The first time Meeples Herald heard about a Gaia Project expansion, it was in a French podcast about board games, and we were very excited about the prospect of getting more added to one of all-time favorite space board games.
The Lost Fleet balances and Changes Things
Now, about a year after we first sniffed the news, it seems that Gaia Project: The Lost Fleet, the expansion, is happening. Published by Feuerland Spiele, illustrated by Dennis Lohausen, and designed by Jens Drögemüller and Helge Ostertag, the game’s expansion is bringing a familiar tandem back into action.
The expansion naturally adds to Gaia Project’s already exciting theme, adding 6 new adv. Techs, 4 new round boosters, 3 new round scorings, and balance changes to some of the factions, including starting resources, income, additional actions and different costs to explore a ship, for example.
The more significant changes have to do with four new factions, to wit the Tinkeroids, Space Giants, Darkanians, Mowyed, who will be native to two new protoplanets and asteroids.
A new “lost fleet” will be added to the gameplay with a new way to set up the map allowing for empty hexes where the said fleet will be placed. There will also be smaller sector tiles, called edge sectors. The lost fleet ships will allow access to new action spaces and technologies which will be featured as part of the portal board, along with artifacts, and special federation tokens.
We Set a Course for the Stars in 2024
Q.I.C. actions will be eliminated and only available on ships it seems. Gauging the full impact of the new expansion would be rather difficult, but there is always the fact that it is going to take seven years to see the new game released, as The Lost Fleet is not due until 2024.
The original game was introduced in 2017, and it has been an absolute delight in both its physical form and in places such as BoardGameArena.
An attempt to introduce the game on Steam wasn’t exactly met with much enthusiasm, and the BoardGameArena version, at least to us, feels a little more interactive. Then again, if you want to play against the AI, then the Steam game isn’t so bad after all. In the meantime, it will be at least another few months before we see the new game arrive, or rather expansion.