Cysmic Playthrough with the Designer - Session 02

About Cysmic, from BoardGameGeek:

Cysmic is an epic sci-fi strategy wargame set amidst a crumbling planet. Players assume the role of one of the factions on the planet that is fighting desperately to survive. Throughout the game, players gather resources, capture enemy units, and work to construct their colony ship. Once built, the colony ship must be launched once all of your units are evacuated. The faction to do so first not only escapes with their lives but also ends up destroying the planet with the force of their ship's ignition. There are no points in Cysmic. The winner is the player who completes the objective first. THE STORY: "The Space Exploration Expedition Network (SEEk) selected several leaders in various fields to lead an odyssey to Kepler-62e for terraforming and civilization planning. Some of the members were chosen and funded by the World Council while others self-financed their way to have influence or presence in the new world. Industry experts, religious leaders, entertainers, scholars, businessmen, politicians, and entrepreneurs all took part in the mission. Once there, the project worked beautifully at first. The different groups of people lived and worked together as a familiar society with all of the benefits and growing pains one would expect from a newly formed civilization. It had its share of infighting and corruption, but even those issues never threatened the delicate balance of this new world. It was slowly becoming the utopia many had hoped it would. As the project moved forward, an unexpected instability in the terraforming process started wreaking havoc on the landscape. The news broke quickly that their efforts to terraform and create a better world had destabilized the planet. Their new Eden was doomed. When the colonists realized there was no hope in saving their dream of a new civilization, chaos broke out among the hundreds of thousands of people as they turned to their respective leaders for salvation. Those in leadership roles... either voted in by public opinion, volunteered at will, ascended through capitalism, or ordained by faith... now rise to the occasion as wartime leaders. Massive Terraformers that once bent the landscape to their will have now been taken over by powerful organizations and converted into colony ship construction and launch platforms. These rival factions compete for information and resources across the dying planet as their last hope to escape offworld in the original Colony Ship plans that brought them there to begin with. After society splintered, the information splintered with it. Each faction holds part of the module plans to build the colony ship but must retrieve the others to finish their build. Instead of working together, they now battle for resources and information. Workers and civilians are hastily trained in combat to protect the individual faction bases from each other while still performing their regular job duties. Soldiers are tasked with capturing enemies with the knowledge of providing blueprints for the construction of the colony ship modules. Once the leaders obtain the blueprints and construct their colony ship, they must launch it before the impending destruction of their homeworld. The immense energy exerted from a single colony ship launch will likely doom the rest. Which faction will gain the resources necessary to escape first? If this new world war doesn't destroy this utopia, the planet surely would." GAMEPLAY SUMMARY: Gameplay consists of managing your empire until you can safely evacuate your people offworld. Players must recruit units, explore their surroundings, wage war against enemies, manage their economy, and obtain the resources necessary to construct their Colony Ship. The game is played in rounds made up of 5 turns per round. Each turn, players play one Unit card or Tactic card and then perform a bonus action. Each round ends when all players complete 5 turns. The next round starts with whomever currently holds the first player token. OBJECTIVE FOR WINNING THE GAME: Be the first player to build their colony ship and launch off the planet. Be careful evacuating your units before launching or else your conscience may not allow you to leave.