Game Review: Gaia Project

Editor’s Note: We’re honored to share this review from a friend of the channel and Special Guest: Caleb.

Have you dreamed of conquering space? Bending the planets to your will, making them habitable for your life and yours alone? Have you considered the cost? How it might break down your economy, ruin your supply lines, and stretch your empire too thin? But what about the gains? That sweet, sweet technology just waiting to be discovered.

 

This is Gaia Project, a heavy euro game for 1-4 players. In which players will terraform planets to make them habitable for their flavor of life forms, spreading their civilizations across the galaxy.

 

Those familiar with Terra Mystica won’t be too surprised by what they find in Gaia Project (it is, after all, a Terra Mystica game). The game is played across 6 rounds, during which players may take one action at a time for as long as they have resources. There are a variety of ways to gain these resources: chosen round bonuses, unlocked technologies, and buildings. This is where Gaia Project (and Terra Mystica) become incredibly tricky. When you build a mine, you get one extra worker per round. Great, right? To upgrade, you turn your mine into a trading station, unlocking 2 gold and a power. This is awesome, but that mine that you upgrade goes back to your sheet, covering up that worker you had been receiving.

 

Is that worth it? A worker is good; the brick and mortar of your galactic empire. Gold, though, is necessary for those advanced structures, pushing your empire to its heights. And power! Power is the warm space-blanket that keeps you safe during the long nights exploring the galaxies. Power has a wide array of uses and can fill in the gaps of your faction as well as correcting mistakes in your calculations. Though often less efficient than getting the resource directly, power can be converted to any resource and becomes a powerful tool to get you that last resource you need to continue building your empire. Any resource? It can even become a worker! You just lost one of those, right? These are just a few of the integrated gears turning together to create this complex churn that fuels your space empire.

 

This is just one aspect of the game. There are technology tracks and tiles you can discover, improving your abilities, giving you resources immediately, and giving you income. Will you transform planets the hard way, by terraforming that frigid-glacier into a nice, habitable… desert? Or will you take advantage of the Transdim planets, Gaiaforming them into Gaia planets? Will you spread out quickly, getting access to as much of the galaxy as you can before your opponents? Or will you upgrade your structures quickly to unlock a powerful faction ability?

 

These various systems and side-effects may seem overwhelming at first. It may feel impossible to track the cascade of subtle effects a single decision will make throughout the game. If you lose a worker this round, you may not be able to make another mine next round, leaving you two workers shy the round after, and you may not be able to upgrade to that planetary institute, drying up your power. This is where Gaia Project’s interface comes through so well. The iconography is simple and consistent throughout the game, with everything having clear reminders either on your player board or the shared map. An open hand represents income, a star-flare effect shows a resource to be gained immediately, and the space-badge gives you points. Ok, that might still sound complex, but that really shows how impressive it is to distill these concepts down into one of the most intuitive heavy euro games I’ve played.

 

Now, that last bit is very important because while Gaia Project is a well-crafted smooth machine, it is still a heavy euro game. The game is won after six rounds by the player with the most points. There are tons of ways to gain points throughout the game: building specific structures in a given round, having structures at the end of a round with round-bonus tiles, and activating faction bonuses (some people just like changing planets, you know?) Now, you may notice that though the game is themed around exploring space, terraforming planets, and expanding your civilization, most of what I’ve talked about is the economic system; these crunchy little numbers in different categories that are oh-so-satisfying to see work out perfectly. That’s for good reason. If you enjoy a game that offers up a satisfying puzzle-engine for you to figure out in competition with your fellow players every game, Gaia Project will assuage that craving better than any other game out there. However, many other games can offer better experiences in some of the aspects that Gaia Project is lacking—though, it doesn’t try to fit into these aspects.

 

If you’re looking for a game that is a little more flavorful, giving you a real feeling of fighting for a galaxy through military and politics while exploring the frontiers of space, try Eclipse. If you’re looking for all of that as well as something to take up an entire day, try Twilight Imperium. Finally, if you’re looking for something that is space-themed but is more about ‘convincing your friends to attack that guy over there so you two can win together’, and more bluffing than number-crunching, try Cosmic Encounter.

 

While Gaia Project boasts some eye-popping visuals that help with clarity, the art can be a little generic. It’s fine and offers a convincing space theme with its flatly-drawn aliens, brightly-colored planets, and boldly-lined tracks along the various boards. Though it’s not outright ugly, so many games are now offering genuinely gorgeous art. Because of this, I find myself being far pickier about visual style than I once was. That being said, the pieces are nicely modeled plastic with structure and detail. These give more flavor than the Terra Mystica wooden pieces that continue to remind me of Settlers of Catan. In fact, the components of the game as a whole are very sturdy and satisfying, just what you would expect from a game at this price point.

 

It’s probably not coming as much of a shock when I say I love this game and highly recommend it if you enjoy euros or are looking to explore medium to heavy euro games. This one offers very clean rules and presents a complex game in a very digestible format. It may look intimidating, but designers Jens Drögemüller and Helge Ostertag have done an excellent job making this behemoth of a game playable by anyone willing to attempt it. I’ve played it with board game veterans and newbies whose previous experience capped out with Settlers of Catan. I highly encourage you to give it a play— maybe you can be the next galactic emperor.