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[GAME ON] Star Chamber: Online CCG IN SPAAAACE
vhzod
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What is Star Chamber?
Star Chamber is an online computer game that is a board game about space conquest with a collectable card game going on at the same time. The game is hard and you have to keep track of a lot of things at once to win. This screenshot may help clear some things up:
Basically you build and move ships and citizens around to capture planets. You can use the cards to make special ships or citizens as well as heroes. The cards can also be used to modify various entities within the game or to cause one time effects. The game can be won either by (in this order) 1) Military: Conquering the enemy homeworld, 2) Cultural: Getting 30 more destiny points than your enemy (by controlling more green artifact planets and through card effects) 3) Political: Winning three or more power plays in the Star Chamber (voting is done every six turns and is calculated by influence, basically one cit = one influence. There are lots of cards to modify influence.) Through politics you can also get destiny points by winning Alien Support votes or get free cruisers by winning a Peacekeeper vote. Each time you win a vote the reward improves. The power play vote can let you declare war, get a tech point, or get one of four special power play cards. This is a fairly complicated game so playing through the tutorial will make all of it make more sense.
How do I get and play it?
You can download it from: their download page (windows only I'm afraid). Since SOE has taken over the game you'll need to have/make a Sony Station account to be able to log in. Once you get it all you can do is go through the tutorial until you purchase a starter deck package. All you have to do to be able to play against real people is to get an $8.00 US Starter Deck of your chosen race + $2.00 to register (15 card boosters are $2.45). If you don't want to play against people you can buy a few campaigns from their card store as well. There's no monthly fee other than an obsessive desire to buy more cards. Here's a shot of the deck builder with an example of some card text this one is a Clave hero card:
Who's playing it?
Right now not too many people. The playerbase is pretty small but there's a small group of hardcore players you'll see around all the time. I'm probably the only PAer playing the game right now (my username is Vhsod and I play Thrass mainly) but perhaps later I will put a list of PA players here. The community is good and you can usually get a full set of common cards for free from other players' spares.
The Star Chamber Universe
Here is some more detailed information about the game. First off there's five different colors of "tech" which is what powers the cards. Based on what race you pick you get access to two different colors of tech and these are the only colors of tech you can get normally. There are specific turns at which you get to increase your tech level. Furthermore you can get tech of any color from conquering artifact planets and from various cards. The colors and their focus is as follows:
White(Order) This focuses on shields and increasing production
Green(Life) This focuses on destiny and improving citizens and heroes
Blue(Cyber) Improves ships and tech
Black(Entropy) Weapon upgrades, direct damage, and ability reducing cards
Purple(Mind) Avoidance, Disruption, and Political cards
Each race has a specific theme which is usually based around their two colors. Each race generally has a special race based modification on top of their card pool. (fyi: there's three basic ship cards anyone can build: scouts, cruisers, and bombers but you can only build bombers when the sector is at war)
Clave(Life, Entropy): These are warlike expansionist cat people. They favor victory over life. They have a lot of good hero cards and cards that instantly destroy enemy ships. (think Klingons) All clave heroes get +1 leadership (the side with the highest leadership in a fight goes first and leadership improves damage) however their cruisers aren't as good.
Ferrier(Mind, Order): This race runs the star chamber and is very imperial. Their cards focus on defense and political gains.
They get an extra citizen at the star chamber
Androids(Cyber, Entropy) They are artificial beings that for some unknown reason all look like hot human women. They enjoy blowing stuff up. Their cards focus on ship upgrades and have the best ship cards in the game.
Android ships cost more to make but have a little more hull and weapon power
Humans(Life, Order): Every space game needs humans for some reason, they are pretty generic but their cards are straightforward and easy to use. No special benefits or penalties.
Ixa(Order,Entropy) An enigmatic squid-like race. They are a military focused race with a strange card pool. Their cruisers get torpedos instead of missiles (torpedoes always fire first) and they get build points when their citizens die.
Kej(Order, Cyber) A bunch of communal robot bugs explorers. Kej cruisers get a little less weapon and a an extra jump (which is actually useful because cruisers normally have to take 2 turns to get through most jump lanes)
Omior(Life, Mind) These are a peaceful race of plantlike lifeforms. They focus on defense and cultural improvements. They get +1 destiny at the end of each turn.
Silica(Life, Cyber) These are weird silicon based lifeforms that have an insular culture and don't really like dealing with outsiders. Their cards deal a lot with improving their ships and they have a fair number of capitol ships. Their ships don't have shields and instead have more hull and hull regeneration instead.
Thrass(Mind, Entropy) These guys are a race of parasitic mind controlling bugs controlled by their hive queen. They take over members of the other races and ride them around until they wear out. Their ships are not as good but cost less to build which fits in with their swarm mentality.
Zhikanii(Mind, Cyber) These are a bunch of self-interested profiteering space slugs. Their cards focus on making more build points and screwing up enemy personae (heroes and citizens) and they also have some decent political cards. Normally after turn six (the first vote) your homeworld's production goes down by one build point but these guys get +1 build point at their homeworld after turn six.
If you think this post is missing anything let me know and I'll add it in.
Star Chamber is an online computer game that is a board game about space conquest with a collectable card game going on at the same time. The game is hard and you have to keep track of a lot of things at once to win. This screenshot may help clear some things up:
Basically you build and move ships and citizens around to capture planets. You can use the cards to make special ships or citizens as well as heroes. The cards can also be used to modify various entities within the game or to cause one time effects. The game can be won either by (in this order) 1) Military: Conquering the enemy homeworld, 2) Cultural: Getting 30 more destiny points than your enemy (by controlling more green artifact planets and through card effects) 3) Political: Winning three or more power plays in the Star Chamber (voting is done every six turns and is calculated by influence, basically one cit = one influence. There are lots of cards to modify influence.) Through politics you can also get destiny points by winning Alien Support votes or get free cruisers by winning a Peacekeeper vote. Each time you win a vote the reward improves. The power play vote can let you declare war, get a tech point, or get one of four special power play cards. This is a fairly complicated game so playing through the tutorial will make all of it make more sense.
How do I get and play it?
You can download it from: their download page (windows only I'm afraid). Since SOE has taken over the game you'll need to have/make a Sony Station account to be able to log in. Once you get it all you can do is go through the tutorial until you purchase a starter deck package. All you have to do to be able to play against real people is to get an $8.00 US Starter Deck of your chosen race + $2.00 to register (15 card boosters are $2.45). If you don't want to play against people you can buy a few campaigns from their card store as well. There's no monthly fee other than an obsessive desire to buy more cards. Here's a shot of the deck builder with an example of some card text this one is a Clave hero card:
Who's playing it?
Right now not too many people. The playerbase is pretty small but there's a small group of hardcore players you'll see around all the time. I'm probably the only PAer playing the game right now (my username is Vhsod and I play Thrass mainly) but perhaps later I will put a list of PA players here. The community is good and you can usually get a full set of common cards for free from other players' spares.
The Star Chamber Universe
Here is some more detailed information about the game. First off there's five different colors of "tech" which is what powers the cards. Based on what race you pick you get access to two different colors of tech and these are the only colors of tech you can get normally. There are specific turns at which you get to increase your tech level. Furthermore you can get tech of any color from conquering artifact planets and from various cards. The colors and their focus is as follows:
White(Order) This focuses on shields and increasing production
Green(Life) This focuses on destiny and improving citizens and heroes
Blue(Cyber) Improves ships and tech
Black(Entropy) Weapon upgrades, direct damage, and ability reducing cards
Purple(Mind) Avoidance, Disruption, and Political cards
Each race has a specific theme which is usually based around their two colors. Each race generally has a special race based modification on top of their card pool. (fyi: there's three basic ship cards anyone can build: scouts, cruisers, and bombers but you can only build bombers when the sector is at war)
Clave(Life, Entropy): These are warlike expansionist cat people. They favor victory over life. They have a lot of good hero cards and cards that instantly destroy enemy ships. (think Klingons) All clave heroes get +1 leadership (the side with the highest leadership in a fight goes first and leadership improves damage) however their cruisers aren't as good.
Ferrier(Mind, Order): This race runs the star chamber and is very imperial. Their cards focus on defense and political gains.
They get an extra citizen at the star chamber
Androids(Cyber, Entropy) They are artificial beings that for some unknown reason all look like hot human women. They enjoy blowing stuff up. Their cards focus on ship upgrades and have the best ship cards in the game.
Android ships cost more to make but have a little more hull and weapon power
Humans(Life, Order): Every space game needs humans for some reason, they are pretty generic but their cards are straightforward and easy to use. No special benefits or penalties.
Ixa(Order,Entropy) An enigmatic squid-like race. They are a military focused race with a strange card pool. Their cruisers get torpedos instead of missiles (torpedoes always fire first) and they get build points when their citizens die.
Kej(Order, Cyber) A bunch of communal robot bugs explorers. Kej cruisers get a little less weapon and a an extra jump (which is actually useful because cruisers normally have to take 2 turns to get through most jump lanes)
Omior(Life, Mind) These are a peaceful race of plantlike lifeforms. They focus on defense and cultural improvements. They get +1 destiny at the end of each turn.
Silica(Life, Cyber) These are weird silicon based lifeforms that have an insular culture and don't really like dealing with outsiders. Their cards deal a lot with improving their ships and they have a fair number of capitol ships. Their ships don't have shields and instead have more hull and hull regeneration instead.
Thrass(Mind, Entropy) These guys are a race of parasitic mind controlling bugs controlled by their hive queen. They take over members of the other races and ride them around until they wear out. Their ships are not as good but cost less to build which fits in with their swarm mentality.
Zhikanii(Mind, Cyber) These are a bunch of self-interested profiteering space slugs. Their cards focus on making more build points and screwing up enemy personae (heroes and citizens) and they also have some decent political cards. Normally after turn six (the first vote) your homeworld's production goes down by one build point but these guys get +1 build point at their homeworld after turn six.
If you think this post is missing anything let me know and I'll add it in.
vhzod on
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Actually, there's a Mac client, it's just that Sony has their heads shoved way up their... well... Sony's acting like their usual selves, and aren't "officially" supporting it (even though it still gets updated).
You can get the client from here:
http://homepage.mac.com/mattness/starchamber/
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