Tutorials & Guides
If you're new to Eclipse — or coming back to it after a few years away — these are the resources the league actually points people at. Watch the review for a sense of the game, then the 2-part tutorial to learn it, then the BGG essays to start improving.
What is this game? — A Plastic Classic review
If you've never played Eclipse, start here. Shut Up & Sit Down's “A Plastic Classic” review of Eclipse: Second Dawn walks through what the game actually feels like at the table — the explore-vs-economy tension, the long-game scoring, what makes a session memorable. Watch it before committing to four hours of rules videos.
Video — Rules walkthrough (The Players' Aid)
The community-standard 2-part tutorial. Mike & Mark from The Players' Aid take you through every rule and edge case in the box. Recommended over reading the rulebook cold.
- Part 1 — How To Play Eclipse: Second Dawn — setup, the round structure, the six basic Actions (Explore, Influence, Research, Upgrade, Build, Move), colony / population tracks, basic combat, reputation and upkeep. Enough to start your first game.
- Part 2 — How To Play Eclipse: Second Dawn — everything Part 1 deferred: pinning, rare technologies, grey planets, structures (orbital, monolith), missiles, diplomacy, bankruptcy, PvP combat, Ancients / GCDS interactions, and the miscellaneous edge-case rules.
Reading — The learning curve in Eclipse
The Learning Curve in Eclipse on BGG — a long thread on what new players typically get wrong in their first half-dozen games (over-exploring early, ignoring upkeep, mis-timing upgrades, neglecting reputation tiles), how those habits evolve, and what to focus on after each loss. Read it before your second game; come back to it after your fifth.
Reading — Faction guides by NaaRyys
BGG user NaaRyys wrote a structured new-player guide for every base-game alien faction — opening sectors, tech priorities, common pitfalls, win conditions. Probably the single most-recommended set of reading on the Discord:
- Hydran Progress
- Planta
- Descendants of Draco
- Eridani Empire
- Mechanema
- Orion Hegemony
- Terran — a guide for first timers (different author, but the de-facto Terran companion piece to the NaaRyys series)
(No NaaRyys guides yet for the expansion factions — Lyra, Wardens, Rho Indi or the Exiles. If you've seen one, ping in the Discord and we'll add it here.)
Reference — Official rules & forums
When the table can't agree, go to the source.