This section will inform you of all the necessary rules for ST:GG.
Below you will find a "switchboard" that will send you directly to any area of the rules that you wish to read, just click on the section that interests you.
Prepare yourself for an entirely new, unconventional way to play Decipher's Star Trek: Customizable Card Game.
Star Trek: Galaxy Garrison, (ST:GG), is a variation playstyle of Decipher's Star Trek: Customizable Card Game, (ST:CCG). ST:GG is designed to be played with eight players, each player choosing to play one of the main affiliation in the game, and acting as they would, controlling their sectors of space, and establishing their rule or creating alliances as they see fit. The affiliations that you can chose from are:
It is possible to play ST:GG with more than eight players, but eight is the recommended size and style. If you have a group of more than eight players that want to play, then the extra players are the Bureaucracy Players. This is further explained in greater detail below in the section Choosing Sides.
In Galaxy Garrison, you will play one affiliation/race and journey around the spaceline, completing missions as you establish colonies, stations, and strongholds throughout the quadrants. As you enforce your power and take control of more territories, you must make sure to destroy all your opponents or sit back and let them destroy each other. You win by being the last remaining player and by having the highest score.
When there is only one player left remaining, all players add up all the points that they have earned through any means, from mission points to bonus points to Victory Points, and whoever has the most points total is the winner. Even if you were eliminated early on, if you have eliminated at least one other affiliation and had accumulated a ton of points, you could still be the winner!
There is also another format of play that you can try in the ST:GG play-style. It is in the Special Rules section, under "StarDate Play."
The point of the game is to be the last remaining player left in the game, while at the same time, scoring the most points. The game does not end until ALL 54 missions have been completed. In order to even be eligable to win, you must have at least annihilated one of your opponents, completely removing them from the game
As you go around the spaceline, you will attempt missions that you can do while at the same time trying to increase the size of your Empire and destroying your opponents. You have to constantly keep an eye on your position in the game.
Galaxy Garrison is essentially a free-for-all game, but you can get help. If both players play a treaty card that represents their affiliations, then they can make an alliance. This is further explained below in Customizing Your Deck.
When there is only one player left, all players add up all the points that they have earned through any means, and whoever has the most is the winner.
Each player must carefully and cordially decide which affiliation they wish to play. Aligning yourself with a certain affiliation means that you will be restricted to using only cards that are at that affiliations disposal. For instance, if you are playing Klingon, you cannot use the dilemma "Sleeper Trap" because you are not allowed to have any cardassian cards in any of your decks, from Draw to Seed to Q's Tent.
The first thing that I would like to not is that playing ST:GG in the "Bureaucracy and Militia" fashion is much more challenging and can take long to play out. If this is your first time playing ST:GG, I would recommended against not playing in this style just yet. This is the Advanced way to play, and you should give the normal style of play a try beforehand. If you have more then 8 players right now, then you might want to just have two games going at once. It will take a long time to complete one game, and the only drawback to having multiple games running at once is trying to collect all the mission cards. :P If you wish to have more then one game going at once, or to hold a ST:GG game at your local tournament scene, we suggest you see the League Play section of this web page.
If you have a group of more than eight players that want to play, then the extra players are the Bureaucracy Players. What this means is, say you have nine players, and two want to play Cardassian, then one plays their Cardassian deck consisting of non-Obsidian Order personnel and Non-Aligned characters, and is referred to as the Militia Player. The other, the Bureaucracy Player, plays a straight Cardassian deck using only Obsidian Order and Legate personnel cards, (no other Cardassian or Non-Aligned cards of any kind). Also, the Bureaucracy Player starts out at that affiliations Headquarters, while the Militia player will begin play at a Outpost seeded somewhere in their sector. So the Cardassian, it would be Central Command.
The main difference between a Bureaucracy Player and a Militia Player is that . If an affiliation has no Bureaucracy Player, then that affiliation player may use all of that affiliations cards and any Non-Aligned cards that they wish.
The Bureaucracy Players are:
= Admirals (any), Ambassadors and President
= Emperor, Chancellor, Klingon Intelligence and High Council
= Admirals, Senators, Proconsul, Tal Shiar
= Kai, Vedek and Minister
= Obsidian Order and Legates
= Founders
= Nagus & VIP
= Borg have no Bureaucracy players
As stated in the above section, ST:GG is designed to be played eight players, each aligning themselves with only one affiliation. This means that when you go to make your deck, think long and hard about what race you wish to align yourself with. Only one type of character card can go into your deck for all your personnel, ships, and equipment. If you know that you play one race better than others, you should consider playing that affiliation. If your decks strength mostly comes from your Bajoran or Romulan strategies, you may wish to play them. Or maybe you're a better Ferengi or Borg player. Be sure to chose wisely.
Whatever it is that you decide to chose, remember these simple rules when you go to piece it together:
Also, the new deck size limit is 40/40. This means no more than 40 seed cards, and no less than 40 draw deck cards. This deck limit is ONLY for the ST:GG variation.
After you've choosen the affiliation that you will be playing, you'll need to figure out
Personnel & Ships:
If a card is a dual-personnel card, (ie: Kasidy Yates, Leeta, Major Rakal) then only the player whose affiliation matches that of the cards border may use that card. For instance, the card "Nog" from the "Rules of Acquisition" subset is a dual affiliation Federation/Ferengi. Now, Nog is a Fernegi character, but his card border is the blue gradient, that of the Federation cards. This means that only the Federation player may choose to play with the "Nog" card. Furthermore, if the Federation player decides not to play with the "Nog" card, this does not mean that the Ferengi player now can.
Also, if a card is a dual-affiliation personnel or ship, and their border color is that of the Non-Aligned gold gradient, this does not mean that anyone can use that card. Only the player whose color matches that of the personnel or ships other affiliation icon can use that card. For example, "Kasidy Yates" is a dual-affiliation Non-Aligned/Bajoran, but this doesn't mean that she can be used by anyone. Only the Bajoran player may play with "Kasidy Yates" if they so choose to.
Seeding of the spaceline in ST:GG is entirely different than in regular ST:CCG. You are allowed to seed anything that can be seeded, (ie: Artifacts, seedable weapons/personnel) as normal under which ever mission you wish or are permitted, EXCEPT Dilemmas. Dilemmas operate quite differently in ST:GG, read below to find out how.
The way you seed your dilemmas in ST:GG is by not seeding them at all! What you do is make three, upside-down, piles off to your lower left side. From the far left in, they are Space, Space/Planet, and Planet Dilemmas. What you do is whenever the player directly across from you attempts a mission, you flip over a corresponding dilemma for that player.
For example, let's say that you are playing Federation. The player directly across from you is the Ferengi player. When the Ferengi player attempts a mission, no matter where that mission is located on the spaceline, they face your dilemma's. If the mission that they attempt is a Space mission, then you chose to flip over a card from either you Space or Space/Planet card stack.
The way that you determine how many cards that a player will face for each mission is by the amount of points that it will give you for completing it. If a mission is worth 30 points, then you face three dilemmas from the corresponding stacks. If the mission is 50 points, then you will face five dilemmas. You always round up the amount of dilemmas that you will face when attempting a mission. If the mission is worth 45 points, then you will face five dilemmas.
If a mission is worth a variable amount, then you would flip over the maximum amount of dilemmas that the mission could be worth. So say a mission is worth X points, but at maximum, the mission is worth 40 points. You would then flip over, one at a time as usual, four dilemmas for the player attempting the mission.
To see what Dilemma's have been banned or altered for this play-style, go to the Card Restrictions section of this web page.
Play always starts with the Federation player and continues on counter-clockwise (to the right, towards Borg Sightings).
The Play Phase works like this:
The Play Phase above is exactly the same, word-for-word, as the ST:CCG DS9 Rule Booklet, with the exception of the "Play now passes to your right" rule on line three.
Galaxy Garrison is essentially a free-for-all game, but you can get help. If both players play a treaty card that represents their affiliations, then they can make an alliance. This is further explained below.
Galaxy Garrison also uses a different discard system then regular ST:CCG. In Decipher's official version of ST:CCG, you have a draw deck and discard pile, and that's it. In ST:GG, you have a draw deck, a unique discard pile, and a recyclable discard pile.
Whenever you discard or lose from play a universal personnel, universal ship, equipment, doorway, or interrupt, it goes off to your Recycle Deck. This is your discard deck that, once you have no cards left to draw, gets shuffled up and becomes your Draw Deck. The only way to get cards out of your Recycle Deck before it is recycled is to play Regenerate, Res-Q, Palor Toff, or any other such card that allows you to get a card from your discard pile.
Whenever you discard or lose from play a unique personnel, unique ships, artifacts, dilemma, events, objectives, and incidents, that card goes off to your Unique Pile. These cards are NEVER brought back into play or re-shuffled into your Draw Deck unless a card always it, such as Regenerate, Res-Q. You CANNOT use a Palor Toff to grab a card out from your Unique Pile.
If you'd like to form a pact with another affiliation, then you must play a Treaty card. In order to make the alliance, both you AND the Affiliation Commander must play the same Treaty card. For instance, say a Romulan player and a Federation player wish to make an alliance to either pool their resources, or for whatever reason. Both players will need to play the card "Treaty: Federation/Romulan" in order for the Treaty to take effect. If one player has the card in hand
If you've been completely eliminated from the game, you might think that that was the end of the line for you. Au' contrair! There is a few ways to re-enter the game.
Bartering:
Alliances:
In order to end the game, you must be the last remaining player,
If you are able to completely wipe out a player and their affiliation, you are awarded special Victory Points. These points are different depending on which affiliation you eliminated. The chart below has the amount of Victory points that each affiliation is worth.
| Victory Points |
| Federation - 250 | Cardassian - 175 | Dominion - 150 |
| Bajoran - 125 | Ferengi - 100 | Romulan - 225 |
| Klingon - 200 | Borg - 300 |
| Penalty Points |
| If you have a Treaty in effect, and one side is eliminated | -50 |
If your affiliation has completed all of the missions that match their icon, or there are no more left unfinished on the table, your affiliation may now carry out the special skill of "Annexing." Not a skill, card, or rule that exists anywhere in the known universe of the ST:CCG, Annexing is done to allow a player who is physically incapable of scoring enough points due to lack of missions to chance to escape from the "lockout."
For this special game variation, I have come up with a special card that allows you to do this easily. Seen below, it is a card that you will find no where else in the universe. Feel free to print it out, it will make playing ST:GG much easier. Just remember that this is not an official, sanctioned, etc. Decipher Star Trek: CCG card, so don't try and pass it off as one. Now that I've said that...
You annex in this way:
The card remains on the mission so everyone knows that it has been annexed by your affiliation. The points that it refers to on the card, (as in Cunning > mission point value), refers to the missions actual point value. The number in the point box on the bottom right of the Annexation Rights card is what you receive for annexing the planet. You do not receive both point values, only the one on the Annexation Rights Objective.
Advanced Rules
Because ST:GG is a big, (in size), and long, (in playtime), game, there is one, very special, and slightly tricky, advanced rule. As ST:GG is an 8-Player game, it takes quite awhile for everyone to, "come up to bat," if you will. For this reason, there is a special rule that cuts about half the time off of the game, 2 players go at once. Instead of just the Federation player starting, both the Federation AND the Ferengi player begin the game. The Federation player still seeds first and decides which way the turn phase will rotate, but instead, once the actual game is underway, both the Federation and Ferengi player will play. There are two main rules to follow if you decided to do this.
1.) Even though two players will be playing at the same time, they must always be:
a) Facing each other, as in Federation and Ferengi, Bajoran and Borg, Dominion and Klingon, etc.
b) Playing with there facing opponent at the same time. What this means is that if you're the Cardassian Player, and you've finished your turn, but your facing opponent, (who would be the Romulan Player), hasn't finished his or her turn yet, then play cannot rotate until they have. Play may never rotate until both facing players have finished their respective turns.
2.) It is thought to be easier if generally the two closest players to the acting player watch their moves. For instance, if the Cardassian and Romulan Players are the ones whose turn it currently is, then the Federation and Dominion Players should keep a close eye on the Cardassian Player, and the Klingon and Ferengi Player should keep a close eye on the Romulan Player. Meanwhile, the Borg and Bajoran Players can just stare at each other, (!). -laugh-
In the "StarDate Play" variation, you chose a StarDate and act out the events that took place on that date, trying to either match or alter the occurrences in the timeline. Below is a listing of StarDates to chose from, but feel free to make-up your own rules and variations using other StarDates from other episodes and series's. Actually, I love to hear about some of your StarDate designs, and I'll put the coolest sounding ones up here for all to see and play.
That's basically it for the advanced rules for right now. Nothing that's to earth shattering. More rules will undoubtedly fall out once the "Voyager" expansion, amongst others, is released.
Until then, ENGAGE!
