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Overview
Catan Starfarers Duel is a fast-paced two player game of resource management and strategy.
Introduction
I still own the original Starship Catan, now long out of print. This is basically the same game with modernisation of the components.
It is a Catan variation, so resource gathering and management is central to the gameplay.
First Impressions
The box is about 50% bigger than the original. I never found it to be too small, so I was a little surprised by this.
Looking at the overview, all of the familiar elements are present so I knew it would be a fond trip back in time from the outset.
Unboxing
The main components are solid card on punch board. They separate easily so there was no damage.
The ship parts are double-layered to allow for the rotating resource dials (an upgrade on rotating square tiles from the original, but no tangible impact on gameplay.)
The box has two simple compartments to separate cards from ship components.
Training missions are provided to introduce rules slowly, but these can be skipped by anybody familiar with Catan.
Preparation
The resource dials are assembled to the ship with plastic rivets which fit into an indent under the ship. This is a little fiddly, but a one-time setup.
Three tuck boxes are provided in flat form. They are also a bit of a pain to slide together, but reasonably robust once built.
Setup
This game requires the space of a dining table for two.
Setup time for one person is around ten minutes, but probably faster with regular play.
The ships are in four jigsaw sections which fit together easily.
Each player takes one of the tuckboxes, which include their component set.
Two engines and cannons are attached to the ship. You will notice they are half as thick as the ship, which allows level two to be stacked over level one.
Each player chooses two modules to activate and sets the rest in their inactive state.
Each player also has one starter colony, which is the only major differentiation between the players since one gives fuel and one gives carbon. I would argue carbon is a much better choice so it is important to swap sides from time to time.
The time consuming part is building the decks. There is a core pile which is shuffled and dealt into four sectors, the four sets of increasing difficulty which are shuffled separately then piled in numerical sequence as the reserve.
Three missions are dealt and the rest set as a draw pile.
Finally, starting money is drawn with player one getting slightly less to offset first player advantage a little.
Key concepts
The core element of the game is four sectors of nine cards each. These are dealt randomly, so neither player knows what is in each sector to start with.
Cards can be drawn from sectors in certain circumstances and then replaced by a new hidden card, so the content of sectors evolves as the game unfolds.
Sectors contain a combination of:
Resource trade planets/stations, some of which can be taken by the player by spending their trade ship so that only they can use them, but only during their trade phase.
Colony planets where the player can spend a colony ship to take it into their play area for future resource generation.
Mission planets where the player can complete any active missions for victory points or other benefits.
Asteroid fields, where nothing happens.
Pirates, who can inflict damage to your ship.
Resources are primarily used for various ship upgrades to enhance the players’ strategies.
Early game
As with all versions of Catan, the early game is very slow. Not much wil happen until you gather resources.
This is further slowed by there being four different sectors to explore, which are completely unknown at the start so you don’t even know where the resources are.
Thankfully, the early game is relatively short - much shorter than the average game of traditional Catan - since the players quickly gain a level of control over their resource management via the trade system.
Mid game
The middle game is where players will define and execute their overall strategies. These might include any combination of:
Upgrade cannons to gain victory points and benefits from killing pirates.
Rush module activation to hoard level two modules at one victory point each.
Gather trade planets both for resource management and also for the most friends victory point.
Gather colonies for resource generation and one victory point each.
Hoard resources to aim for mission victory points.
End game
The game ends immediately when a player has ten victory points.
By the end of the game, players will likely have strong knowledge of the sectors, so the last few turns might be carefully planned out and executed.
The impact of luck diminishes rapidly as the game progresses, so I would say players will have a good idea of how the game will end several turns in advance.
Boxing
As with many games, this game does not want to fit nicely back in the box.
Once assembled, the ships are bulky and don’t stack nicely.
The starting colony for each player is slightly too large to fit in the player tuck box.
No storage is provided for the sector and mission cards so you will likely want to find your own or make tuck boxes yourself.
Suggested audience
Anybody who likes Catan and wants a two player version.
Fans of two-player race for victory point games.
Final thoughts
This is an entertaining game with some variety of strategy and replayability.
It is relatively quick to set up and play so a good one when you don’t have all day to devote to a game.
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