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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:
High Quality Components – 1 game board, 4 player boards, 4 screens, 120 cubes, 55 gems, 4 energy markers, 24 action cards, 25 AI cards, 31 solar system tiles, 27 bonus cards, 16 dark tech cards, 6 leader cards, 12 space station cards, and a rulebook.
Great Replay Value – With near endless strategies to explore, you’ll enjoy racing for a seat on the Council of Shadows again and again! Optional expansions for Space Stations and Leaders let you control complexity.
Perfect for Families – This game of galactic strategy is perfect for 1-4 players ages 14 and up.
Flexible Play – Battle against the AI with special rules for solo gameplay: Automa Mode!
Quality You Trust – Ravensburger has been making quality games, puzzles, and toys for over 130 years.
Our Top Reviews
Reviewer: Board and stuff
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fantastic strategy game
Review: This game is first super heavy. Components are made of thick cardboard and there is a lot of it.The game is space exploration and colonization. One must harvest minerals to use as currency.Fantastic solo. A bit hard to learn from rule book. A video watch should solve it. The game is of medium weight so a bit hard to grasp for new players. Casual and heavy players should be ok. But the mechanics and choices are deep and meaningful. Over all i am enjoying it and this comes from a heavy gamer.
Reviewer: K. Jacobson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Balance of Power
Review: It took me a while to wrap my head around this one. Dear Ravensburger/Alea, I implore you to add another set of eyes to your rulebook review process. (It does not have to be me you choose to do it… though it certainly could be!) Find someone who is not at all familiar with the game, and let them work through the rules as written. Much of the rulebook is awkward, and some of it is just plain confusing. It really shouldn’t be a very hard game to learn. Thankfully, you asked Rodney Smith from “Watch It Played” to create one of his video tutorials for the game, which was ended up being crucial.Council of Shadows is a great Euro-style game, which employs a number of mechanisms I love from other games, but also has some ideas that are new to me. It’s all about energy conservation and efficiency! This is a game that I imagine some would call “themeless” – meaning that, although there is a theme (basically, space mining), it feels kind of superfluous to the operation of the game – the placing and removing of cubes, the upgrading actions point scoring.Some aspects of the game I am familiar with, that I like to see here, include worker (“colony”) placement and area control, as you try to have the greatest number of workers in an area (galaxy), reminding me of how combat works in Dune Imperium. There are bonuses to be gained by leaving workers in place, and for removing them. Also, I like the upgradable board each player has in front of them, which reminds me of Scythe.The actions you take are determined by cards you play in front of you on your player board, three, or possibly more, laid out and activated from left to right. The main game board represents a universe, with a certain number of galaxies depicted (depending on the player count), each with solar systems containing a number of different colored planets. There are three “parsecs” – the bottom, middle and top thirds of the board – that all the galaxies and their solar systems fall into. As you upgrade your personal playing board, you are able to take your actions in more places on the main board – on more colors of planets (there are three colors total), and in more parsecs.I love the way your actions cycle. At the end of the action phase, all action cards shift one spot to the right, and the rightmost card or cards fall off your board and are taken back into your hand. On your next turn, you’ll decide whether to keep the cards on your board, or play new cards over them. The leftmost space will always be empty and ready for a new card to be played. As a result of the way this operates, some cards will be tied up on your board for a period of time, whether they are used or not (covered).Another mechanism in the game I love is the scoring track. There is a marker on the track that you are always trying to reach and surpass. When you do, you complete a sort of loop and start over again. Once you’ve done this three times, the game will end. The marker, however, is constantly moving – almost always further down the track (though not necessarily). In the game lore, the marker represents your energy consumption – basically the cost of your interstellar energy production enterprise. The game piece you are moving towards it is a cube representing your energy production. When you’ve produced more energy than you consume and your cube passes your marker, you’ve done good and appeased the shadowy overlords, who give you a bonus. There’s a nice catch-up mechanism that allows players who have “looped” less than you get a bonus as well whenever that happens. Excess energy is retained and puts you that much further ahead on the track for the next time.Energy consumption is initially set at 20 for everyone, and is moved on the track by the action cards you activate in front of you. Generally, the more powerful an action is, the more energy it requires and consequently the more your consumption marker moves away from your energy production cube, creating a farther journey for you before you “loop.” Purchasing new cards with the game’s currency (gemstones, in three flavors) can often get you action cards that can do the same work you’ve been doing, with less consumption involved.There’s also whole other aspect involving spending and upgrading the gemstones (from coal to gold to crystal) that is reminiscent of Century Spice Road or The Lost Ruins of Arnak.I’m not trying here to explain the rules (again, I highly recommend YouTube for that) but just wanted to highlight some familiar and interesting parts of the base gameplay. There are also two included mini-expansions, one of which adds some asymmetry as each player selects a persona with special abilities, which is very cool.Everything comes together to produce a splendid game, which is best appreciated in the first play through. Don’t let the included documentation thwart you, it all comes together in a refreshing way after a round or two.Finally I’ll just add that the components are fantastic (see my “flyover video” [made before I knew how to sort the pieces]), just as I have come to expect from Ravensburger. And the art is really great as well and does its best to wrap everything in a theme.So thanks to the designers and the illustrator for making a highly recommended, and to Rodney Smith for explaining it!
Reviewer: BurstingVeins
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very interesting complex game
Review: There’s a lot to this game, but it’s not that difficult once you get rolling. The whole goal is to get to dark tech level 3 first, there isn’t really any point system. If there is a tie, then you count energy as a tie breaker, which for final “scoring” you get a certain amount of energy based on general stuff you have at the end of the game. There’s a lot of replayability because there’s tons of different strategies you can take and some randomness.Everything about the game is pretty good, except the end goal. It feels like you’re counting up points to see who’s the winner, only if multiple people reached the end goal, but if someone triggered the end game, they’re very likely the winner. So, in the end, it will be pretty clear who’s going to win the game throughout the whole game, which makes it not so fun. The complexity of the gameplay should match the complexity of who’s going to be the winner, and the end of this game seems hardly worth the battle of the gameplay.
Reviewer: Mr. Smith
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fun family game
Review: We are always a fan of the ravens burger line. Their games are usually a lot of fun and this game holds true to that. The game lists ages 14 and up for game play and I would agree with that. We have a 9 year old and this was just too much for her. The game itself is a futuristic space game. We loved how beautiful the game looks and it comes with some fun and unique elements. Not just your typical meeples. The game is very easy to learn. Unlike other games, you are active every single turn. I guess I’m thinking of games like Catan where you can pass or sometimes go. Several turns where you’re just collecting things. This game is not like that you do actively stay busy. There is a lot of fun in discovering different planets. I wish that there were more planets to discover. all in all this is fun for a family game night.
Reviewer: Phoenix
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Bit daunting at first for less experience players, but a good casual long play
Review: Opening games like this is an adventure of itself. We dived into separating the pieces while reading the instructions. It seems daunting at first, but started to come together. Watching a few playthrus on youtube helped. Growing up, we end up with a older sibling or a parent guiding us thru these, so it is worth having guidance on something new. I believe this is what they call “an engine” style game. It’s pacing was a bit slower, but some of that could be written off as newer players. We all had some familiarity with modern tabletop games which helps. With some snacks and drinks though you have a nice casual hour or two, or a more nail biting hour as you see your opponents long term plan finally come together. One or the other.
Reviewer: Geoffrey Chia
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Product delivered with small dents, other than that it is a good game.
Price effective as of Jun 22, 2025 22:47:26 UTC
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