Sidereal Confluence:
Trading and Negotiating in the Elysian Quadrant

Alright, this is where I had to jump off the Holiday Train, because regardless of what time of year or who I am playing with, Sidereal Confluence is always my number 1 game!
It's a bit heavy, takes a bit of time, and you need 6+ players to really get into it.
And despite all of that, it is still my absolute favorite game!

In Sidereal, each player is playing as their own Alien Civilization, using planets as resources and technology as their engine to develop new and advanced techs for the entire galaxy.
Because the galaxy is at peace, when you develop a new tech you'll end up sharing it with the other players - but you'll also get to claim the victory points for being the civilization that created the new technology!!

The best part of Sidereal is that the entire game is played with everyone playing at the same time - no turns!
During the trading and negotiating phase, each player is wheeling & dealing with everyone else, trying to swap their cubes for other cubes, getting all of their resources lined up and ready to use so they can get their engine going.

Then in the research and development phase, you turn your attention to all of the technology and planets that you've acquired, converting brown cubes to blue, then blue into large yellow cubes, then large yellow cubes into golden octagons, which you'll then use to finally research a new Technology card, bringing you a temporary advantage and victory points!

Yes, there's a lot going on, but even when you've been playing for 3 hours straight, you never feel like it's been too long of a game, because you're always involved in a trade or running your engine - all in the name of galactic peace, of course.

Jordan's favorite memory of this game:

The first time that I ever played Sidereal, Zach and his friend Taylor were playing as well. The start of the game was a bit bumpy, with everyone trying to figure out how their Alien Civilization was supposed to play and what trades were fair, but about halfway through everyone had gotten the hang of things and it was starting to get pretty intense. Trades were more difficult because no one wanted to give another player an advantage, and scores were pretty close.
Throughout the whole game, Zach had been a bit less than nice to Taylor, relying on their friendship to get slightly lopsided trades and pointing out when Taylor was giving up an advantage to other players. Meanwhile, I had been playing it fair with Taylor, making trades based on future favors and giving him an extra cube here and there to keep us on good terms.
Then, as is often the case, it all came down to the final round.
Zach was winning and I was one cube short of beating him.
Not only was I one cube short, I needed to use every other cube I had to research a new tech and beat Zach, which made trading impossible.
Luckily I had Taylor to rely on.
All I had to say was "If you can give me an extra cube, Zach will lose" and my ally came through, dashing Zach's dreams of glory.

It was perfect :-)

Recommended for anyone who loves: