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Garphil games are known for their interesting takes on worker placement games. Circadians: First Light is no exception. In Circadians, your workers are dice. Whilst they are not restricted from any area, the number you roll will impact on what each dice can do.
Players will use their dice (crew) to carry out actions across a newly discovered planet, Rhyl. Through the game players will take various actions to gain points. They will negotiate with the locals, upgrade their base and construct items. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
First Contact
Each player receives or can choose a leader for their crew. The leader will give you an ongoing special ability throughout the game. Whilst I have not played every combination of leaders, these feel balanced. But some will suit certain play styles more than others.
The actions in Circadians take place over several boards. Each board represents a different area you can visit over the game where you can use your crew. There are the six main location boards. These are the planet, the negotiation board and the depository/headquarters board.
Every area uses the dice in a different way. For example, the control room allows you to move your harvester on the planet board. The direction in which it moves gets determined by the number rolled on the dice. The market allows you to trade your goods. You can complete up to the number of trades rolled on your dice.
The main boards where you will get points are the depository and negotiations. In the depository players trade in dice, and goods they have acquired to play items. Some items have special abilities whereas others will score you a lot of end game points. At the negotiations board players will trade in resources. This allows players to gain influence with local tribes (points) and special abilities.
Exploring Rhyl
Circadians: First Light takes place over eight rounds. Each round consist of four phases. First, an event card gets revealed. Event cards can either have a positive or negative effect on all players. These remain in effect for the whole of that round. Players then roll all their dice behind their screens and assign them in their research base. Players can assign dice to their farms, where they will collect resources. Or they can assign dice to their garages, where they can move to areas on the planet. At the start of the game players only have the pre-printed farms and ships on their board. Over the course of the game, players can get more farms and more ships, each with their own advantage.
Once all players have assigned their dice, the players remove their screens. In turn order players take turns in actioning the dice assigned to their garages. Players must always action their leftmost die first. The first die is free to play but others need a payment of algae. If a player cannot or chooses not to play a die, this goes into the cantina and the player gains two water. There are a limited number of spaces available on each location board. Players may get blocked by their opponents. It is important to plan out various options and make sure to get to where you want to action early on. Each location has a cost to action but these costs can get reduced later on in the game by ship effects.
When all the players have actioned all their garage dice, the harvest phase starts. Here players gain resources for dice on their farms. They also gain resources from where their harvester is on the planet board. You also get more resources the further your harvester moves out from the centre of the planet. So it is beneficial to move your harvester early.
Each plate then returns all dice from the location boards and farms to their supply. Dice on the depository and negotiation board do not get returned. Players who have taken these actions will want to look at ways to gain more crew. You cannot have more than 5 dice during the planning phase though, so you also do not want to have too many workers.
At the end of eight rounds the player with the most points wins.
Returning Home
I enjoy worker placement games, it is one of my favourite genres. It was no surprise that I enjoyed Circadians! Using dice as workers is not a unique idea. But the way this gets used in Circadians is clever. I find the programming mechanic interesting. You have to balance out actions you want to do, with any bonuses from certain ships in your garage. Sometimes you need to do an action. But it makes sense to wait until later in the round to play your dice because of the benefit of a ship. You then run the risk of your opponents taking the spot that you wanted.
As a lot of games I play are two player, I appreciated that the various area boards are double sided. There are less spaces for fewer players making gameplay much tighter.
Circadians: First Light has the feel of a heavier game but it plays quite fast. This is in large part as the programming takes place at the same time. The downside of this is that the time taken to set the game up can seem quite high compared to the playtime.
My husband likes space themed games. He wished that the space theme came through more in the game play. The space setting is cool, and there are some areas where it does come through a bit more such in the items. But if you are looking for a strong space themed game Circadians is not that game. Although the theme doesn’t come through as strong as it could, the game looks interesting on the table. The artwork in each area is good and very colourful which makes it pop.
I would recommend Circadians: First Light if you enjoy worker placement games and/or other Shem Phillips games.
