Summary: Gaia Project is a super strategic space themed board game. In this game, you take on the role of one of 14 alien species with asymmetrical unique abilities and try to expand your civilisation across the galaxy. Your goal is to develop your space civilisation by making planets habitable, building structures, and fulfilling objectives to score points. The player with the highest points wins. How does it work? The game revolves around managing 6 different resources: ore, credits, QIC, power, knowledge, and victory points (yes you heard me right, victory points can be used like a resource!). You’ll use these resources to upgrade your economy and compete with other players. Gaia Project uses a modular game board, variable round scoring and end game scoring tokens, and variable technologies, which means effectively you will probably never play the same game of Gaia project twice! Players who have played a game called Terra Mystica may be familiar with a few concepts as it uses similar mechanics and systems, though they will still find that it is a unique game in it’s own right and not just a reskin. What makes this game great? Often nicknamed by our team “Space Chess”, Gaia Project is a game where you spend so much effort planning your economy and technology advancements rounds in advance, and there is no luck of the draw or dice rolling that will interfere with it, so when it pays off it feels super rewarding. This means that the only factor that can affect your game is the choices other players make. But what makes it even more interesting is that this isn’t a war game by any means.. it’s an economy upgrade game. There are times that being within a reasonable distance of other players can bring mutual benefits such as building discounts, so it’s a huge amount of mental arithmetic planning how you will use your resources, where you will build, and when! All in all, after a game of Gaia Project, most players are left just wanting to play again and see if they can do something different with their economy next time to score better or perhaps develop their technology differently next time they play. Why would you like Gaia Project? Replayability. Replayability. Replayability! After getting a game to the table 5, 10, or 15 times you might start to be looking for something fresh… but with this game if someone suggests it in our gaming group, it’s a good chance players are going to be up for it. It’s a game where the asymmetrical factions are already different, but as you tailor your technology upgrades and your economy to your needs, you become more and more asymmetric to the players seated next to you. This is another reason why you just want to play again so you can try another faction, another upgrade tree, and another economy system.