Instructions for Solitaire Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game. v 1.1
INTRODUCTION:
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game is produced by Decipher, Inc. as a two-player game. Rules for multiplayer and tournament versions have been distributed, and clearly ST:TNG-CCG is best as a social game. However, I found myself unable to find sufficient opponents to satisfy my urge to play, and attempted to see if a solitaire version could be developed. In addition to the situation of having no opponents, or time to kill, the solitaire version can also be played to develop strategy.
This version of solitaire has been developed to allow challenging play, keeping the feel of the game, without introducing undue complexity. These instructions make no provisions for no battles, either between ships or away teams and there are revisions to the basic setup to allow for more interesting play in solitaire mode.
Many variations are possible, with different effects on play and game length. The procedures suggested here make a playable game with some challenge and decent probabilities of winning. (Some possibilities of variations are suggested in italics.) I welcome suggestions for how to improve the game. I will either incorporate them into these instructions or collect them as a separate file.
Joe Campbell has developed a quite different version of ST:CCG solitaire.
SETUP:
The setup consists of setting up the seed cards, setting up an opponent deck, and setting up one's own play deck.
Seed cards:
Choose 8 missions (different numbers may be tried). Select 16 (or more) dilemmas (and artifacts). The selection may be random or deliberate depending on your inclination and number of cards available to you. Separate both missions and dilemmas into planetary and space groups. Use the dilemmas that are both space and planetary to fix the number of space and planetary dilemmas to equal twice the number of missions.
Randomly place the dilemmas on the missions, keeping planetary and space missions and dilemmas separate. On one of each of the planetary and space missions, place one dilemma, on one of each place three, and place two on all the remaining. Then, keeping the missions and associated dilemmas together (plastic sleeves are useful here), randomly place the missions into a spaceline, all the missions oriented toward you.
Opponent deck:
Select at least 40 (more adds a more unpredictable element; if you do not have forty such cards, you can use fewer, and recycle the opponents discards. If you do this, you will want to avoid putting any " killer" cards in the opponent deck, since you may encounter them early and repeatedly. No fun.) Event and Interrupt cards (Additional dilemmas could be included here). These should be selected so that they will be playable against you. Cards that normally apply only to the player's own hand or cards in play should not be included, but some that could be played as if the opponent had a ship (e.g. Ship Seizure) can be. Duplicates, or multiple copies of cards are permissible. Treaties, espionage, and cards that increase ships attributes for example, will not be useful here. Shuffle these and place above the spaceline.
The Appendix contains a listing of the Event and Interrupt cards that may be included in an opponent deck.
Play deck:
Select 40 (30-100) Personnel, Ship, Equipment, Event, and Interrupt cards for your own deck, PLUS two (1-3) Outposts. Place your Outposts as you would in a regular game, and shuffle the deck.
PLAY:
Begin by taking the first seven cards from the top of the play deck. Take a regular turn as you would in the normal 2 player game. End your turn by taking a card from the top of the draw deck.
After taking your turn, turn over one card from the opponent deck. It will be an Event or Interrupt card, and should be played immediately. If there is no place on the table where the card can be played it is discarded.
The opponent card should be placed on the last location or ship or Away
Team that you played; for cards played on the spaceline, start on the
Outpost locations, and move out from there.
The game is over after you have scored 150 points in missions and dilemmas before your draw deck runs out. If your draw deck runs out, you lose (I prefer to allow one more turn to use up the cards that have just been drawn. I also do this in regular competitive play).
Copyright 1995,Willie Kai Yee, M.D.; Permission for distribution on the World Wide Web is given provided proper attribution is given. This file may be downloaded, printed, and reproduced for noncommercial purposes. All other rights reserved.
The Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing anything from these pages in any form, in whole or in part. License to distribute this information is available to Microsoft for $800. Appearance without permission constitutes agreement to these terms.
Star Trek: The Next Generation is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures, Inc. All associated characters, plot elements, and fictional technologies are also either trademarked or copyrighted by PP, as are the 23rd and 24th centuries, and several entire universes on alternate timelines.
ST:TNG-CCG etc. is copyright Decipher, Inc
Appendix
Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game
Solitaire Version
Listing of cards playable in Opponent Deck
This list is tentative, as I have not tested all the Rare cards for playability in the solitaire game.
C Event Atmospheric Ionization
C Event Plasma Fire
C Event Q-Net
C Event Res-Q
C Event Static Warp Bubble
C Event Subspace Warp Rift
C Event Tetryon Field
U Event Distortion Field
U Event Gaps In Normal Space
U Event Kivas Fajo - Collector
U Event Masaka Transformations
U Event Telepathic Alien Kidnappers
U Event The Traveler: Transcendence
R Event Anti-time Anomaly
R Event Goddess of Empathy
R Event Lore Returns
R Event Lore's Fingernail
R Event Warp Core Breach
C Interrupt Disruptor Overload
C Interrupt Loss Of Orbital Stability
C Interrupt Palor Toff - Alien Trader
C Interrupt Rogue Borg Mercenaries
C Interrupt Ship Seizure
U Interrupt Amanda Rogers
U Interrupt Auto-Destruct Sequence
U Interrupt Distortion Of Space/Time Continuum
U Interrupt Energy Vortex
U Interrupt Incoming Message - Federation
U Interrupt Incoming Message - Klingon
U Interrupt Incoming Message - Romulan
U Interrupt Kevin Uxbridge
U Interrupt Q2
U Interrupt Subspace Schism
U Interrupt Temporal Rift
U Interrupt The Juggler
R Interrupt Alien Groupie
R Interrupt Crosis
R Interrupt Honor Challenge
R Interrupt Hugh
R Interrupt The Devil