I’m a massive fan of two-player board games, especially ones that are designed specifically for head-to-head or cooperative play like 7 Wonders: Duel, Sky Team, and Splendor: Duel. These games tend to play faster than those with larger player counts, but still offer the juicy decision-making I crave. So when I heard about Zenith, a new tug-of-war-style dueling game set in space, I was immediately intrigued. Zenith features strategic resource management, high player interaction, cards, light engine-building, and a tech track – all packed into an experience that plays in under 30 minutes (making it a good quick-playing board game). It checks all the boxes for me and has quickly become one of my favorite games to pull off the shelf.
Zenith Board Game
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Zenith manages to pack a lot of components into a relatively small box. Inside, you’ll find three separate game boards (Planet, Technology, and Diplomacy), that connect together to create the main play area. The Technology boards are double-sided, allowing you to mix-and-match to create a randomized progression track before each game that players will need to adapt their strategy to match. Each player uses a set of wooden tech markers to track their progress during the game.
There are plenty of small cardboard pieces to remove from the punchboards before you start, including three different credit denominations which function as the game’s primary currency, bonus tokens, and the Leader badge. The rest of the components are made from high-quality recycled materials, including 80% wood, and all feature an etched design. They have a nice weight to them, and also smell great (who doesn’t love the smell of fresh wood?)
Zenith’s other currency, the aptly-named Zenithium, is represented by a set of yellow wooden tokens. Players primarily interact with each other during the game through the Influence disks that are placed on the Planet board. Each disk features a different color and etched design to represent one of the five planets you’re vying for control over: Mercury, Venus, Terra, Mars, and Jupiter.
Gameplay in Zenith revolves around its deck of more than 90 unique Agent cards split across the three factions. Each Agent card includes a name and playful character artwork, many of which are subtle nods to famous sci-fi icons like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, and George Lucas, just to name a few. I had a blast trying to figure out the dozens of references sprinkled throughout the deck.
In addition to the relatively short instruction manual, Zenith also includes two player reference cards that outline turn structure, as well as two double-sided aids that explain the myriad effects found on the Agent cards and Tech board.
Rules and How It Plays
On the surface, Zenith is a very straightforward game; the first player to take control of the senate wins. This can be achieved in one of three ways: controlling three of the same planet, controlling four unique planets, or controlling any five planets.
You gain control of a planet when you have enough Influence, indicated by the colored disks on the Planet board. Each planet has a track with nine spaces: four on your side, four on your opponent’s side, and one in the middle. Throughout the game, you and your opponent play cards and develop technology to move each of the five Influence disks back and forth across their corresponding tracks as you try to achieve one of the victory conditions.
To set up, players sit opposite one another with the Planet board in the middle. Three Tech boards are chosen at random (one for each faction) that connect to one side of the Planet board, with the Diplomacy board connecting to the other side. Each of boards has a distinct pattern on the bottom that ensures it’s connected to the correct side of the Planet board.
Players randomly distribute the bonus tokens across the Planet and Tech boards, take 12 credits and one Zenithium, and draw four cards from the deck to make their starting hand. Because the hand sizes are small, you can mulligan any number of cards to give you the best possible start. Once players have finalized their hand, the game is ready to begin.
Players take turns performing one of three actions during their turn: recruit an Agent, develop a technology, or become the Leader. To recruit an Agent, you play a card from your hand, paying for its cost in credits and applying the card’s effects. Every card in the deck has a unique effect, and there is a lot of iconography to remember, so you’ll likely be relying on the effect description aid quite a bit during your first few games. Each Agent card gains you at least one influence on the corresponding planet, which allows you to move the matching Influence disk towards your side of the board.
As you recruit Agents, they are placed in a column below the corresponding planet. Each Agent that has been played provides a discount of one credit for future Agents of the same color. This light engine-building component incentivizes recruiting multiple Agents to the same planet and allows you to play more powerful Agents without disrupting your economy.
An alternate action you can take during your turn is developing a technology, which is tracked on the Technology board. Each of the three Tech boards represent one of the game’s three factions: Humans, Robots, and Animods, which are basically just anthropomorphic animals. Instead of recruiting an Agent (playing the card from your hand to gain influence), you can play the corresponding faction to its Tech track after paying the required cost in Zenithium. However, this resource can also be used to unlock powerful effects on certain cards, so you’ll need to manage your reserves wisely.
Each faction’s Tech track contains five spaces that increase in cost incrementally as you move up, while providing more powerful effects. The first space of each column only costs one Zenithium and has a relatively lackluster effect. But, each time you move up the Tech track, you’ll get to perform every action below it when you move up to the next level. This makes the Technology board an important part of your strategy, as it can have game-altering effects as you reach the top.
Early on, though, investing in the tech track can feel like a loss of momentum as it doesn’t immediately help you gain Influence, so you’ll need to balance this carefully as part of your strategy. While investing in a single faction’s tech track has increasingly powerful rewards, investing in all three factions equally is another viable option as it provides you Influence when every faction reaches the next tier. The Tech board is an important part of the overall game and shouldn’t be ignored, or you’ll quickly lose ground to your opponent.
The last action you can choose to perform during your turn is becoming the Leader of a faction. By discarding a specific faction’s card, you gain a one-time effect, as well as the Leader badge. Each faction has a different effect that helps improve your economy: Humans provide you with 4 credits, Robots give you one Zenithium, and Animods allow you to mobilize two cards (place two cards from the top of your deck under the corresponding planet without applying their effect).
The Leader badge is important because it increases your hand size while holding it (the only way to do so), while also unlocking powerful bonus effects on some cards. This coveted component often makes for a mini tug-of-war game within the greater game as both players try to keep it in their control and reap its benefits.
Most of the strategy in Zenith boils down to carefully managing your resources. Between credits, Zenithium, your recruited Agents, and the cards in your hand, it’s a delicate balance as you try to gain tempo over your opponent. Low on credits? You won’t be able to play any Agents from your hand. Low on Zenithium? You progress on the Tech board is stalled until you manage to get some more.
The only aspect that you have little control over is the cards in your hand, as you always draw up to your hand size at the end of your turn and can’t discard anything in your hand that isn’t useful (with the exception of one Agent that allows you to dump your entire hand when played). While uncommon, there are moments where you can effectively brick while digging for a specific color card or faction. Most of the time it’s the result of poorly mismanaging your resources, but when it happens it feels bad to watch your opponent gain momentum.
Zenith features a high level of player interaction, but never manages to feel unfair. Many cards feature effects that disrupt your opponent’s board state like Transfer, which allows you to move an Agent from your opponent’s side of the board to the matching column on your side, or Exile, which lets you discard one of the Agents on your opponent’s side. Investing in the various Tech tracks can allow you to take some credits or Zenithium, but they have a finite number of uses. While these effects can be annoying, one aspect about Zenith that I appreciate is that there’s absolutely no way to disrupt your opponent’s hand or outright drain their economy by playing cards. This creates a level playing field for both players and limits the amount of “bullying” that just feels bad in other games.
Although Zenith is designed for two players, there’s a 4-player version that pits two teams against one another. While the rules are largely the same, teammates control their own hand of Agents that they can’t discuss with one another, and can only recruit Agents on the three planets on their half of the board. When obtaining the Leader badge, that player can choose to give two cards to their teammate, but otherwise can’t share any resources. It’s an interesting twist on the standard game, but Zenith truly shines best at the intended two player count.
