Image Courtesy of <PERSON> review continues my series of detailed reviews. I have tried to cover every aspect of the game and as such you may prefer to skip to the sections of most interest.
Summary
Game Type – Card Game
Play Time: 15-45 min
Number of Players: 1-6
Mechanics – Role Selection, Hand Management, Card Combinations
Difficulty – Moderate (Can take 5-10 plays to fully comprehend rules and the basic strategy)
Components – Excellent
Overview
Race for the Galaxy – Rebel v Imperium is the second expansion to the base game, Race for the Galaxy. If you are not familiar with the base game or the 1st expansion but would like to understand them better I would recommend reading my reviews -
Race for the Galaxy - A Detailed Review
and
Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm - A Detailed Review
before continuing on, as I will not be covering any of that ground again, which includes the general flow of play.
The Gathering Storm (TGS) as an expansion focused more on the inclusion of Solo Play and maintaining a good card balance, offering up a new set of only 20 cards.
Rebel v Imperium though does what any good expansion to a card game of this nature should and adds a whopping 44 new cards to the Galactic Mix. This brings the total number of cards in play to 180 if all releases up to this point are included.
It also introduces a new mechanic in the form of Takeovers, manages the card balance, offers new Start Worlds (bringing the total to 12 (6 military and 6 non-military) and offers new goals.
This review will look at the new card inclusions in a broad sense (how they change the game) but I will outline in detail the concept of Takeovers and the impact on the Solo Game as I have played this extensively (almost 300 plays - no AI).
The Theme
If there is one disappointment for me about RftG, it is that the back story to the game isn’t that well fleshed out in the game itself (I would buy novels set in an RftG universe).
This is of course a fan gripe and something that <PERSON> may not have anticipated that gamers would want when he was developing it.
What do we know…
Well the galaxy was becoming a tense place in The Gathering Storm as the Imperium grew in strength and Space Mercenaries were utilised to crush opposition. In this expansion, RvI, the Imperium is looking to tighten their grip on power and this serves to steel the resolve of the Rebel factions (Rebel Stronghold, Rebel Pact, Primitive World and Convict Miners). Both sides respond to the changing political landscape by forming 2 key 6-Cost Devs in the Imperium Seat and the Rebel Alliance.
This of course cannot be tolerated by the Imperium and they seek to answer with force and mobilize the Imperium Troops! Add to that the galaxy’s eagerness to take advantage of an opportunity and we also see the arrival of Mercenary Fleets, which will assist either side for the right price. 299
The galaxy has suddenly become a volatile place where each world must weigh up their allegiance or risk the threat of Takeover.
The great backdrop to all this military posturing is that researchers are beginning to unlock the secrets of the Uplift Code, the genetic sequence found within the genomes of the races that served the great and ancient lost Alien Race. This opens up new possibilities for the galaxy and also sees the inclusion of some massive cost (and VP earning) worlds in the form of Gene Designers, Alien Data Repository and Alien Monolith. The importance of the Uplift Code is also heightened by the inclusion of a 6 cost Dev called…um…Uplift Code.
In short the theme behind RftG really begins to hum along with the RvI expansion.
Components
The In-Game Cards - As mentioned above we get a tantalising 44 new cards, 3 of which are Start Worlds. All are up to the quality of past releases and all featuring some wonderful artwork. All small cost Development cards are provided in duplicate to help address the size of the deck – so in truth we are seeing 37 new and unique cards.
The 3 new Start Worlds are; Imperium Warlord, Rebel Cantina and Galactic Developers. The first two are regarded as Military Worlds (and their powers lean that way) but all 3 are in fact grey worlds for bonus purposes.
Galactic Developers is really neat as it almost offers a new strategy of sorts…go after Developments like crazy.
Images Courtesy of ackmondual
Player Cards - RvI follows on from The Rebel Storm and offers up yet another set of cards to allow a 6th player to join the action. Man I would love to try that sometime.
Image Courtesy of roxon
Victory Point Chips - Additional Victory Point chits are provided to accommodate games featuring 6 players. 299