Planet Steam

PLANET STEAM!

There are two/three versions of Planet Steam circulating through the ethos, but the version I played was printed by Heidelberger Spieleverlag and was the English translation.

My first impression of the game was "Holy crap that's a big box!"  And I own Claustrophobia, Mage Wars, Eclipse, and a few other "large box" games.  As this picture shows, the size of this print of the game is substantial!

(not my photograph, taken from BGG.com)

There's a reason why the box is so large, however.  The amount of components in this printing brings about the term that I use sparingly, but appropriately, cluster-f***ery.  When I sat at the table, luckily already set up for a 4-player game, I was completely overwhelmed.  I don't mean confused, I mean I was literally lost in the sea of components and the sheer vastness that was the board/contents.

(not my photograph, taken from BGG.com)

Conveniently, this photo that I "stole" from BGG is set up for a 4 player game so the amount of contents on the board matches what I saw when I first sat to the table to play.

The structure/gameplay of Planet Steam is that of a blend of two popular mechanics in current tabletop gaming: worker placement and economy games.  The silver "balls" that you see on the side of the board nearest the camera are your "workers" that are set out to collect steam (water), ore, crystal, and to produce energy.  As you can guess by the name of the game, the players are on a planet that produces an unnaturally abundant amount of steam that your team has learned how to harvest and use - loosely fitting into the "steam punk" genre, but only in that definition.

Phases in this game are rather complex and full of differing options based on scenarios so I won't go into that, I'd rather focus on my impressions of the game and my overall rating of the game.

It was my first play through of Planet Steam so I did not expect to win, but I find myself learning worker placement games (such as Tammany Hall or Lords of Waterdeep) fairly quickly; economic games are still a little new to me so that is where my downfall set in!  I VASTLY underestimated the importance of crystal in this game.  Crystal is used to upgrade cargo ships so they hold more of each material, and to buy several special building licenses - conveniently I didn't discover this until the last 2 rounds of the game...ugh!

At game end, 5 rounds/years for a 4-player game, I was in dead last place, more than several hundred points behind 3rd place.  Points are calculated purely from the amount of money you hold at the end of the game (I told you it was an economic game)!  Though, being completely dominated by my competitors here are my impressions of the game and tips for playing future games of Planet Steam:

Tips for Success

1. Turn order is EXTREMELY important.  You will auction for player roles, each of which giving a different benefit but acting in differing positions in turn order.  The closer you are to 1st player the more likely you will get the materials/goods you wish at reasonable prices.  Since the market is live-active (meaning it updates with every purchase), the closer you are to last player the more likely you are to have to pay a lot of money for just a few items.
2. Alter your resource collection tanks (the silver "balls" shown in the picture above) according to the market demands.  The more often you manipulate what resources you are producing/selling the more likely you are to become the one controlling the market rather than reacting to it.  For those new to economic games, controlling the market is a very good thing :).
3. Do not specialize in just one resource.  My downfall was trying to specialize in ore and steam (water).  In so doing I was missing out on the not quite as profitable crystal market, but I was missing out on the opportunity to upgrade ships, buy building licenses, and trade materials in for 50pts (per trade).  That was the biggest reason why I lost by such a large margin.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Planet Steam quite a lot!  It may have been the group of players I was with, but the game, itself, has some interesting twists on popular mechanics.  As with any strategic game, this was a learning process and I hope that what I have learned will benefit me in future plays of this game.

All things considered, I give Planet Steam a 7.0 of 10.

The game play is relatively smooth, the components are of very high quality (again, I did not play the Fantasy Flight reprint), and the mix of economic/worker placement was a fun experience.  My concerns are the pasted-on Steam Punk theme that really only seems to fit in that you are harnessing steam power to produce goods - outside of that the Steam Punk genre has no place.  Additionally, the production of the pieces made very sturdy wood components, but the money in the game is very thin paper (think Monopoly money *shudder*).  That was a huge no-no in my opinion!

I would recommend this game for fans of: economic games, asymmetrical player powers, resource management, worker placement, and indirect player interaction.