Galactic Empires - 6 Reviews
John Hammer
Subject: Re: Galactic Empires
Date: 20 Sep 1994 02:23:24 GMT
Organization: New York University, New York, NY
Lines: 59
Message-ID: <35lh2s$5...@cmcl2.NYU.EDU>
In article <35la72$14...@tequesta.gate.net>, gbo...@gate.net (George
Booras) wri
tes:
>1 retailer in S. Florida, so far, has gotten Galatic Empires Introductory
> Edition Alphas and we played a few games Saturday and Sunday...
George,
Thanks for the comments about Galactic Empires.
>IMHO, its fairly good - game play works well, even though we have a few
>questions, but thats common for any new game...
If you have any questions, ask them here AND in email to compa...@aol.com
and
we will answer them PRONTO!
>The one thing we can complain about is the PEOPLE artwork - its
>equivalent to a Jr High or High School level artist. The ships and
>planets are fine, but the people in the art leave something to desire.
Yes, we know that most of the artwork which illustrates characters is below
par. That is being corrected by retiring the worst of them in the second
printing in favor of similar, but completely new, cards with greatly
improved
artwork. On the other hand, I LOVE the stuff that Gary Kalin did (most of
the
ships, bases, and so on) and Haveman's terrain cards are outstanding, IMHO.
>Anyways, gameplay is good, with games lasting about 1 hr or less
>depending on the # of players - a friend bought 3 decks and 10 boosters
>and we shuffled them up and split them into 4 decks - worked well too.
>Resources are a good idea, problem with this basic set is that there are
>not enough planets, etc which create certain resources such as repair
>points.
Hmm... And I thought there were too many terrain cards in Basic Deck
compared
to the number of ship cards and others.
One thing to point out is that Galactic Empires is not a game where "The
person
with the most money wins." In fact, with one Basic Deck and 8 Expansion
Packs,
which gives you 130 cards for $30-, a player will be just as competetive and
have just as much a chance to win as someone who spent hundreds of dollars
for
cards. Of course, the people who spent the hundreds of dollars might
convince
themselves that they are having more fun because they have a greater
selection
of cards from which they can build their playing decks, but it really
doesn't
give them a better chance to win (except when playing certain w e i r d
rules
variations and optional game structures.
>All in all a good first effort and worth playing if you are looking for a
>space oriented card game.
>
>Later,
>George
Best wishes,
John Hammer
Editor, Companion Games
----------
*********************************
Number: 8656 Name: GALACTIC EMPIRES.TXT
Address: TELESTRO Date: 941005
Approximate # of bytes: 14464
Number of Accesses: 29 Library: 3
Description:
This file contains a review of Galactic Empires, a science fiction trading
card game from Companion Games. Its first edition was available at GenCon,
and the new edition should be out around Thanksgiving. Download this short
file for info on how its played, and how good it is. (Trust me, it's
fun, and easy to play.)
Keywords: galactic,empires,trading,card,sf
-----
Galactic Empires Review (Introductory Edition)
Early October, 1994
by Timothy Bailey (Tele...@genie.geis.com, Tele...@aol.com)
"Galactic Empires" is a science fiction trading card game published by
Companion Games. The information that you need to get in touch with them:
Companion Games 1-800-49-GAMES Compa...@aol.com
P.O. Box 392 (607) 652-9038
Stamford, NY 12167 FAX: (607) 652-9021
Admittedly, I was not impressed too much by Galactic Empires when I first
saw it at GenCon this year. For instance, the art was not very impressive
to my view, and they were selling cards in clear plastic wrappers. =But=
after getting a starter pack and taking a look, I find that it is actually
rather good, proving the adage (cliche?) that you can't judge a book by its
cover.
OK, so the art is not whiz-bang. Actually, some of it is rather good, such
as the ship pictures. Some of it makes me want to cover it up, but then
again, not everyone is going to like everything. Setting aside the issue
of the art, the graphic design is good, with everything laid out
consistently on each card. I wish that the icons that they used were a
little more mnemonic, but they are easily memorized after a game or two.
Cards generally follow this layout (squashed vertically, of course):
---------------------------------------------------------
| (Card Type)(Strength) (Name) |
| |
| |
| (Art) |
| |
| |
| (Explanation/Flavor Text) |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------
or, for Ships and Bases:
---------------------------------------------------------
| (Card Type)(Strength)(Point Cost) (Shield Points) |
| (Name) |
| |
| |
| (Art) |
| |
| |
| (Explanation/Flavor Text) |
| |
---------------------------------------------------------
I'll go into the what this means after I say a little about what the game
is about. It obviously borrows a little flavor from a certain popular
science fiction TV series. For instance, there are phasers and ships of
many different alien empires. But the execution is a bit different. These
empires are at war, and you can play ships, planets, crew and equipment in
an attempt to defeat your opponents. (A player may only use Ships from one
of the two empires, plus non-aligned Ships.) Between 2 and 10 can play,
although 4-5 is recommended. A player is kicked out of the game when his
headquarters takes 25 points of damage (which is not represented by a card,
and can only be attacked if the defender has no ships in play). The last
player alive wins.
The 50-card Basic Deck (which is a set selection of cards) is enough for
two players to play the "Basic Game", which is a simpler version of the
main game. All players pull cards out of the one deck in this version. (a
minimum of 25 cards for each player is recommended, so two Basic Decks can
be shuffled together to allow four people to play. Expansion Packs can be
bought with a random selection of 12 cards (out of a series of 92) to get
more powerful cards. With the addition of these, players can design their
own decks and play the standard version.
There are ten types of cards, each with a different letter (the "Card Type"
depicted above). These cards are:
T - Terrain
Terrain cards provide points of different types that must be used to
power Ships and Bases each turn. If a Ship or Base is not powered, it may
not attack or do basically anything besides using shields. Terrain may be
planets, moons, asteroids, nebulas or even black holes, to name a few.
Terrain often provides several different types of points. The types of
points are represented by those non-mnemonic (and non-ASCII) symbols I
mentioned earlier, and are:
Economy - may be used as any other type of point
Supply - some Ships require these each turn
Energy - some Ships also require these each turn
Ammo - Ships with heavy weapons need these to fire
Research - used to get rid of monsters (these points can also be
generated by some crew members)
Repair - used to repair Ships and shields
S - Ship
A Ship can use its weapons to attack anything with a Strength rating each
turn. Ships can have phasers and some type of heavy weapon, and are rated
for each. Phasers do not need ammo, but cannot damage Terrain. If an
opposing player does not have any Ships in play, then his HQ can be
attacked.
A player may not have more total Ships and Bases in play than there are
players playing, barring special situations.
Most Ships belong to either the Krebiz or Argonian Empires, (more empires
will be added in the next edition of the game) and a player may not have
Ships from more than one empire in play at a time. Some Ships, such as
freighters, belong to neither empire, so may be used in conjunction with
Ships from either. The Krebiz ships are interesting as they come in two
independent pieces that may be joined into one. (This somewhat gets around
the limitation of Ships in play.)
B - Base
These are like Ships, only they cannot block attacks made against your
HQ, and they are attached to a specific Terrain. They have special
beneficial effects on their Terrain (for instance, giving it shields, or
increasing its point output)
R - Reaction
Reaction cards are actually another type of card (such as Equipment or
Crew) that may be played during another player's turn. For instance, if an
opponent is playing a Space Dragon on one of your Ships (it does two damage
to your Ship each turn, among other things), you can play your Science
Officer in reaction (suspends hostile monsters' actions at the Ship he is
on) to keep the damage from happening.
E - Equipment
This includes Transporters, which allows you to transfer Crew between
different Ships.
C - Crew
Crew are individuals that have special abilities, like the above-
mentioned Science Officer. He also generates a Research Point each turn.
O - Occurrence
These are good or bad events that can be played to help or hinder a Ship.
For instance, the Breakdown Occurrence keeps a specific Ship or Base from
using its weapons or other equipment until a Repair Point is spent to fix
it.
H - Hazard
These are usually harmful cards that usually represent a Terrain. For
instance, the Pulsar does 1 point of damage each turn to a specific
Terrain, Ship or Base for three turns, then is destroyed.
M - Monster
Yes, there are monsters in space. These have usually damaging effects on
the Terrain, Ship or Base they are played on. For instance, the Small
Phaser Eel absorbs all phaser energy that the Ship puts out.
L - Luck
There are no Luck cards in the Basic Deck, but they apparently are like
Occurrence cards, only dealing with luck more.
The "Strength" of a card is how much damage that it can take before it is
destroyed. Terrain, Shops, Bases, Equipment, Crew, Hazard and Monster
cards have this. Ships and Bases often also have Shields, which take
damage before Strength does. Strength and Shields may be repaired at the
beginning of your turn by using Repair Points, and Shields automatically
regenerate a point each turn.
Play is simple; basically, you total up all the points you get from Terrain
and other sources, then allocate them. Ships and Bases that do not get
their Recommended Daily Allowance become Disengaged, which means that they
(and the Crew and Equipment on them) basically can only defend themselves
until your next turn. Then you can play cards, declare attacks (one attack
per target, although many different Ships/Bases can fire at the same target
each turn), and them play more cards. Players may play no more than 3
cards during their turn. This includes putting more Ships in play, adding
Equipment, and the like. At the end of your turn, you can have some of
your Ships self-destruct (useful if they have paralyzing Monsters and
Occurrences on them, because you can only have a limited number of Ships in
play at a time), and you can discard some cards from your hand. Then you
may pick up to two cards, depending on how may cards you hold. (Two cards
if you have nine or fewer cards, one if you have 10-11, or none if you have
12+.)
Be prepared to use a lot of dice, because most things in play (including
yourself) need to have the amount of damage they have taken kept track of.
Most cards in the Basic Deck have Strengths of up to 4, with a few up to 6.
Each player can take 25.
So, what do I think about it? Well, it is slightly overpriced at $10 for
the 50-card Starter Deck, but that does let two people play. I hope that
the prices drop slightly so that people are more inclined to buy it. I
found that play is quick, at least with the cards in the Starter Deck. It
does take a while to do 25 damage to your opponent though, especially when
it is possible to put up to three ships into play each turn to block your
shots. (Two in the two-player version I played, because of the ship
limit.) Even if they are not fed points so that they can attack, they
still can stop attacks against your opponent's HQ. Especially because of
the large hand size, losing players can hang around a long time, and
eventually turn the tables. Note that in the Basic Rules, that when the
draw pile is exhausted, the discard pile is reshuffled. So that Space
Dragon you used to kill off your opponent's Sunspot Frigate may be coming
into your opponent's hand next time. Playing time is said to be 1-2 hours,
and that sounds about right.
I wish that the rules were a little more explicit; for instance, there is
no diagram in the rules like the card diagrams that I drew above. I had to
figure out what all the funny symbols meant on my own, (there is a chart
that defines what they are named in the rule book, but does that mean you
need to spend that much to bring them into play, or what?) and realize that
despite the fact they are in the same position on both Ship and Terrain
cards, they have opposite meanings. Because the rules are so simple, it's
not a big problem. There is an example of play in the book that explains
the basic sequence of play, although it is rather short and only covers a
couple turns of play.
And I have to do the requisite comparison with M*g*c. :) Galactic Empires
does seem to handle multiplayer games much better than Magic, probably in
part because it was designed that way. The limit on each player's
Ships/Bases to the number of players seems to keep one player with lucky
draws from overwhelming his opponent. And there are limits on the deck
size (lower and upper), plus lower limits on the number of each type of
card. (5, to be precise) And, most importantly, limits to the Strengths
that can be placed in the deck. (No filling your deck with Strength 9
Ships.) There are also rules for a "Reserve Fleet", in which players can
stick cards that they feel they really need. They can use one of their 3
card plays a turn to stick a card into their Reserve Fleet to grab a card
with an equal or lower Strength to put in their hand. Plus, a major bonus,
there are tournament rules right there in the rules booklet.
Yes, it is obviously inspired by Magic. In fact, many of the concepts can
be explained to a Magic player through Magic terms such as "upkeep" and
"toughness." However, it is different enough (and simpler to learn) that
it is worthwhile to buy a Basic Deck to try, and then buy some Expansion
Packs if you like it. Certainly, it seems to be a more elegant design than
the second major trading card game to come out. (Admittedly, that unnamed
game does have a better graphic presentation than Galactic Empires, but it
looks like strategy comes more into play here. And the art isn't
recycled.)
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
And now, after I finish the review, I finally get around to looking at the
article about GE in Scrye Magazine #2. :) This is probably a good thing,
because I was judging the game on its own merits without outside
information. But now I see that the cards were in clear plastic because
the full-color boxes and expansion pack wrappers were held up for 6-8
weeks. Those who get packs in the clear wrappers can send for replacement
boxes when they ship, free. (Hmm...) Also, the Primary Edition (as
opposed to the Introductory Edition, which is likely to be sold out by now)
is scheduled for between Thanksgiving and Christmas and will have the full
count of 300-350 cards, including all but 5 of the 91 cards in the
Introductory Edition. The Primary Edition will have two different decks,
Deck A will be pretty similar to the Introductory version, with 55 cards
that are identical in every Deck A. Another 12 will be random. Deck B
will have a mix of cards including ones from the Corporate and Mechad
empires. 55 of these cards will be identical among all Deck B's, and there
will be 12 random ones. Expansion Packs will have 12 random cards. Basic
Decks will be $9.95 and Expansion Packs will be $2.45.
This review is Copyright 1994 by Timothy Bailey. "Galactic Empires" and
related terms are Copyright 1994 by Companion Games.
----------
"Just got my cards and am highly pumped! They look great....The rules are
very well thought out and the command rules make the game very interesting."
Dustin Hamilton
"The rules look (thankfully) simple and straightforward....I must say that
I *love* the game. The thought that went into the gameplay is obvious, as
it doesn't have any of the flaws of [that other game]. The strategy
involved is so much more subtle...yet not much more difficult. In any case,
I just wanted to let you know how much I thoroughly enjoy the game."
Dan Gosselin
"I have gone over the rules and played a couple hands against myself to get
the feel for the game, and I am quite impressed. It seems to be a lot less
ambiguous than [the other card games]....I have sent e-mail to the rep who
posted about this game, and asked several questions about the gameplay. I
am satisfied from the clear and prompt response that I received that GE is a
serious game and one that should be considered by people looking for an
alternative to [other card games]."
Randy P
In article <D0u1z...@news.sgp.hp.com>, ro...@sgp.hp.com () writes:
>Brent Bergwall (ko...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: I ordered some beta cards and from what I have heard it looks like a cool
>: game...
>
>Hi!
> I got my Alpha starters and some boosters! Started playing them with my
> group and loved the game. The mechanics are much simpler but the game at
> least has replayability unlike [that other game]. The only letdown would
be the
> artwork but I guess if you wanted artwork then you're aren't a player.
----------
From: hbrt...@huey.csun.edu (blake fischer)
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.misc
Subject: Re: Galactic Empires: anyone seen or played it
Date: 18 Dec 1994 22:36:56 GMT
Organization: California State University, Northridge
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <3d2di8$5...@nic-nac.CSU.net>
> Blake,
> Yes, Scrye #4 illustrates some cards from Primary. The page backgrounds
are actual
> card art backgrounds.
> We've tried real hard to make the game very playable and to provide alot
of
> variations (including lots of different cards) without building in any
need to
> buy more than about $30- worth of cards to be able to play competetively
with
> someone who has hundreds of dollars of cards. Here at Companion, we're
> players first and collectors second - - - and money-makers last.
> Best wishes,
> John
> Companion Games
I just have to give major Kudos to Companion here. I really didn't see
much hope for GE when I got my alpha cards (the art was not very good).
But the game was pretty playable. Now it seems that the art has been
upgraded, the play has been given even more variety, and the game is being
well marketed. I have spent $16 on GE and I have a pretty playable deck - -
Thats cool! I like the idea that you're supposed to be competitive at
$30 -- other companies would do well to learn from this.
Blake The Stu
----------
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.misc
From: 113...@cygni.ho.att.com (Nick Sauer)
Subject: Galactic Empires review (primary edition)
Message-ID: <D12DJ...@nntpa.cb.att.com>
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 15:26:06 GMT
Lines: 104
In short: Go out and buy this game! I have been playing the Intro release
of Galactic Empires for awhile now. I have also been telling people that it
is the best multi-player collectible trading card game out there. With the
release of Primary Edition this absolutely locks GE in as a game that is
very much worth playing.
The first thing that is noticeably different in primary edition is the new
artwork. If the artwork turned you off GE before (apparently a fairly
common complaint) you should take a look at Primary Edition. Scrye issue
four has a lead article on Primary GE and shows a very representative set of
the new artwork. The artwork is stunning and very much up to the standards
of all the other CTC games out there. Companion Games got a number of
familiar artists to illustrate the cards. I was particuarly pleased with
the fact that Melisa Benson did a good number of the cards (as she is my
all-time favorite Magic artist).
The second thing that is new is the much larger number of cards. Where
Alpha had 91 cards, Primary GE has 440 (actually, 439 cards that you can buy
and 1 that you can only get by winning GE tournaments). There are now alot
more empires to work with as well. Primary GE has four major empires and
four minor ones. The minor empires have enough ships (or dragons) and
equipment that any of these can be used as the primary empire in your deck
as well.
The game includes 11 different classes of cards labelled A, B, C, D, E, H,
L, M, O, S, and T. These stand for Abilities, Bases, Crew, Dragons,
Equipment, Hazards, Luck, Monsters, Occurances, Ships and Terrain,
respectively. Each class has cards numbered from 1-9 and some of the
classes have 10 cards as well. The main two cards you need to worry about
are Terrain and Ships (these are also the two classes of cards that make up
the highest percentage of cards in the game). Terrain provides supply,
energy, ammo, research and economy points. The first three points are what
you use to engage your ships. Ships need supply and most need energy also.
After a ship is engaged, if it has any heavy weapons, each one must be
activated by spending an ammo point. Ships are what you use to attack other
players' fleets and, ultimately, their sector headquarters. Ships in your
fleet also protect your sector headquarters from being attacked by other
players' fleets.
On your turn you do the following. First, you allocate terrain points.
Your terrain and some of your bases will generate the points described
above. At this time you use this to engage ships and power up their heavy
weapons or use points to remove monsters, occurances or hazards that have
been played on you by other players (this usually takes research points).
Once you are done assigning points you go to the engagement phase. All your
ships and bases that have received the appropriate amount of supply and
energy engage, which means they can fire. Next you have a play cards phase.
You can play a maximum of three cards from your hand during your turn.
Next, you have your fire weapons phase. All of your engaged ships can fire
their phasers (or subspace whips) and any heavy weapons that were powered up
at other player's fleets. A single card can only be targeted once but can
receive fire from multiple sources. Ships are damaged with one point from
each phaser or heavy weapon fired at it. Terrain can only be damaged by
heavy weapons and takes one point for each heavy weapon fired at it. The
sector headquarters can only be fired at if a player has no ships left in
his fleet and is damaged just like ships above. After the fire phase you
get a second play cards phase. Finally, you get the discard phase where you
can order ships and bases in your fleet to self-destruct (i.e. discard them
from play) and use any of your remaining card plays for the turn to discard
cards from your hand. You then draw cards from your deck based on your hand
size: 9 or less cards you draw 2, 10 or 11 draw one, 12+ no draw. Oh yeah,
you start the game with a hand of 9 cards.
There are some cards within some of the classes labelled with an R/ in
front of their class and number. These are called reaction cards and can be
played during other player's turns in reaction to stuff they do. If played
during another player's turn these cards do not count
against your three card limit on your turn. Reaction cards can also be
played in response to other reaction cards. This then follows the standard
LIFO resolution order.
Ships have shields (the Mechad have EMF nodes) and structure points. The
number of shields a ship has is shown on the card with shield icons. A
ship's structure points is equal to its number (an S4 ship has four
structure points). Shields repair one point for free at the start of your
turn. Repair points can be used to fix structure or shields on damaged
ships.
To win the game you must destroy your opponents' sector headquarters.
These each have 25 points and (generally) cannot be repaired with repair
points. When a player's sector headquarters is destroyed he is out of the
game and the person who knocked him out gets to draw two cards as a victory
celebration. To quote the rules, it is amazing what your population will do
for you if you are winning the war.
Those familiar with the Alpha rules will find few differences in the rules
themselves (mostly additions to clarify rules). The deck construction rules
are probably where the most changes have occured but they still follow the
same format as Alpha. The Primary rules also include a Q&A section at the
end (which is always a good thing).
Overall, Primary Edition Galactic Empires is the best multi-player CTC game
available on the market right now. I cannot recommend this game highly
enough.
Nick Sauer
----------
Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.misc
From: a...@pegasus.bl-els.att.com (-Alan M. Gopin)
Subject: [GE] Galactic Empires Primary Review
Message-ID: <D12pK...@nntpa.cb.att.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 19:46:06 GMT
A Review of Galactic Empires, Primary Edition:
Summary:
The best multiplayer collectable card game to date. It has high physical
quality, significantly improved artwork over Intro, and tremendous play
value. Buy this game! Then tell your friends to buy it, too! It's a +3 on
the Leeper Scale of -4 to +4.
The Fine Print:
The Primary Edition of Galactic Empires: The Science Fiction Trading Card
Game has just come out, and it completely blew me away. Primary makes all
the good things about GE better, and fixes the only weakness of Intro, the
cartoonish artwork. There is one small problem primarily for people who
don't have access to Alpha or Beta cards, a lack of economy-producing
terrain cards.
Primary increases the card count from 91 to 430 and adds two new card
types, Dragons and Attributes. There are now 11 card types and cards
ranging in value from 1 to 10 in each type. The deck construction rules
have been improved to take into account the new types and players'
individual styles. You are now only required to have 8 of the 11 card types
in your deck, so if you don't like dragons (for example), you don't have to
use them.
The physical quality of the cards is excellent and the new artwork is just
stunning. If you blew off GE's Introductory Edition because you didn't like
the artwork, be sure to check out the new Primary cards. You will be in for
a very pleasant suprise.
GE was built from the ground up as a multiplayer game and it shows. The
game works for multiple players and the many reaction cards that can be
played during other players' turns insures a high degree of interaction
among the players. When your turn is over in GE, it is NOT time to go read
a book until play gets back to you. Everybody in a game of GE is involved
all the time, and in every game I've played, everyone is enjoying
themselves. GE passes one of my most important tests of a good game in that
it is a game that you will enjoy playing even while you are getting your
butt kicked.
The deck construction rules make sense, and there are a variety of deck
constructions strategies that are viable. This will increase the play value
of the game, because all the decks won't look the same.
The only problem with Primary is the significantly increased rarity of
terrain cards that generate economy points. These are the most important
terrain cards in GE because economy points can be used for just about any
other type of point, most importantly for repair, ammo, and research. I
gave a Primary A Basic Deck and a Primary B Basic Deck to two of my son's
friends so he would have more people to play with. In those four decks
there was not a single economy point-producing terrain card. If you're
playing against people with Alpha or Beta cards, this makes the game nearly
unplayable without buying a few Expansion Packs. The silver lining to this
problem is that those of us who have lots of Alpha terrain cards where
economy points are common are suddenly sitting on an extremely valuable
commodity.
Alan Gopin
a...@cmprime.att.com