A new game hit the table, New Frontiers by Rio Grande Games. And this is one that I bought because of the solo play on Meet Me At the Table’s YouTube channel, here. The game play to me looked like the type of engine building fun that I enjoy. So I picked it up to see if it was one for me. I got the feel that it might be because it reminded me of Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition in some ways. Which makes sense as New Frontiers is in the Roll for the Galaxy line of games. But let’s see how it plays.

How To Play New Frontiers

The game is all about building up an engine to generate points. You do that by developing technologies, gathering and converting goods, and settling colonies. To do that you are doing one of several actions in the game hoping to build the best engine to get the most points. And each action is better for you, if you take the action. But everyone get’s to follow along and do it as well, there is just a benefit for you.

The game ends one of several ways. But the most common ways, that I’ve seen, are people settling planets or developing enough technologies. If you push either of them over past their limit the game is wrong to end at the end of that round of turns. Or you might end the game by running out of explorers to settle planets or victory points from the pool.

The Actions

Let’s talk a bit about the actions. They are the core of the game because that’s how you determine what is being done. On each players turn they pick an action to do. And that action generally has a benefit to the player if they are the one doing it.

There is a main core group of actions that you might take. And there are some additional actions as well, but there is what I would consider kind of a central loop of actions. Develop, produce, trade/consume, explore, and settle make up that core set of actions. There are additional actions that move you up in priority order, and add objectives for everyone to score to the game. But those are more minor actions that players take.

Develop

Developing is all about building out the new technologies. If you select that, you get a dollar discount as well, so it’s a benefit to be the one taking it. The technologies help in all of the other areas I’m going to mention. So what they are doing for you really depends on what you want to do in the areas below.

And as you gain more credits you can purchase more expensive and better technologies or discoveries. Including 9 cost ones which can provide a significant amount of your scoring if you’ve built and engine that leans into one of them.

Produce

The production action is kind of what you think it would be. It’s your chance to produce goods. Some of the planets produce goods, some produce windfall goods (only when you settle) and others don’t produce.

The goods come in different varieties. There are more expensive and less expensive goods. Though which good shows up more often on the planets, that I feel like is pretty evenly balanced. The development tiles, though, tend to offer more points or benefits for the less expensive ones.

Trade/Consume

Trade and Consume is all about taking those resources you got and turning them into points and money. You are always able to trade in a good for money. But that is only for a single good, not for as many as you want.

If you want to deal with more that you’ve produced, then you need to be able to consume. Consuming a good is one of the ways where you can gather points. Most goods have planets or development tiles that you can consume a good for a dollar and a point. So it might be less efficient in getting money, but a solid way to get points.

Explore

So how do you get the planets? That’s with the explore action, as you explore them, you aren’t settling them, you’re just finding planets that you want to add to your empire, by which I mean your engine. You pull seven (base game) or eight (with expansion out). And then in turn order, starting from the player who chose the action, you select a planet. The bonus is that the player who chose the action gets to select an additional planet.

Settle

Finally, in that core set of actions is settle. Settling is settling the planets that you’ve explored. Only once a planet is settled is it able to start producing or do you get it’s power. You need explorers to be able to settle. So if you take the settle action you gain a free explorer.

Everyone gets the rest of the options. You might take two explorers. Or the other option is that you can settle a planet. You either need to spend the credits and explorers to settle. Or you need to have enough military and explorers to settle. Planets either take one or two explorers to settle.

Level of Luck

I think that this is useful to talk about. I didn’t mention how you pick which planets are in the pool to explore from. And exploring is where the most luck shows up in the game. You draw out planets, it’s possible for it to lean heavily towards planets that need miliary or completely away from that. If your engine is built in a particular direction, that might not work for what you need.

But that’s about the level of luck. And the game, I’d say, if you explore, or that action is taken maybe 8-9 times in a game, you maybe have a single time where there isn’t something for you. So the luck level is pretty low.

I even have gone with a strategy that is all about developing. With that one, I was barely even needing to explore. My engine was just on the technologies. And those are all face up, so I could come up with a strategy that made a lot of sense and with basically zero luck. Once I was able to produce and consume at all, when other people took those actions, I was set.

Strategy Mix

I like how the game offers different strategies to play around with. For some paths it’s all about gaining military and once you get enough, it’s easy to conquer and settle almost any planet. I also, like I mention above, went with a strategy that didn’t care what planets I got. Generally, though, your starting planet is going to determine your initial leaning. And as long as the first couple of explores support it, it’s very possible to build up different strategies.

Some strategies, though, are harder than others. Some of them require specific keywords to really work. You get more points if you own planets with the word “uplift” on them, or you are best at fighting “rebels”. Generally these planets offset their rarity by offering more scoring. But the more specialized it is, the more potential for just a bad draw of planets.

Who Is New Frontiers For?

I think it’s for people who maybe wanted a slightly different experience or another experience like Race for the Galaxy, Roll for the Galaxy, Jump Drive, and Ares Expedition (not in the series of games). If you love the engine building and just want more this one is for you. It also offers a bit slower pace of play than some of the other ones on the list, while still being notably faster than Ares Expedition. But, I guess the simple way to put it is people who like engine building games.

Final Thoughts on New Frontiers

I do like engine building games. I was worried after two plays about the diversity of the strategy of New Frontiers. Then my third game I got set-up to go all in on development and that went great. The game is an interesting balance of trying to do everything, but the further in you get the more focused you want to be.

The one thing that I’d love in this game is to be able to build up an engine a bit longer. I’m not sure how to stretch the game out more, though. I often feel like my engine is just clicking for a couple of rounds before the game ends. Though, that is a nice thing about a good engine building game. You never feel like you’re just taking the same action because it makes the engine run best. Instead once you’re to that point or about to that point the game ends.

And I do like how New Frontiers has multiple end of game triggers. I think that handing out all the victory points path might be the hardest, we’ve seen all the others done. So I like how that works, and I do believe that victory points are possible to do. It just requires building a victory point engine versus a money engine or a settling planets engine.

Do you like New Frontiers?

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B-

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