Like its parent game, our forthcoming SpaceCorp expansion, SpaceCorp:Ventures includes a dedicated solo version with its own rules. For Ventures, designer John Butterfield tweaked the Solo AI to make it tougher to beat, by enhancing the competition’s responsiveness to the strategic situation on each era’s board. Players who enjoyed the original SpaceCorp solo game and want a more challenging AI will be pleased to know that the Ventures solo enhancements can also be applied to original solo SpaceCorp.

This post introduces official solitaire enhancements compatible with original SpaceCorp. The enhancements refine competition site actions, so we have a downloadable Solitaire Player Aid that includes these changes linked to this post (and on the SpaceCorp game page on the GMT website).

The enhancements are limited to the competition site actions in Mariners, Planeteers, and Starfarers. No other solitaire rules are changed, so this updated Solitaire Player Aid is all you need. It’s optional for original SpaceCorp and will be required for Ventures.

In Mariners and Planeteers, the original rules specify to draw another card when the site indicated by the competition action is occupied by a base. The enhancement has the competition resolve an action at the highest numbered site with a competition team (if the original site has a player base) or the lowest numbered site with a competition team (if the original site has a competition base). If no site qualifies, only then does the competition draw another card. This means that the competition is more likely to build bases at the sites their teams reach. Simple, right? But effective.

In Starfarers, both your bases and colonies shift competition site actions, but the idea is the same. The main change in Starfarers is that every time the competition draws a competition action with a site where they have a colony, they score Ŧ equal to the colony point value of the colony. That can add up fast and requires you to counter their strategy quickly, before they build too many colonies.

We hope you enjoy this official variant for solo SpaceCorp and that it tides you over until SpaceCorp: Ventures lands on your table. If you would like to try the variant out, download the new Solitaire Player Aid – good luck!

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