Glenn Drover's Empires: Galactic Rebellion

I came to Empires: Galactic Rebellion with the perfectly reasonable expectation that an “improved and streamlined” Deluxe Age of Empires, inspired by Star Wars, would preserve the parts that made Age of Empires worthwhile. Instead, it appears to have removed precisely those parts, while the artwork is so poor that “Deluxe” plays like a practical joke.

At its core, this is light area control, occupying a niche that is not easy to fill when six people need a game. The flow is light enough not to weigh down the group, but it never develops the interest or pressure needed to justify the promise of a better Age of Empires.

Interaction can become more social than properly combative, with players sharing the space rather than squeezing each other as hard as they ought to. It only really wakes up at the explosive finish, where rebel mothers weep and the table finally feels as though something is at stake.

I did not have a miserable time, and its use as light area control for six is genuine. That is still not enough to rescue a game that feels thin in the places where its predecessor had a reason to exist.

Updated session

A second play confirmed the first impression: it is useful if you need light area control for six, but it remains far worse than Age of Empires and a cash-in that makes no serious effort to hide itself.