Sovereign Skies: How to Play

The energy-rich Abyssi Cluster is finally at peace having formed a democratic system and an interplanetary senate made up of six planets and six alien cultures known as the Sovereign Core. Having just arrived from Old-Earth, some of the most powerful corporate houses of the human core have come in “peace” to consort with politicians and to exploit the fledgling system for influence, power, and the rarest known resources: Atlum Crystals.

As one of the great houses of Old-Earth, you’ll send your mothership throughout the six planets of the Abyssi Cluster, occupying worlds with ships, collecting political cards, enacting planet abilities, and establishing area majority. Dominate the world of Sovereign Skies by amassing the most influence through building bases, political pledges and swaying the sovereign senators for favors.

The game Setup should look something like this:

To start the game, the first player will always move their mothership and then perform upto 3 actions in that location.

Each Planet tile displays specific actions that are available when your Mothership ends its turn there at the bottom of each planet tile. 

When moving the mothership, the players must move it at least one adjacent planet tile. The mothership must move in the direction it is pointing, clockwise or counterclockwise. Before moving, the players may pay 2 energy to reverse the direction of the mothership. Then they must move it at least one space after reversing the direction. If the player wishes to move additional spaces, they may pay 1 additional energy per planet tile moved. Multiple motherships may occupy the same space. 

After moving your mothership, determine which player possesses the sole majority on the planet you’re orbiting. If another player has sole majority then the bank pays the player 1 energy. Ties aren’t broken which means no player would be given energy. You might be wondering how to determine majority, well allow me to elaborate! 

A planet’s majority is determined by who has the most activated bases. If that doesn’t determine who has majority then players would check unactivated bases and finally, the number of ships on the planet. One activated base counts as a majority over any amount of unactivated bases and the same goes for unactivated bases counting as a majority over any amount of ships. 

Now, let's take a look at the number of actions that each player can take. After moving your mothership to a new planet tile players can perform up to 3 actions. You may perform the available actions in any order however you can only perform each one, once per turn. The available actions are: Add a ship, Take a political card, or perform the special planet tile action. 

When adding a ship the player takes one from the supply and adds it to wherever their mothership is located. Ships players add to the board remain on the planet where you place them until the player chooses to move them with the relocate action or remove them with the construct action. 

When taking a political card the player takes a card into their hand. The player may not take an additional card if they already own a copy of that card. Politic cards help players recruit senators for favors and senator influence. THey might also allow the player to pledge and claim political influence.

Now, let's discuss the available unique planet actions that may be taken. 

Recruit: This will allow the player to discard the two politics cards from their hand that match an available senator. Then the player will take the senator card into their hand. Then they’ll collect the top-most senator influence shit from the corresponding senator card stack.

Construct: In order to Construct the player must have the required number of ships as stated on the planet where the player is choosing to construct. Replace the ships with a single base token from your supply and place it unactivated side up. Then return the ships to the supply. These are limited to one base per use of the construct action.  

Each base offers an optional bonus action the player must take after constructing it such as gaining energy, dropping additional ships, or gaining an extra political card. The various bases depending on their columns will allow you to gain additional energy, add extra ships to a planet or take a political card you don’t have.

Activate: When going to Activate a Base, you simply take the action and score one of your unactivated bases. Flip over the base so that the activation symbol is face up. Then collect the top-most base influence chit from the stack that match the planets base color where the activated base is located. 

Pledge: If a player takes the Pledge action then they discard 1, 2 or 3 political cards from their hand and gain 1 influence per card discarded. If there are political influence chits available on the board you may take any chit that matches the trait symbols of the cards you discard. If one of the chits you have matches is owned by an opponent then you may take it from them but only if you have majority over this specific player on the corresponding planet. 

If the player decides to Relocate then they will move one or two of their ships from any planet tile to another. The planet origin and destination may be the same or different for each.

If they choose to refuel then they take 2 energy tokens from the bank and collect an additional energy for each base, activated or not, that they have on planet tiles. 

So what about those cards from earlier? Senator cards don’t count as an action and can be performed any time on your turn. When playing a senator choose one of the two favors on the card to enact and then discard the senator card from the game. These cards have a wide variety of actions but don’t let me spoil everything for you!

The game ends when two stacks of the senator tiles or base influence chits have been depleted. Once this happens the players finish out the current round to ensure each player has had an equal number of turns. 

When the game ends each player will add up all of their points from their bases, senator cards and political influence as well as any standard influence. Then they’ll add in 1 point for every 3 energy they had left over! That's how you play Sovereign Skies.

If you could live on any planet, with your allies or friends, which planet would you choose? Let us know in the comments below. Be Bold, Play Games, Be You. Happy Gaming!