionistic artwork or digital designs, hugely thematic and great for the gameplay. They really put the effort in on them and it makes the game.
This is my only gripe about this expansion - 40 more cards. An already large deck further diluted by 20% more cards, you can take them out, they are easily identifiable but unlike TM where there were 15+ rounds so deck churn happens and you can pick and choose each round SETI is four rounds and you pick one from three, and the card row is largely static. Taking a tactical option on turning up a useful card especially towards the end of the game where you are exploring options, is largely redundant. I do have an issue with this. Diluting a deck with expansion cards - Dune Imperium Uprising had this - the Imperium Row horribly duluted with the Bloodlines expansion - for players experienced in deck knowledge and hand management in a deck of say 50+ cards, to have another 20-30+ cards added really made a difference.
Space Agencies is by no means ruined by an extra 40 cards but one does have to question why another 40 cards? The game doesn’t stand or fall on the turn of a card but part of the skill of engine building or hand management is a sense of knowing what you might pick up from a deck pick option…there is no chance with this deck.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this game and love the theme - I read astrophysics books in my spare time (and yes, I’m a delight at parties), the chaining options, points points points!!! launch a probe, land one, ALIENS!!!! I’m all over it - its in our top 5 games of all time - mid to heavy euro love it - but more cards just weakens the gameplay a bit - you can see why they have done it - new corporations, starting cards, scanning….now we need more cards…..
I sometimes think with gaming just because you can do something doesn’t mean to say you should, see my review of Life of Amazonia as an example of this. I think I just reached my Roche Limit with the number of cards now in the game. (there is an astrophysics joke in there somewhere).
So, should you add this expansion to the already fantastic SETI? Yes, you should, without question - it has made a brilliant game an even better one -SETI is a 10/10 for us, with the expansion it has gained a lot and lost very little we would never go back to playing without it.
Hard to improve on a 10/10 but SETI with Space Agencies is just….better. It works at every level it set out to improve, more aliens, quicker start, better scanning…and yes, more cards but it’s not going to detract from the gameplay.
Expand, exlpore and enjoy!
