hf4a is a silly storytelling device
High Frontier 4 All is a game that I’ve been wanting to play for a long time. It has one of the highest complexity ratings on Board Game Geek that I’ve ever seen, which is pretty intimidating, but I love complicated systems and it’s about INDUSTRIALIZING SPACE. I love space!!! So, when I finally received my copy I was really excited to play it.
The game actually has several different rule sets to help you learn the game. Gabby and I picked the Race for Glory rule set, which is a slightly simplified version of the full rule set, and learned how to play it last weekend. After playing it a few times, the game seems to tell such great, funny stories and I’m thinking about writing more about my play sessions in the future with more detail. For now, here’s how the first game unfolded:
We played a scenario titled “Race to Mars”, which is about competing to get to, exploit, and return from Mars as quickly as possible. You get bonus victory points for being the first to land on Mars, the first to build a factory on Mars, and being the first to sell an ET product from any site on the free market.
The beginning of the game starts with us auctioning technologies from the Market. After a few turns, Gabby and I both end up with a set of rocket parts to go to Mars with. However, I have a buggy robonaut and Gabby has a missile robonaut. Notably, this means that if I get to Mars before Gabby, I’m able to claim all three sites on Mars with one prospect action. Gabby would then be locked out of building a factory on Mars. On the other hand, Gabby had a missile robonaut which has its own thruster. This allowed her to go to Mars before me, since I couldn’t really get to Mars without first getting a thruster.
She races ahead of me, hoping to stake a claim before I take all of them for myself. She stops at the Hohmann transfer orbit on her way to Mars and then tries to aerobrake onto Mars. At this point, Gabby doesn’t have enough aqua (the game’s currency and fuel) to pay for a FINAO (failure is not an option), so she has to roll a d6 to check if her rocket disintegrates in orbit or not. This is terrible because she could lose a lot of resources — namely, the aqua she used to boost the rocket parts into LEO and the aqua she loaded onto the rocket so it could make the trip in the first place. Thankfully, it isn’t too risky; she only fails if she rolls a 1. But that’s exactly what she rolls.
Gabby’s rocket disintegrates in Mars’s atmosphere and suddenly it feels like her odds at winning got much worse. I take my time getting to Mars, collecting enough aqua to pay for a FINAO, before claiming all sites on Mars and building a factory.
Gabby, trying to figure out if she can still eke out a victory, notices a solar sail in the market which she acquires while I’m still busy trying to industrialize Mars. She makes a new plan to industrialize Mercury instead, which is easier to get to with a solar sail due to its proximity to the sun. I find myself rooting for her because I want to see if it’s possible for someone get there with the spaceship parts she has. After several more turns, she successfully lands on Mercury, prospects, and builds a factory. She also colonizes Mercury, which is a surprise! Imagine making a colony on Mercury before Mars. She even brings a human crew to Mercury and back, scoring a glory chit for more victory points.
At the end of the game, we’re totaling the points to see who wins. Gabby gets 15 (8 for the factory, 3 for the glory chit, and 4 for pieces on the board) and I get… 16 (8 for the factory, 6 for pieces on the board, 1 for being the first to land on Mars, and 1 for being the first to build a factory on Mars). She was only one point off! As it turns out, the game was much closer than we both expected.
