Solar Settlers is a game by BrainGoodGames. They're making "competitive single-player" strategy games: You don't compete against other players (unless you feel like grinding the ladder), but the game ranks you based on the number of games won and lost, and adjusts its difficulty to keep you challenged.
Its about colonizing a solar system. To win, you must settle a sufficient number of colonists in habitats in a certain number of turns, and these numbers go up and down respectively as you rank up. It's all very abstract, in a kind of Euro-board-game style. You start on the center of a small map with three colonists. The map is split into sectors, with most being unexplored. After moving a colonist to an explored sector, you can explore an adjacent one. The sectors can contain open space, or various different planets. Your colonists can obtain different resources from planets:
Upgrading a planet will "overwrite" any yields it had before. For example, the Metropolis card costs 3 iron to play and provides 5 habitats, but it doesn't do anything else, so you'd better make sure to only play it on a planet you don't need anymore. The Industrial Mine card upgrades rock planets and allows you to earn 3 Iron per colonist but only if three colonists are on this planet at the moment.
There are a few more wrinkles: Many planets, such as the Industrial Mine, produce (sometimes wildly) different yields depending on the number of colonists on them. The outer sectors of the map are locked until you have enough military strength. (There are no battles though, it only serves to unlock the sectors.)
At low ranks, it feels rather casual, but when you reach the higher ranks, it becomes a mad race for more colonists, and more oxygen to keep them breathing, and more cards to settle them before the turns run out. I'd recommend to play a few low-rank games to get a grip on the mechanics, and then select "Placement Match" in the options menu. Depending on your performance in that match, the game then might let you jump ahead several ranks at once. I really like the way the difficulty adjusts. I always feel pushed to get better, but it never feels frustrating for me.
What I like less is that is has some free-to-play like mechanics - although it isn't FTP at all, luckily. You earn XP for matches that unlock new cards, or playable races. There are also daily quests that gives you bonus XP.
It's also discounted this weekend, as are many other board games (and board-game-like games).
Steam page
Its about colonizing a solar system. To win, you must settle a sufficient number of colonists in habitats in a certain number of turns, and these numbers go up and down respectively as you rank up. It's all very abstract, in a kind of Euro-board-game style. You start on the center of a small map with three colonists. The map is split into sectors, with most being unexplored. After moving a colonist to an explored sector, you can explore an adjacent one. The sectors can contain open space, or various different planets. Your colonists can obtain different resources from planets:
- Hydrogen: Is expended whenever you move. There are no other limitations: You can move a colonist over the entire map in one turn if you have enough.
- Oxygen: Every colonist not settled in a habitat consumes one unit at the end of turn.
- Iron: The main resource for building improvements, but you'll need the other resources too.
- Cards: You draw a random card that represents a possible upgrade to a planet (or a star base that you can plop down in empty space). Apart from a few exceptions, those cards are the only way to construct habitats, so they're very important.
- More colonists
Upgrading a planet will "overwrite" any yields it had before. For example, the Metropolis card costs 3 iron to play and provides 5 habitats, but it doesn't do anything else, so you'd better make sure to only play it on a planet you don't need anymore. The Industrial Mine card upgrades rock planets and allows you to earn 3 Iron per colonist but only if three colonists are on this planet at the moment.
There are a few more wrinkles: Many planets, such as the Industrial Mine, produce (sometimes wildly) different yields depending on the number of colonists on them. The outer sectors of the map are locked until you have enough military strength. (There are no battles though, it only serves to unlock the sectors.)
At low ranks, it feels rather casual, but when you reach the higher ranks, it becomes a mad race for more colonists, and more oxygen to keep them breathing, and more cards to settle them before the turns run out. I'd recommend to play a few low-rank games to get a grip on the mechanics, and then select "Placement Match" in the options menu. Depending on your performance in that match, the game then might let you jump ahead several ranks at once. I really like the way the difficulty adjusts. I always feel pushed to get better, but it never feels frustrating for me.
What I like less is that is has some free-to-play like mechanics - although it isn't FTP at all, luckily. You earn XP for matches that unlock new cards, or playable races. There are also daily quests that gives you bonus XP.
It's also discounted this weekend, as are many other board games (and board-game-like games).
Steam page
