Gale Force Nine has announced Star Trek: Ascendancy, a strategic board game of exploration, expansion and conflict, for release this summer.

In the game, which draws on 50 years of Star Trek history, each player controls one of the great civilizations of the galaxy (United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire) and ventures from their home world to expand their civilization and influence in the galaxy.  Players command starships, establish space lanes, construct star bases, discover interstellar phenomena, gather resources, and establish dominance in various star systems though diplomacy or war. As each civilization enters a new star system, a random system disc will be drawn from the stack, leading to new locations in a random layout that is never the same twice.

The game includes more than 200 plastic miniatures and has discs representing more than 30 star systems. MSRP will be $100.00.

GF9 will support the game later this year with two expansion sets representing the Cardassian Union and Ferengi Alliance.

GF9 announced a license to produce Star Trek board games last summer (see “Gale Force Nine to Produce 'Star Trek' Board Games”).

(See more component images in the gallery below.)