Invasion

Version 3

An unofficial expansion for Eclipse and Rise of the ancients for solo and cooperative play
by Tom De Taey

Adapted for All Versions of Eclipse (Original, RotA, and 2nd Dawn) by Robert Christ

Invaders from another dimension appear in your galaxy! They are abandoning their own
galaxy in force, and are attempting to settle in yours.

As their species arrives, their exploratory forays are claiming dominion on both empty and
populated sectors indiscriminately, putting your empire and its people at threat of extinction.

Half of all incoming colonization fleets appear to be headed directly to sectors populated by
your people. When these fleets arrive, they greet your people with fire, and attempt to purge
your populations in order to claim that land for their own.

The remaining colonization fleets appear to be headed towards unsettled space sectors.
These colonization fleets have not shown any hostility towards our people, and appear
focused primarily on colonization. Perhaps they are even amenable to diplomacy and trade.

The scientists and researchers of your society are unsure what the cause is of this disparate
behavior. Are these truly two different factions, one belligerent and one more inclined
towards diplomacy, trade and peace? Were the invader’s fleets intentionally sent into our
populated sectors? Is galactic cohabitation possible? Is it even desirable?

Negotiate, bribe, trade or fight, the choice will be yours. But above all else, survive.

If you plan strategically enough, through spying ambassadors, by trade, or by looting

destroyed enemy ships, you may just be able to reverse engineer the Inter-Galactic Warp-
Gate technology they are using to enter your galaxy. If so, you may be able to launch an
offensive into their home system, and stop this invasion once, and for all.

Good luck.

What Versions of Eclipse is this Compatible With?

(Answer: All of them)

This version updates Invasion v2 for Rise of the Ancients for use with any version of Eclipse
as of 2020. That means this version is playable with the original Eclipse game, Eclipse Rise
of the Ancients, or Eclipse 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy.
 New Components
Invasion comes with several new materials for gameplay.

The end of this document includes 17 new playing cards that control the invading species’
behavior. They are designed to be printed out, and placed in card sleeves (possibly
wrapped around an actual card for heft), or as paper tokens during game play. If you have
sleeves of a different size, simply use the print screen button to place the images in a word
file and adjust their size.

A new Inter-Galactic Warp Gate tech tile (not to be confused with the warp portal that
comes with some versions of Eclipse) is added at the end of this document. You may
optionally desire to glue it to a cut card or piece of cardboard to make it more similar to
standard game tech tiles.

A modified version of the Interceptor Base tile is provided in this document as well. This
ship part is intended only to be used on the Enemy Starbase.

Lastly, you will need one 6-sided die.

Playing With The Rise Of the Ancients Expansion

The “Interceptor Base” ship part tile

If you own a copy of Rise of the Ancients, you may use the RotA Interceptor Bay Ship Part
Tile, instead of the tile provided in this document. However, remember, enemy ships do
not have energy restrictions!

RotA Development Tiles

If you are playing with Rise of the Ancients, Development tiles should be revealed as if in a
normal two player game, starting with 3 revealed before the first turn.

If you are not playing with the Rise of the Ancients Expansion, do not worry, these cards do
not impact the rest of Invasion, whatsoever.

Where Can I Find Older Versions of Invasion?

BoardGameGeek.com threads for the previous two versions can be found here:

Invasion v2 (Rise of the Ancients) -

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/88563/unofficial-solocoop-expansion-eclipse-rise-
ancient

Invasion v1 (Eclipse) - https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/79833/unofficial-expansion-eclipse-solo-

and-cooperative
 Setup
Exploration & Initial Board Setup

The galaxy is explored in a different way from the regular game. Your own starting sector is
the center. Place one undiscovered Sector I tile next to it. This is the only spot where a
sector I will be placed during the entire game (the others are much more interesting). Now
place the galactic center next to the sector I tile, so that the three sectors form a straight
line. Set up your player on the board in all other ways, as per normal game rules.

When you explore next to your starting sector (aside from the one sector I), a sector II is
placed there. If any other tile is explored (aside from the galactic center) a sector III is
placed there. There is no limit to sector III tiles, go wild.

Enemy Player Board

Place a human player board under your own so only the ship layouts are shown. These
layouts will show you how the enemy ships will evolve.

Place an interceptor bay tile on one of the hull spaces of the enemy starbase layout. This tile
stays there the entire game providing one hull and serving as a reminder that each enemy
starbase launches two fighters during each battle.

(An example of an interceptor bay tile is provided to the left. A full size image is
available for printing and cutting out at the bottom of this document. )

Technologies

Start with twelve random technology tiles. Treat special technologies from the expansion
normally. Technologies are revealed as though playing a standard 2 player game.

The Turn Track (Enemy Actions)

Rounds 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 – Place an enemy influence disk above these turns on the turn track to
serve as a reminder that on these rounds, the enemy receives technology upgrades to their
fleet. See the Enemy Upgrades section for explanation.

Rounds 2, 4, 6, 8 - Place an enemy fighter above these rounds to serve as a reminder that
you will be attacked during these rounds.

Rounds 3, 5, 7 - Place an enemy starbase above these rounds. During these rounds the
enemy player will colonize a sector.

Round 7 – Place a second starbase, and a monolith above round 7 as a reminder that the
enemy’s colonization will include an extra starbase and an extra monolith on round 7.

Round 9 – (Yes, there’s a final round 9, even if playing 2nd Dawn) - Place the Inter-Galactic
Warp Gate technology tile (provided at the end of the document) to the right of round 8.
Only on round 9 will you have the option of attacking the enemy warp station fleet.
 Enemy Actions

The Enemy Upgrades!

During round 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, the Enemy will upgrade their fleet.

Using the provided upgrade cards at the end of this document, resolve a random level I
upgrade card at the start of round 1.

The level I upgrades simply place one type of ship tile on the empty space of all enemy ship
layouts.

Level II and III use upgrade numbers. One of the cards provided at the end of this document
places all tiles in an order (except power sources and the starbases' interceptor bay, they
are never replaced. Engines can only be replaced by new engines.). The first possible tile
with the lowest number is replaced by a new tile on each ship layout. The fighter layout
must have one cannon or missile at all times, the other layouts must have at least one
cannon at all times (In such a case, upgrade the tile with the second least upgrade number,
again if possible). Do not replace parts with higher upgrade numbers than the new part. An
upgrade card may result in only some layouts being upgraded, if that is the end result of the
rules just described.

There are two technology + engine upgrades. Resolve the engine upgrade and roll a die to
determine which technology the enemy receives. Place the card under the enemy player
board so it only shows that technology. This way the enemy can become immune to
neutron bombs, better against missiles and can obstruct your retreat.

Note - enemy ships don't have energy restrictions. They can power everything with nuclear
drives.

Note - there are two plasma cannon upgrades, this is no mistake, the game balance needed
it.

Resolve an I upgrade at the beginning of round 1,

a II upgrade in round 3,
a II and a III upgrade in rounds 5, 7 and 9

The Enemy Attacks!

Determine Attacked Sector

During rounds 2, 4, 6 and 8, remove the fighter above the round number. An enemy fleet
attacks one of your sectors. Roll a die and look at the attack card to see which fleet attacks
you.

To determine which of your sectors is attacked roll, another die. Add the round number to
the die roll and look at the bottom of the attack card. If this prerequisite is not enough to
determine only one of the sectors under your control, roll again. If the second prerequisite
is not enough to narrow the first selection down to a single sector, choose which of these
sectors is attacked.
Example: It is round six and you roll a one. 6+1=7 so the prerequisite states: The sector
with the least victory points. You have three sectors with only one victory point so you roll
again. You roll a 5 so the second prerequisite is most population cubes. Two of your sectors
have three cubes, one sector has only one. The one sector is ruled out so that leaves you to
choose which of the two remaining sectors is attacked. Place the invading fleet in the
sector. You now have a whole round to organize your defense.

Note: For determining the location, count all extras of a sector. For example: The discovery
tile "orbital" adds an artefact to a sector and potentially a population cube. The RotA
shellworld adds five to the victory points of its sector.

The Battle
The battle is resolved during the combat phase with you as the defender. If one or more
enemy ships remain after the combat phase, clear the sector of everything and turn it up
side down. Move all your population cubes to their graveyards, as if they were killed by
another player. Place an enemy influence disc on this destroyed sector (even if you
abandoned the sector with an influence action). The influence disc remains there until the
end of the game and will lose you victory points. The destroyed sector can be travelled
through by using the wormhole generator.

Reputation Gain
After each battle you receive one less reputation tile as in the normal game, with a
maximum of 4 instead of 5.

Enemy Damage AI
Enemy battle damage should be applied to do maximum damage to the player. Damage is
expected to be applied in this order:

1) Assign hits to ships that can still fight

(ships with only missiles are ignored when they already fired until all other ships
have been destroyed.)
2) Assign hits that do the most damage first.
3) Assign the hit to the biggest ship that is destroyed by this hit.
(small - fighter - cruiser - dreadnought - starbase - big)
4) Assign the hit to the biggest ship

Bribing the Enemy

You can remove the attacking fleet any time during the round by paying its bribe cost with
any resources you have (found in the right column of the attack card, no reputation gain). If
you do, place one of your own ambassadors on your reputation track, removing a
reputation tile if necessary. These ambassadors will give you their normal victory point at
the end of the game and will reduce your loss of victory points if you fail to defeat the warp
station fleet during round 9. Note that the war party attacks four times and you have only
three ambassadors. You'll have to fight or retreat at least once.
The Enemy Colonizes!

Determine Colonized Sector

During rounds 3, 5 and 7, remove the starbase above the round number. Enemy colonists
colonize an empty sector. Roll a die and count the empty and undiscovered sectors
clockwise with your home sector as the center of the clock, starting with the only sector I
above your home sector. If a sector is already under your control or if it's destroyed, skip it
while counting.

Example: You roll a 5. This means the fifth empty or undiscovered sector you count is
colonized. The only sector I above your home sector has not yet been discovered, that's 1.
The next sector to the right next to your home sector is yours, so it doesn't count. The next
sector right of your home sector is discovered but empty, that's 2. The sector below your
home sector has ancients and is empty, that's 3. The next two sectors are yours so they do
not count. Now we start counting in the second circle. The galactic center still has its
ancient dreadnought, that's 4, yes it can be colonized. The sector to the right of the galactic
center is undiscovered so that's where the colonists land.

Place a new sector if necessary and rotate it any way you want. add an enemy starbase,
diplomat and orbital to this sector. Now fill all population spaces with enemy population
cubes.

During round 7 a second starbase and a monolith is also added.

Ancients and discovery tiles remain on this sector undisturbed. Super nova tiles do not
explode as long as there are enemy colonists present.

Trading with Enemy Colonists.

You may place one of your population cubes of one of your tracks on the enemy diplomat (you
do not get to do anything else with this action). This can only be done if you have a spaceship or
an influence disc in a sector adjacent to the enemy colony connected with a double-sided
wormhole or a single sided wormhole and the wormhole generator technology. You are now
trading with this colony.

If you attack a colony the enemy diplomat for that colony is removed. If it held one of your
cubes it is placed back on one of your tracks and you receive the traitor card.

Enemy ambassadors with your cube on them give an extra discount of three when purchasing the
warp-gate technology in round nine.
 The Endgame
The 9th, Final Round
This game is played with 9 rounds, even in Eclipse 2nd Dawn of the Galaxy. For the 9th round,
simply move the round counter to the right of the turn track, to signify that this is the only round
where we may be leaving the galaxy.

The Inter-Galactic Warp-Gate Technology Tile

Round 9 – Starting in Round 9, you may research the Inter-Galactic Warp-Gate technology (Tile
Image provided at the end of the document).

Subtract one from the cost of this technology for each victory point you would receive from your
reputation tiles and ambassadors, also subtract three for each enemy ambassador with one of
your population cubes on them. The discount shown on your technology track also applies. Use
all these discounts to make the warp-gate technology affordable and place it on a track of your
choice.

The Final Battle

If you have successfully researched the Inter-Galactic Warp-Gate Technology, then at then end
of Round 9, all of your ships and starbases are given the option to warp-jump to the location of
the enemy fleet, at the warp station, outside the board (in another galaxy).

This warp-jump happens automatically at the end of the round, before any other combat is
fought, as a free move for every ship and starbase.

The enemy warp station fleet will be the defender in this final battle that takes place in another
galaxy.

Any warp station fleet ships that are left alive at the end of the game will detract from your final
score.

Final Victory Points

Score your victory points normally.

Subtract 2 from your total for each surviving enemy ship in the warp station fleet minus your
own ambassadors on your reputation track.

Subtract 3 for each sector that was destroyed by an enemy attack (each sector turned around with
an enemy influence disc on it).

Read about the fate of your race on the victory card (provided below)
 Normal or Cooperative Play
You can always play this variant with more players.

Set up
Each player takes ships of another color to serve as their enemy. All these enemy ships
share layouts so you only have to upgrade one enemy player board. Start the game with a
normal set up of sectors.

Attack
For an enemy attack all players place the attacking fleet in their enemy color on one of their
sectors determined by one shared location roll.

Colonization
Each enemy color colonizes one sector during a colonization round, starting with the
starting players' enemy color. The ambassadors of the enemy colonies welcome one
population cube of only one player, it doesn't matter which.

The Inter-Galactic Warp-Gate technology

Each player must research his or her own Warp-Gate technology tile or he or she cannot
attack his or her own warp station fleet. You can always fabricate one more if you want to
play this with your partner (Also tell me how you did that, because I can't get my girlfriend
to play my own expansion).

Cooperative?
You can always ally with your fellow players, using the rules of the Rota expansion

You can combine all warp station fleets in one big battle. This way one player can go for
monoliths, skip the warp-gate technology and let the other player fight two warp station
fleets with his or her awesome fighting ships.

You can always share all victory points and divide them by the number of players rounded
up to see how all your races did together, or score individually.

Thanks for playing my variant and have fun!

Tom
 Untested, Advanced, Harder Difficulty Options
Warning: Suggestions Below Are Un-Tested And May Be Game Breaking

All options provided here are not play-tested. These are suggested variations I found on
online forums. I have a family, and don’t get a chance to playtest often, they just seemed
cool. It is strongly recommended that players try the base game before trying any of the
ideas below. I greatly welcome feedback if you do try any of them, however.

Mix and Match as desired, but beware.

Two Enemy Factions, the Belligerents and the Moderates –

The rules above state that each enemy fleet, and colonized sector are independent
groups, the idea being that the enemies are haphazardly fleeing into your galaxy,
and have not had the opportunity to establish communications and organization
among themselves after arriving. As such, battling a fleet does not affect your
diplomatic relationships with the colonies. And attacking a colony with whom you
have traded an ambassador does not affect your diplomatic relations with any other
colonies.

In this option, enemy fleets are all assumed to belong to a belligerent enemy faction,
that fears your status as an advanced society, and intends to purge your people to
ensure the supremacy of their race in the galaxy.

Similarly, all enemy colonies are assumed to be in communication with each other,
and to be members of a moderate faction of the enemy species. As a result,
attacking any one colony, results in the revoking of all ambassadors from all enemy
colony sectors.

Thinking of the Future –

Attacking an enemy colony with which you have an ambassador exchanged, results
in your receiving the Traitor tile, and guarantees that you will receive -2 VP at the
end of the game.

Thinking of the Future (Advanced) –

Every time you attack a colony with which you have exchanged an ambassador tile
counts as an additional betrayal, and adds another -2 VP to your score at the end of
the game. Stack the betrayed ambassador tiles on your traitor card to track the total
point loss.

Hegemonic Force –
In the base game above, enemy fleets will land on your sectors, and attempt to
eradicate all life there, as they claim the sector for themselves. But should they
succeed, they are content to settle that new sector, and will stay confined to their
new borders. They are looking only to settle, and are indiscriminate to your species.
 In this version, the enemy fleets fully intend to invade and purge. Any fleet that
survives, each turn will continue to move one sector at a time, in an attempt to
purge your species from the galaxy.

The fleet always moves together as a single unit.

To move the fleet, at the beginning of each round, re-roll the steps in the “Determine
Attacked Sector” step above for each fleet that needs movement. The sector selected
will be referred to as the “movement target” sector for that fleet. Determine the
shortest route from the fleet to the movement target sector, following normal game
movement rules (you may assume the enemy fleet has the Warp Portal technology,
but not the Wormhole Generator technology). The fleet will then move exactly
one sector from its current location to the new movement target location.

If there are multiple equal length routes that the fleet could take to its movement
target, then the fleet will take whichever route will most quickly bring it into a
confrontation with the player.

If there are multiple such confrontation choices when deciding between equal
length routes, then the fleet will prioritize sectors that destroy population over
sectors that have units, and will prioritize whichever sector has the highest amount
of population.

This is then repeated for every fleet on the board.

No Innocent Bystanders –
This variation must be played in conjunction with the “Two Enemy Factions” above.

Take a second terran player card, and slide it under the enemy player card, so only
the ships are shown. These ships are never upgraded throughout the game, and
represent the blueprints for colony-built ships.

Each colony begins producing ships the turn after it is created. For example, if a
colony is established on turn 3, that colony will begin producing ships every turn,
starting at the beginning of turn 4.

Take the economy board of the enemy species. Going forward, the Materials track
will refer to the first colony, the Science track to the second colony, and the Money
track to the final third colony.

The enemy species treats ALL population cubes as if they were materials only.

Each turn, the corresponding colony will build the maximum number of (non-
starbase) ships (taken from an unused species component box) possible given the
total number of resources available to that colony.

Build Order / Spending Resources

Colonies do not build additional starbases. Each colony will build whatever
combination of ships results in the least wasted resources. Larger ships are
preferred, but not if they result in additional wasted resources. Unused resources
are lost at the end of each round.

Optional - Peaceful Settlers Variant

You may choose that colonies will only begin to produce reinforcement ships if the
player attacks a colony. Note: attacking a single colony causes all colonies to begin
producing ships.

Optional - Moving the colony ship reinforcements

In this variant, colony reinforcement ships move the same way as invading fleets in
the Hegemonic Force variant above, however the movement target for each
reinforcement fleet is always the closest invasion fleet on the map. If there are no
invasion fleets on the map, each reinforcement fleet will choose the next nearest
reinforcement fleet as its movement target (to try to join together). If there is only
one reinforcement fleet, and there are no other fleets on the map, move the
reinforcement fleet as if it was an invading fleet.
 New Components

Main Gameplay Components

Enemy Upgrade Components (1/5)
Enemy Upgrade Components (2/5)
Enemy Upgrade Components (3/5)
Enemy Upgrade Components (4/5)
Enemy Upgrade Components (5/5)