CoconutTank
Member
Picked up Star Realms over the weekend and played it for the first time last night. Was playing it with 3 other folks, one of which apparently has never played a deck builder game before and another that's only played Dominion. If you'd like to learn more about Star Realms you can see this link: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147020/star-realms. I'm still going to give a bit of an overview of Star Realms though.
Star Realms is basically a deckbuilder game that plays very similarly to Ascention. It is modeled around big space battles and retaining control over space (the latter is loosely explored through the use of bases and authority). There are 4 factions that show up in Star Realms: The Trade Federation, the Blobs, the Star Empire, and the Machine Cult. Each faction has different capabilities and excels at certain abilities which don't show up in other factions.
- The ability to regain authority only shows up on Trade Federation cards.
- The ability to force the enemy to discard a card from hand only shows up on Star Empire cards.
- The ability to trash cards out of hand or discard appears to be exclusive to the Machine Cult.
- I don't really remember what the Blob is supposed to excel at, but I remember most of their cards having draw power, which gives them a zergy feeling.
Cards that you play show up in 2 main types: ships and bases. When ship cards are played, they do their thing and you put them into your discard pile at the end of the turn. Base cards stay out turn after turn until they are destroyed in combat, at which point they go into your discard pile. Some base cards have the outpost keyword, which represents your front line of defense; players cannot attack you nor your regular base cards until all of your outposts have been eliminated.
Similarly to Ascension, there is a trade row where players get new cards from, and the trade row is always refilled from a giant stack of doom. In the event that players are having trouble getting enough money or firepower, there are Explorers that can be purchased (each costing $2, providing $2 when played and can be sacrificed to deal 2 damage).
Speaking of damage, that's the little wrinkle that Star Realm has (which I kind of glossed over with bases). Each player starts with 50 authority (representing player hit points), and players can deal damage to each other to reduce authority. When a player is reduced to 0 authority, that player is out of the game. The last player standing is the winner.
As I said, it was the first time we've ever played SR. The first game we played, we did a free-for-all involving all 4 players and 2 packs combined. It was a pretty intense game, but for me at least it felt awkward to draw lines by attacking certain players when I wasn't certain if anyone would overpower me or could potentially cooperate with me against someone else (that's probably more a problem with me than with the game). After the FFA, we got dinner and played again, but this time we split up into 2 games of 1v1, and split the stack of doom apart. I think I like 1v1 games of SR more than the FFA formats, and I think having the 1st player start with 3 cards isn't as bad of a handicap as I had thought (or maybe it was dependent on what I got).
Balance wise, I think Machine Cult cards are pretty important to get. Even if you don't plan on using their ally powers, being able to trim cards out of your deck to increase efficiency is often very important in deckbuilding games. I don't think they're overpowered though, they tend to be somewhat poor at doing damage from what I recall. Star Empire cards are also pretty powerful; the $1 Imperial Fighter only dings for 1 damage, but it can force a player to discard a card, which is pretty strong. The thing is Star Empire excels at making the opponent discard cards, so although this didn't happen in our games from the previous night, it is theoretically possible to lock a player out of a turn by making a player discard 5 cards out of hand. That seems to be very strong but I'm probably missing something. I think each faction is still fairly good all around though, just happens that red and yellow are the ones that make me more worried.
Altogether though I would like to play SR more, as it was still pretty fun, and I think I'd recommend it over Ascension.
Star Realms is basically a deckbuilder game that plays very similarly to Ascention. It is modeled around big space battles and retaining control over space (the latter is loosely explored through the use of bases and authority). There are 4 factions that show up in Star Realms: The Trade Federation, the Blobs, the Star Empire, and the Machine Cult. Each faction has different capabilities and excels at certain abilities which don't show up in other factions.
- The ability to regain authority only shows up on Trade Federation cards.
- The ability to force the enemy to discard a card from hand only shows up on Star Empire cards.
- The ability to trash cards out of hand or discard appears to be exclusive to the Machine Cult.
- I don't really remember what the Blob is supposed to excel at, but I remember most of their cards having draw power, which gives them a zergy feeling.
Cards that you play show up in 2 main types: ships and bases. When ship cards are played, they do their thing and you put them into your discard pile at the end of the turn. Base cards stay out turn after turn until they are destroyed in combat, at which point they go into your discard pile. Some base cards have the outpost keyword, which represents your front line of defense; players cannot attack you nor your regular base cards until all of your outposts have been eliminated.
Similarly to Ascension, there is a trade row where players get new cards from, and the trade row is always refilled from a giant stack of doom. In the event that players are having trouble getting enough money or firepower, there are Explorers that can be purchased (each costing $2, providing $2 when played and can be sacrificed to deal 2 damage).
Speaking of damage, that's the little wrinkle that Star Realm has (which I kind of glossed over with bases). Each player starts with 50 authority (representing player hit points), and players can deal damage to each other to reduce authority. When a player is reduced to 0 authority, that player is out of the game. The last player standing is the winner.
As I said, it was the first time we've ever played SR. The first game we played, we did a free-for-all involving all 4 players and 2 packs combined. It was a pretty intense game, but for me at least it felt awkward to draw lines by attacking certain players when I wasn't certain if anyone would overpower me or could potentially cooperate with me against someone else (that's probably more a problem with me than with the game). After the FFA, we got dinner and played again, but this time we split up into 2 games of 1v1, and split the stack of doom apart. I think I like 1v1 games of SR more than the FFA formats, and I think having the 1st player start with 3 cards isn't as bad of a handicap as I had thought (or maybe it was dependent on what I got).
Balance wise, I think Machine Cult cards are pretty important to get. Even if you don't plan on using their ally powers, being able to trim cards out of your deck to increase efficiency is often very important in deckbuilding games. I don't think they're overpowered though, they tend to be somewhat poor at doing damage from what I recall. Star Empire cards are also pretty powerful; the $1 Imperial Fighter only dings for 1 damage, but it can force a player to discard a card, which is pretty strong. The thing is Star Empire excels at making the opponent discard cards, so although this didn't happen in our games from the previous night, it is theoretically possible to lock a player out of a turn by making a player discard 5 cards out of hand. That seems to be very strong but I'm probably missing something. I think each faction is still fairly good all around though, just happens that red and yellow are the ones that make me more worried.
Altogether though I would like to play SR more, as it was still pretty fun, and I think I'd recommend it over Ascension.
