GAME: 4,000 AD: An Interstellar Conquest Game PUBLISHER: House of Games Corporation COPYRIGHT: 1972 PLAYERS: 2 to 4 COMPLEXITY: 3 out of 10 TIME: 1-4 hours SOLITAIRE SUTABILITY: Low OVERVIEW 4,000 AD is an abstract space strategy game similar to Risk. Players vie for control of star systems, with each system providing valuable production points needed to construct space ships. Fleets of ships are moved via an abstract hyperspace system to allow for semi-hidden movement. One notable feature is the absence of dice; there is no “chance” element in the game. Combat is a simple, deterministic affair: when 2 fleets clash, the larger fleet wins with no losses and the smaller fleet is completely eliminated. While this does not really represent combat very well, it does allow for a “pure” strategic game where no one can complain about a lucky roll of sixes or something. COMPONENTS 1 27” by 22” game board in 2 folded sections Several dozen small plastic “ships” in 4 colors (sort of; more on this later) 8 warp markers (more on this later) 2 Rules Books (one in English and another in French) 1 Strategy Book* *NOTE: my version (bought at a flea market for $2) does not contain the strategy booklet, so I cannot comment on what it might or might not contain. Game Board The game board is very basic. It contains a bluish field divided up into 12 square sectors. Each sector contains 2 yellow and 2 red “stars” (actually, quarter and dime-sized circles). The board simulates a 3-D star field in that the red stars are assumed to be “lower” than the yellow ones; the game map really simulates 24 cubes, each with 2 red or yellow stars in them. On the 4 edges of the game board are the “warp tracks”; these are used to count the number of turns a fleet has been in hyper-space (fleets travel on the warp markers). Because of this, the opposing player does not know your fleet’s destination, only its point of origin and how long it has traveled. Thus, each fleet could have several possible destinations. The correct one is known only to the controlling player. This is actually a very good way of making the movement semi-secret. Ships The ship counters are plastic and very small. Each one is about 7/16 of an inch long and maybe 1/8 wide & tall. There are slightly larger pieces that represent 5 ships. The problem with these (the size is really not too bad) is the choice of color. There are 2 green fleets and 2 red fleets. The green colors are pretty easy to distinguish; the light and dark green contrast nicely. But the reds are nearly impossible to tell apart. I have decent eyesight, and I have an extremely tough time with these. It’s almost unplayable to have the 2 red fleets in use at the same time. I’ve toyed with the idea of spray painting one red fleet orange or something, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Warp Markers The warp markers are gray plastic with a center indentation to hold about 15 ships. They also have 12 holes for pegs around the edge, each hole corresponding to one of the 12 sectors in the star field. By using either yellow or red pegs, a player indicates the departure square and “color” of the star his ships left from. Other players can use this to guess where the ships may be headed. Rules Book The rules book is fairly straightforward. The individual rule explanations are usually clear and concise; the problem is that the choice of the order of rules presentation is rather poor. The organization is rather unituitive and necessitates scanning the rulebook completely through to find a desired passage. GAMEPLAY The game plays much like Risk in that players must hold or garrison stars in order to receive their production value. Each star may have a + sign (indicating raw materials), a 0 (indicating human population), both, or neither. 1 each of the + and 0 are necessary to produce 1 ship. Ships are produced every two turns and all start on the player’s home star. The game develops frontally out of the players’ home systems, but the fronts are very fluid as warp travel allows access to basically any star on the board. Each player has only 2 warps to use each turn, however; and since some journeys may last up to 5 or 6 turns, there often are not enough warps available to do everything the player wishes to do. The movement rules are unique and very appropriate for this type of game. Basically, the owning player is the only one who knows where a fleet is going. The other player(s) can see where it took off from and how many turns it’s been in hyperspace, but they don’t know the direction of travel or the destination. Players move the warps containing the ships along a track (1 space per turn) until they’ve moved them far enough to arrive at the destination star. Moves within a sector only take 1 turn but still involve the theoretical use of a warp, so warps are always in short supply. Since a player does not have to declare or otherwise note a fleet’s destination until it gets there, he can actually change his mind and land his ships at any star that is the correct number of spaces away from the star of origin. This, of course, can lead to a force being destined for one star and having to be moved somewhere else to counter a threat. This is obviously intentional on the part of the designers, but I would assume that hyperspace travel probably shouldn’t be able to be changed that way. I have only played 2-player games; I suspect that a 3- or 4-player game would be better. With a 2-player game, one screw-up can spell doom for the entire game, since the opposing player can enrich himself at your expense. I also found the combat to be too abstract. As stated before, when a fleet arrives at a star, as long as it has numerical superiority in ships, it eliminates the opposing fleet with no losses to itself. So, for example, if you take a fleet of 15 ships to your opponent’s star, which is garrisoned with 13 ships, all 13 of his ships are destroyed and none of yours are. I’d like to see a system where the winning player at least loses some ships. Perhaps 1/3 or ½ of the defender’s forces or something. I like the no-chance element; but as it stands it leads to some unrealistic combat results. OVERALL I like this game. I may tinker with the combat rules to make them more realistic, but the semi-hidden movement is great and really gives a feel for hyperspace travel. One other possibility would be to have the players note (secretly) the destination of each fleet ahead of time to avoid being able to change one’s mind mid-journey (which doesn’t make sense since they’re in hyperspace). If you can find this one, go ahead and pick it up; you won’t be disappointed. And if anyone has a copy of the strategy book, I’d love to know what’s in it. Caleb N. Diffell 22 December 2001 calebdiffell@prodigy.net