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I think I got everything separated and packed pretty well (including the upgrade tiles), but what's really taking a long time during setup is the cubes.

Is there a way to set it up faster for players? It's also a drag for new players, gives them a bad first impression...

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  • 1
    Set it up before your players arrive? Mar 5, 2013 at 18:27
  • I'm really looking forward to BigDaddy's Eclipse for iPad
    – ghoppe
    Mar 5, 2013 at 18:54
  • @ire_and_curses no, when they're already here, just give them quicker setup time... The players need to decide on their race first, right? Mar 6, 2013 at 5:37
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    @AviadBenDov I can still meet with my friends, hang out on the sofa and pass-and-play. No huge table and setup required! :)
    – ghoppe
    Mar 6, 2013 at 16:43
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    @ghoppe pros and cons to it though... I somehow prefer the big table, the plastic pieces, and even more importantly, to get away from screen time.. :) Mar 7, 2013 at 4:54

3 Answers 3

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I've found through my plays of Eclipse that there are 4 things you can do to speed up setup:

1) Take the bags where you put the ships in for each player. Add 3 colony ships, the storage markers, the starbases, all cubes and disks. You'll have a bag for each player with all the stuff they need to setup their player board.

2) Buy a 'bead storage box'. Craft section of Michaels or Walmart. Put your sorted upgrades in here. Setting up the supply board is as simple as taking the lid off of this box and placing technology tiles.

3) Buy some Population Trays off the internet. These are specifically for eclipse. You can buy the ones with lids and that will let you store all the cubes for a given player in the tray. Setting up a player board is as simple as opening the lid and dumping the contents of their bag next to the board.

4) Have all other components pre-sorted and bagged seperately.

It takes < 5 minutes to go from putting the box on the table to making my first action with this setup.

Population Trays: http://www.beklaser.com/en/6-eclipse

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  • Those population trays are neat!
    – ghoppe
    Apr 3, 2013 at 17:47
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For the cubes, dump them out, in approximately the right spots; slide most of them over to the left, then make sure the 3 right-most cubes for each of tech/resources/money are in the right spots. Let people sort the rest when it's not their turn.

That said, I'd love to have boards that had recesses for all of the cubes/discs so they moved around less.

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  • So you suggest to just let them handle it during the game itself on the first turn, when they're not playing? Mar 6, 2013 at 5:38
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    Yes sir. Alternatively, if they haven't played before it gives them something relatively mindless to do while you explain the game.
    – aslum
    Mar 6, 2013 at 13:29
  • yeah, that's sort of what I did last time, while they were organising the cubes I explained the rules of the game. Mar 7, 2013 at 4:53
  • (I am waiting to see if there are other answers, if there are none I'll mark yours as the answer.) Mar 7, 2013 at 4:55
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    @aslum Many years later, the second edition of Eclipse gives you exactly what you want.
    – GendoIkari
    Jul 31, 2022 at 19:27
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Our group just uses the little plastic bags that come with the game and put everything for one player to start in one of them. We have the starting hex, the ships, the populations cubes, etc. all in the bag. We only set up the rightmost population cube. We can get started in as little as 5 minutes.

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