Cool, I was just curious. Some people don’t like the stress of competing with another person, especially when they can shit talk you. No judgement, either way. If you’re sure you won’t play online, I won’t add you. We can only have 10 players.
@js619 What’s your strategy been so far? I’ve started to beat the hard AI a little more regularly. I think I’ve played 10 games today already. Ha!
Wait… there’s a strategy to this? …
I jest. I’ve started by grabbing as many of the resource cards as possible in the first round, if not first two, but I haven’t found consistent cards just yet to really formulate a game to game strategy. Neither the hard AI nor I had a lot of military going, so it was a lot of culture buildings and the few military that we did have kind of slugged it out. I’d like to use the skull cards more, but a lot of them depend on combining with other skulls, and I’m not certain that they’re guaranteed in the deck? You?
I try to get 2-3 of the resource cards out in the first round. They become less common/impactful if you get them later. I feel like getting more than four gives you a pretty bad chance of having a terrible/vulnerable setup for round 2. Particularly to a card I think is called Catapults. Regardless it has some sort of siege weaponry on it. It does 3 damage to the first position item. This is devastating if you get it off on someone’s resource in round 1 or 2.
Ranged weapons are really good at denial, and I find Ongers to be an insanely good card. So it might behoove you to grab a stronghold type card if you see one, since it completely negates it. I find cards that combo like Trade Outpost (I think, I’m terrible with names) which gives 2 culture to every resource type card, or going military heavy with cards like Shield Wall or the ones that get buffs in the presence of a small number of infantry are really good. I try to avoid things that require the presence of three or more of a single type of card though.
It’s interesting that you said the AI hasn’t had much military. I have found the opposite to be true. They’re really fond of knocking my guys out. I
If you want to try out cards with skulls, try playing with a different rival. A couple of them have guaranteed skull cards. The pirate guy is pretty cool.
Also, make sure you’re assigning damage well, and don’t be afraid to take some knockouts. You can get rid of 9 damage with a 1 and 2 armor card! (Block 9 with 1 -> halves and rounds down to 4 and block with 2 -> 0) If you have a high armor stronghold, use it and knock it out with another card or two. That way, it has a chance of reviving back up to its normal armor minus 1. If you don’t knock it out, it can’t heal, and you’re stuck with some low armor crap. Destroyed cards can make good shields in the 4th round since they can halve the damage of anything with only 1 armor point. If you only have one knocked out card, it has a 100% chance of getting destroyed. If you purposefully knock out something else, then it jumps down to just 50%. I know that’s obvious, but it took me so long to make that connection in my play.
I’d say learning how to assign damage and not being afraid to knock stuff out was the biggest increase in results that I got.
I love this game so much I’d divorce Ascension, marry AoR, and have little card babies with it.
Ditto that sentiment, my man. I think we’ve stumbled upon a GotY contender. I can’t stop playing this.
Did my strategy tips help you out?
Absolutely agree on the GotY. Even with the polish of RftG, this feels… more fun? More strategic? I can’t put a finger on it, but I’m liking this one a lot more. Maybe because it’s new?..
They definitely did - thanks! Think I was overbuying the resource cards to start, not realizing that once I had them, I had them. Beat the Hard AI a bunch today, and two of 5 “anyones.”
I think you lose the resources of the card is destroyed in battle, though. I could be wrong, however.
Does anyone know the rarity colors?
You do lose the resource if it’s knocked out. If it pops up in your empire again from the random draw from your round purchases you get at the start of the round, then it will become available again. If the card was ruined though, you can’t get it back.
Rarity is just a holdover from when this game was on Kongregate and there were paid booster packs. Now you will never get a repeat. I don’t know if there is still a rarity associated with it though. I want to say no, but I can’t remember if I have a source for that or I’m imagining it.
I went digging through their forums on Kongregate earlier, and it seems they also used to have something called Science that you could use to craft cards. You’d get it as a reward for monthly play, but they did away with that IAP nonsense in the Steam and mobile versions luckily, along with the booster packs.
If anyone wants in on the empire and it says its full or something just post here. There are a few people in right now that I’ve never seen names for here or on PT. I just accepted them since there’s no password.
Perhaps rarity isn’t the right term since the game isn’t truly a CCG, but there do seem to be colors associated with the cards when you open a pack. I haven’t paid close attention; perhaps they just represent the card type. I assumed there were some “rare” cards that were stronger than the starter cards, but perhaps not.
I know exactly what you mean. I vaguely remember seeing something in the tutorial section that you get your first set from mention rarity. Some cards have yellowish backs too, and I’m not sure what that means either.
Oh, I didn’t realize you can only have 10 people in your empire. You should probably kick me out, then. I just have too many games to keep messing with to be tackling this one on a regular basis. You should get someone in who will play a lot, particularly against other people. That’s probably not me right now.
I wish it was…every time I play this game, I get more and more impressed with it.
There definitely is card rarity: green, then red, then purple, I think.
Rarity is in the rule book someplace.
Misguided is right. Those are the colors. I found it last night. Although it’s so much less of an issue because of the whole no repeats thing. I already did the math and without the identities, which don’t add that many, I only need 99 more cards.
Granted I played 20+ games yesterday. 
My only complaint so far is that it seems to require an internet connection (though I could be wrong). I’d much prefer a game like this to have a separate online access button, but this is just me being slightly picky since I often have internet access.
The developer said on BGG that they are working on offline play
Yeah, I was just reading that! Good news.
How do you unlock the spaces for the Rivals’ cards? I see 1/2, but don’t know what that means.
You get cards in packs or as quest rewards that have pictures of a given character on them. Those work toward unlocking the slots from left to right. Once the first slot is unlocked, the character is playable.
Yea, every time you get an identity card from a pack, it starts to count up to the next unlock slot for a guaranteed card for the rivals. I believe you need three copies to unlock the second slot, then three more for the third.
They’re rare and up, but I get them pretty frequently.