This Kickstarter Features:

Star Realms Rise of Empire  – Perfect for new players and experts alike,  this 2-6 player game starts as epic 2-player, 12-scenario legacy campaign. When the campaign is done, Rise of Empire can be played again and again as a customized 2-6-player Star Realms set that is fully compatible with all other Star Realms sets.

Rise of Empire Infinite Replay Kit  – This 180-card set has everything you need to reset and replay your Rise of Empire campaign as many times as you like! This kit allows legacy play without using stickers!

A Kickstarter Exclusive Scenario – A 13th Scenario for Rise of Empire with 3 Kickstarter Exclusive Promo cards!

Kickstarter Exclusive Stretch Goal Promo Cards – We’ve designed a ton of awesome promo cards for you to unlock!

About Star Realms

Star Realms is a fast-paced game of space battles that combines the fun of a deckbuilding game with the interactivity of Trading Card Game-style combat. As you play, you’ll use Trade to acquire new Ships and Bases from a row of cards called the “Trade Row”.

You use the Ships and Bases you acquire to either generate more Trade, or to generate Combat to attack your opponent and their Bases. When you reduce your opponent’s score (called Authority) to zero, you win!

Check out this Star Realms Base Set playthrough with Wil Wheaton:

Scroll down to “Playthroughs and Previews”  to see Rise of Empire video

Rise of Empire

This 2-6 player game features an epic 2-player, 12-scenario legacy campaign in which one player plays the industrious Trade Federation and the other plays the seceding Star Empire! When the campaign is done, Rise of Empire can be played again and again as a customized 2-6-player Star Realms set that is fully compatible with all other Star Realms sets.

 

This 2-6 player Box Set includes :

• A beautiful 22″ x 11″ game board.
• 2 full-art double-sided score dials.
• A full-color rulebook.
• 12 Scenario Packs each containing an oversized Scenario Card and everything else needed to play that Scenario.
• 9 Sticker Sheets for permanently upgrading cards (Or use the optional Infinite Replay Kit expansion if you don’t want to sticker your cards).
• An all-new 60-card Trade Deck featuring three new factions!
• An 11-card Star Empire starting deck including two Star Empire cards,  and 8 Scouts and a Viper with new artwork.
• An 11-card Trade Federation starting deck including two Trade Federation cards, and 8 Scouts and a Viper with new artwork.
• 20 Explorers with new artwork.
• 4 standard starting decks with new artwork.
• 4 sets of scorecards.
• Additional cards of various types that brings the total to over 200 game cards!
• A sturdy game box (about 12″x12″x 3.5″) with space to hold and organize all your Rise of Empire and Infinite Replay Kit cards with or without sleeves!

Game Board

Rise of Empire comes with this beautiful, high-quality,  22 inch by 11 inch (560mm x 280mm) game board.

Score Dials

Both players get their own 140mm x 70 mm (about 5.5 x 2.75 inches) score dial featuring their faction’s artwork!

Custom Starting Decks

When you play the campaign, you and your opponent will each choose a faction; Trade Federation or Star Empire. You will play as that faction through all 13 scenarios. Decisions you make in early games will reverberate through the entire play experience!

In the far future, the traditional governing bodies of the human race have been replaced with corporate leadership. Earth and its surrounding colonies (known as the “Core Worlds”) are ruled by a group of corporations called the Trade Federation.

The frontier of known space is continuously expanded with research expeditions and new colonies.   Barren, airless worlds are transformed into lush hospitable homes for new generations of humanity.

The vast wealth of the Trade Federation is concentrated in the more developed Core Worlds, and especially amongst the individual corporate shareholders on those worlds. While some decry this as “unfair”, this profit motivation has successfully catapulted humanity to the stars.

The Federation has brought order and peace to the galaxy. Battles do sometimes occur between colonies, but they know their dispute must end quickly, or the Federation fleet will end it for them.  In the rare cases when a colony rebels, ships from nearby Federation worlds are rapidly assembled to put down the insurrection.

 

Until the Star Empire’s uprising, the Trade Federation ruled all of known space. As the Trade Federation player, your cards and upgrades will frequently grant you additional Authority (score), making you very hard to defeat.

Every planet and station in the Star Empire,  as in the rest of known space, started as for-profit ventures by corporations within the Trade Federation. The poor were promised a chance to earn their fortune on the frontier. Instead, they found a hard life or cold death on inhospitable worlds.

After many generations of toil and terraforming, the Star Empire established strong infrastructure and the potential to prosper.  A potential denied by choking levels of taxation. The Federation allows the Emperor to rule over his worlds, so long as their taxes are paid on time.

The Emperor was tempted to fight, but he had seen how other rebellions were crushed by the combined might of the Trade Federation. So instead, he bided his time. Records were forged, production capacity was underreported, and slowly, over many years, a great fleet was built in secret.

Now his fleet has grown so large that the risk of discovery outweighs the advantage of another day of preparation. Independence is declared! The Star Empire is born!

 

Every bit of territory the Star Empire gains, the Trade Federation has lost.  As the Star Empire player,  your cards and upgrades will often force your opponent to discard cards from their hand, crippling their next turn!

The Rise of Empire Trade Deck consists of three all-new factions!

The Consortium, the Kingdom, and the Scavengers are star realms neighboring the Star Empire. The Trade Federation is trying to maintain order and keep these factions in the Federation, while the Star Empire is trying to convince them to join the rebellion!

Situated between the Star Empire and Trade Federation’s core worlds, the Consortium is the wealthiest and most developed of the Star Empire’s neighbors.

Many Consortium citizens are jealous of the riches of Earth and the Core Worlds, and could easily be convinced to rebel. However, others have strong trade relationships with the Federation, and could lose significant wealth and influence if ties were cut.

 

Many Consortium cards provide trade,  making them good purchases in the early game to build up your purchasing power.

When you acquire Consortium cards, you may draw and discard cards.  More expensive Consortium cards will let you draw without discarding, or even allow you to draw 2 cards and discard 1.

The Kingdom is a militaristic monarchy about as far from Earth and the Core Worlds as the Star Empire is.

The Queen has no love of the Trade Federation and its taxation, but she is also wary of the Emperor. Does he truly offer independence, or does he simply hope to replace the Trade Federation as the Kingdom’s overlord?

Kingdom cards often provide combat when played, making them essential for destroying enemy bases and defeating your opponent.

When you acquire a Kingdom card, you gain combat immediately. The more expensive the Kingdom card, the more combat you will gain!

The Scavengers are not a united star realm, but a loose coalition of salvagers, traders, smugglers, pirates, unsanctioned mining operations, and wildcat colonies. Their common thread is that they all eke out an existence on the fringes of known space.

Most Scavengers’ haven’t paid a credit of tax in their life, and couldn’t give a spent recycler about the Federation or the Empire. They do, however, like stuff.

Credits, O2, precious metals, biomass, engine parts… every Scavenger has their price.

Scavenger cards are flexible, often providing a mix of trade and combat.

When you acquire a Scavenger card, you may scrap a card, allowing you to remove a weak starting card from your deck, so you will draw your powerful purchased cards more frequently. (No one is quite sure what the Scavengers’ do with the scrapped cards… best not to ask.)

Cheaper Scavenger cards will let you scrap a single card from your hand. Mid-cost ones will let you scrap a card from your hand or discard pile, and expensive ones will let you scrap 2 cards.

Scenario Packs

Each of the 12 Rise of Empire Scenarios has an envelope containing the materials and rules needed to play that game. There are also additional envelopes you will open at different points in the campaign.

Scenario Cards

After Scenario 1, each Scenario card has a Star Empire side and a Trade Federation side with different rules.  You will use the side of whichever player won the previous scenario.

 

Sticker Sheets

During each game, when you acquire a card, it represents you convincing that ship’s or base’s commander to temporarily join your side of the war.

If you want to sweeten the deal, you can offer to upgrade their ship or base with your technology, making it more powerful and able to better interface with your fleet’s systems.

In the game, this technology upgrade is represented by adding a sticker to the card, permanently changing it.  (Or, if you are using the infinite replay kit, by swapping the card out with the upgraded version from the kit).

You can only upgrade a card as you acquire it. It costs 2 extra trade to upgrade a ship and 3 extra trade to upgrade a base. (So it would cost 8 trade to acquire and upgrade the 6 cost Battle Hauler.) You must pay for the upgrade at the same time you pay for the card (before the next card enters the Trade Row).

The upgrade sticker will add powerful new abilities to the card, but cover up its old ally and “When Acquired” abilities. You still get the “When Acquired” ability of the card as you upgrade it.

 

The upgraded card becomes a dual-faction card. It will be both your faction (Trade Federation or Star Empire) and its old faction.

You will apply the appropriate dual-faction icon from this sticker sheet:

After this game is done, the card will go back into the Trade Deck with its stickers. It is permanently upgraded! It no longer has a “When Acquired” ability, but now it has awesome new Trade Federation abilities!

Either player can acquire this card in future games, but the Trade Federation player will have an easier time triggering its ally ability as they have Trade Federation cards in their starting personal deck.

Each player gets a new sticker sheet in games 1, 2, 3, and 4.

If you complete a game’s sticker sheet during that game, you win immediately! This is known as a political victory. You can also win by reducing your opponent’s Authority to zero.

Any unused stickers from previous games are available for the rest of the campaign. (But keep in mind you can only use one sticker per row, either the ship upgrade to the left of the cost or the base upgrade to the right of the cost.) You don’t get a political victory for completing an old sticker sheet, but those upgrades are still powerful and can sometimes win you a game!

 

New-Art Scouts, Vipers, and Explorers

All the Scouts, Vipers and Explorers in Rise of Empire feature beautiful new artwork!

 

Infinite Replay Kit

This expansion set allows you to play Rise of Empire WITHOUT using stickers. It also enables you to reset your Rise of Empire campaign over and over and play through as many times as you like!

This  expansion set includes:

• A fresh copy of the Rise of Empire 60-card Trade Deck.  If you have played through Rise of Empire using the Sticker Sheets, you can set that original Trade Deck aside and replace it with this new one.
• A rules sheet with instructions for use with the Infinite Replay Kit.
• A Trade Federation checklist indicating which upgrades are available in each game.
• A Star Empire checklist indicating which upgrades are available in each game.
• 120 upgraded cards. This represents every possible ship and base upgrade that can be made in Rise of Empire! When you upgrade a card in the game, simply swap the non-upgraded card for the appropriate upgraded card from the Infinite Replay Kit.

 

For example the Infinite Replay Kit has 8 upgraded diggers (2 each of 4 different upgrades).

For 1-cost cards, the upgrades in games 1 and 3 are the same. There are different upgrades available in games 2 and 4.

Every upgraded card in the Infinite Replay Kit has bars next to the cost, indicating which game(s) it goes with.