John Butterfield has been hard at work on SpaceCorp: Ventures, the first expansion to his hit space-exploration game SpaceCorp. Developer Jason Carr is here to share the first of four sneak-peeks at what comes in the Ventures box. This week, he looks at the original space corporation: SpaceCorp.

---

SpaceCorp: Ventures comes with 14 unique HQ for you to use while playing SpaceCorp, each with different powers, limitations, and abilities, that will give you a unique edge and access to strategies that other players cannot access. When designing these HQ, John wanted to pay homage to the base SpaceCorp HQ and give a lower complexity, yet still unique, option for players to use while exploring Ventures. The SpaceCorp HQ gives players an excellent entry point into the game.

The various companies that eventually became SpaceCorp were bought, merged, and founded in the early 2020s. SpaceCorp took advantage of that tumultuous decade to amass nearly unbounded regulatory power. After the anti-trust clawback, SpaceCorp was forced to become the charter member of the Interstellar Commerce League and now serves as the public face of space exploration, mediating disputes and regulating other space-based Corporations.

First, a quick orientation to the HQ board. Every board has a custom, thematic image background courtesy of the incomparable Kurt Miller. At the top left, the Corporation logo and the starting teams and cards in each era. Every corporation has a different set of cards; SpaceCorp starts with 2 randomly selected Start cards, a Time card, and if playing with 3-4 players, a second Time card. Just like the base game HQ, SpaceCorp starts with Move 1 and Research 2 Infra, and the standard selection of bases. So, through Mariners, things will feel familiar.

That will change in the Planeteers era, as their first Corporation power comes into play. SpaceCorp uses their position as the head of the Interstellar Commerce League to regulate other companies. So, as long as they are not the sole player in the lead, the SpaceCorp player can decide that the leader cannot use the Infra and bases of another player. This is not always in their best interest; while SpaceCorp can slow down their opponents, they can also threaten to regulate in order to ensure that their infrastructure gets used and they reap the rewards.

In Starfarers, the SpaceCorp player will need be careful to ensure that they are self sufficient if they are in the lead, as they will be prohibited from using the Infra and bases of their competitors while they are the sole player in the lead. Additionally, every HQ in SpaceCorp: Ventures has an alternative final scoring method. Players must choose between scoring for colonies as in the base game, or using their alternative final scoring, but they have to decide when the second contract of Starfarers is fulfilled. The SpaceCorp player can use any other player’s final profit scoring, and decides which player at the end of the game! As the game scales to more players, SpaceCorp becomes more and more powerful. More to regulate, more to manipulate, and more to profit from.

Next time, we will look at a Corporation pushing the limits of human adaptation, Next Generation.

---