Lit By Another Sun

A realistic Sci-Fi game about establishing a new human Colony in the 23rd century. The game has 4x elements related to exploring this new world, and surviving long enough to establish this new outpost ahead of the next wave of Colonists. Political tensions from earth however are rife amongst the Colonists, with a number of factions aiming to be paramount on this new world.

The players will represent the team leaders of the initial colony wave of 100 intrepid volunteers. Each player will have 2-4 characters that they can choose to play as, and allocate the others to one of the game tasks that doesn't need interactive playing. The more characters you control the more actions you can do. It will be up to players where they personally want to play in the sub-games, and if they want to switch that up between turns. The sub-games are:

• Colony Council - presided over by the Chief Executive, ably assisted by omniscient AI TN-9000, the colony council will set direction for the colony's expansion, deal with disputes, make local rules, and anything else the players present deem it competent to do. You can rely on TN-9000 to provide impartial advice and stop you from doing anything that would contravene the Earth Colonial Office instructions for new colonies. Like almost all megagame council games this will be one for roleplaying and debating enthusiasts.
• Exploration - a map based game with some roleplaying elements, players can explore the map and take samples of potentially useful flora, fauna, minerals and other things. They can also name geographical features and lay claim to areas for future exploitation. Collected samples will feed into the science game, and potentially also into the colony management game. It's likely the direction and extent of exploration will also come up in the Colony Council.
• Colony Management - someone needs to mine the minerals, collect raw materials and process them into things that can either be used to expand the colony, add to its capabilities, or export back to Earth to make a return on the rather considerable investment that the Colony on Piraxis represents. There are likely to be mishaps and natural events along the way that need dealt with. This is a more mechanical game that is probably where you put your spare characters in a worker placement with mechanics similar to Battlestar Galactica for resolving the events.
• Science - all the samples need to be analysed before they can be named and used. Those first to publish their results will get all the credit for the discovery and the bulk of the profits from its use.

The objectives for the players are to put as many of their characters in the successful parts of the colony so that when the colony ship returns (around Turn 5 or Turn 6) they will be allocated more of the 200 people coming in on the ship to exploit their success further, and so that they get the biggest share of the profit from the goods exported back to Earth.

This is a game that is all about secret roles. Most people are not who they may seem to be. Outwardly everyone is a loyal citizen of the Solar Republic who has bravely volunteered for a hazardous role establishing new human colonies on other planets. In reality the reason you've volunteered is that the utopia of a united humanity on Earth is more forced social control and avoiding being visited by the Republican Auditors.

About two thirds of the players will belong to one of eight factions, and the remaining third will be genuinely independent. Faction roles will be hidden, although players on the same faction will know who the others are. Those on the same faction will share the same set of secret objectives, which will be shown on the character badges in symbols. Each secret objective will have three factions that share it, and three that have the opposite objective. So there's space to find allies that you can work with, and there will be factions that directly oppose you. You may also be able to recruit some of the independents to support you.