The four-planet game

Fantasy Flight's own shorter variant, offered in the core rulebook. Each player takes four planets instead of five and starts with sixteen ships instead of twenty, four to a planet; the game is won on four foreign colonies instead of five; and a player loses their alien power when they hold fewer than two home colonies instead of fewer than three. Every other rule is unchanged. The standard game asks for five foreign colonies and a twenty-ship fleet, which is what makes a full table long — and the rulebook itself recommends this variant for playing several three-player games in a row to meet more aliens.