Star Realms Rise of Empire

This year, my wife and I decided that we would play campaign games and, most importantly, we would finish them. The second part of our resolution was particularly difficult to achieve in the past. That’s why we sat down to play Star Realms Rise of Empire, full of motivation.

We also decided to raise the stakes a little bit, because we wanted to finish the entire campaign in one day. Did we succeed?

Star Realms Rise of Empire is a deck-building game with light legacy elements. As is the case with classic deck builders, we draw 5 cards, attack each other, and improve our deck by adding new cards to it. We win if we undermine another player’s authority and reduce it to zero. So you could say, it’s a classic.

For me, realms games have always been the essence of a quick duel that we could play in 20-30 minutes. We literally sit down at the table, shuffle the cards, bang bang, and quickly play a rematch. The perfect game for a relaxed afternoon without any stress.

This time, however, something bigger awaited us. Star Realms Rise of Empire features 12 scenarios in which we fight for the title of ruler of the Realms galaxy.

I invite you to read my report on this event.

1. Two sides of the Empire

At the beginning of the game, we had to choose a side in the conflict. Each faction had different motivations in this war and started with two special cards that modified our gameplay.

Gosia took control of the Star Trade Fleet. Her strength was regaining authority, which allowed her to defend herself against my attacks for longer. Normally, in other games, I would say that she was playing “the good guys.”

I immediately jumped at the chance to choose the Galactic Empire. Because I wanted to play as Darth Vader. Although in the campaign, this faction was presented more as the rebellion from Star Wars. So I imagined that Vader had allied himself with Luke and together they decided to face the Emperor (Gosia). This is not Star Wars canon, but who knows, after all, you can’t die from a lightsaber anymore… (sorry, Qui Gon).

2. New realms hope

The campaign consists of 12 scenarios in which we do what we do in normal realms, i.e., we fight each other and build our decks.

What I liked most about Realm games was the synergy between different factions. If we play two cards from the same faction, we can activate the aforementioned synergy between them. This results in increased damage, drawing extra cards, or triggering an additional abilities.

In Rise of Empire, we get three new factions that are neutral and do not belong to any alliance. During the game, when buying new cards, we had the opportunity to add them to our side of the conflict by bribing them with credits. Then we could stick a sticker on the card, turning it into a two-faction card. This activated synergy between its color and ours. The sticker also modified the card’s ability.

This aspect of the game worked really well here. Not only did we compete with each other by attacking each other, but we also fought for cards on the market. The decision of where to place the sticker affected the entire campaign. In the future, when buying cards from the market, we looked for our allies. In total, throughout the game, we could stick 20 stickers, choosing from special sheets arranged according to cost.

I decided to combine my faction with the Scavengers, who scrapped cards, and the Kingdom, which provided steady credit supplies.

Gosia, on the other hand, focused mainly on purple cards, which dealt more damage.

Interestingly, there were situations where we took cards from the market even if they did not belong to our alliance, just so that our opponents could not use them. It was quite malicious, and you could often hear “hey, why do you need this card?”

We only received stickers for the first four scenarios of the game. They are also an alternative condition for victory in these missions. Whoever sticks all the stickers from one sheet wins. Unfortunately, none of us managed to do that. It was quite difficult to do, especially considering that we had to spend more than 9 credits to add some cards to our alliance.

The biggest drawback of the stickers was that they were too long. When stuck on the card, they protruded beyond the ability frames and looked quite unaesthetic. With bases, you had to be especially careful not to cover the defense values. We could have trimmed them, but we just didn’t feel like it.

However, returning to our clash, I must say that the fights were quite even. Both my wife and I won twice. However, it wasn’t just victories that counted in the individual scenarios to win the entire campaign.

3. The Empire Strikes Back

After each completed scenario, the winner received 1 victory trophy. So you could say that whoever won more times would probably win the whole campaign. Well, not really. Because we also got points for having more cards of a given faction in the alliance and for being the first to finish all of our sticker sheets.

Star Realms Rise of Empire also introduced many mechanics that balanced the odds so that they were quite even. This is because the rules of the new scenarios often slightly helped the loser. After all, it would be bad to continue playing knowing that we had already lost everything at the very beginning.

Another thing that helped with balance were the gambit cards. They provided powerful one-time abilities and buffs to our actions. However, their usefulness varied. Some gambits were only useful to one of our factions, and some of them were quite situational.

With 6 scenarios, I had a 4-win advantage. My strategy focused on discarding my wife’s cards and reducing the chance of her explosive turns. Unfortunately, my opponent healed herself well, and I focused more on credits to buy more expensive cards.

Everything changed in the following missions. Now my wife began to regain the upper hand. This change was probably due to the power nap we took before continuing. We also ate lunch to have the strength to finish the whole campaign.

4. The phantom menace of playing all day

The next scenarios mainly involved combat. Unfortunately, we didn’t get anything new that would change our experience so far. We also felt a slight fatigue from constant deck building. However, I blame the fact that we decided to finish it in one day. Who does that?

The state of the campaign was such that Gosia was winning successive scenarios. Her advantage became overwhelming. However, I knew that I had more cards from two different factions in my alliance. Each of us also had only one sticker left to stick. I knew that whoever achieved this goal first would win the entire campaign.

5. The awakening of the final force

The time has come for the 12th and final scenario, after which we were to determine the winner. We open the envelope, read the additional mission rules, and look with excitement at what we are about to face…

I won’t spoil what awaited us in the finale, but it was quite a plot twist that no one expected, just like the Spanish Inquisition. I’ll just tell you that it was epic and turned the whole premise of the campaign upside down.

This last scenario could literally change everything. However, I won’t go into it further so as not to spoil it, just like I once ruined season 4 of Vikings for a friend.

6. The Bearded Empire Strikes Back

After the last scenario, we moved on to the final scoring. We pulled out our trophy cards and eagerly counted on winning. None of us managed to stick the last sticker. If my wife had done so, she would probably have won.

However, it was my Empire that triumphed, scoring 11 points to Gosia’s 10. The result was very close, and in most cases, all the mechanisms balancing the game were behind this small difference.

Summary

Summing up the whole day spent deck building, I must say that we had a great time. There were emotions, there were moments of despair when we didn’t get the cards we needed, and there were moments when we eagerly read what the next scenarios would bring.

We both really like Star Realms, and this campaign definitely added a new dimension to our normal games. Especially the finale, which surprised us a little and broke the routine of doing the same thing all the time. We also came to the conclusion that in the future we would spread such a game over at least two days. After all, after so many hours, we felt a little tired.

Another conclusion that comes to mind is that I liked the whole legacy aspect, but it’s a shame there wasn’t more of it. It’s a pity that there was no way to improve the starting deck, for example, because we started with the same one all the time and had to reset everything in each scenario. It would have been nice if the leaders, who change so much in the basic game, had also joined our game. It woud be great.

Final verdict: Star Realms Rise of Empire is basically one big “sticker” on the basic version of the game, which drew us in completely. It was definitely worth spending the whole day deck building.

PS Now I have to watch Star Wars for the thousandth time.

[Game provided by IUVI Games]