Core Worlds: Revolution (V. Eng.)

SwatSh:  7,5 /10

After the great extension Gallactic Orders, Revolution is the second extension of the fabulous deckbuilding game: Core Worlds.

Revolution brings two extras to the basic game that provide some variety & increase the number of options:

1) Advancements
We, the barbarians, are progressively invading the different Worlds of the coalition.  We are not so wild and we bring our expertise to local people.  This expertise is represented by the cards placed in the different decks. When we reveal one or more of them, they are placed on the side so they are not counted in the minimum number of cards that has to be revealed each turn.  Meaning that they are added to the normal cards (they do not replace any of them). Hence, they offer additional choice to players who can therefore invade a world, draft a card, and draft an advancement (cost in energy as for the others) .  Advancement cards are attached to a world (with a maximum of 1 improvement per world) and bring some bonuses, such as providing extra energy or improve attack.
This is not revolutionary 😉 but it is fun to play and it brings some additional and even more difficult choices.

2) The hero’s and their tactics
In Revolution, we will replace all the heroes of the base game with new heroes. Each new hero comes with 3 new tactical cards. When acquiring an hero, you can choose to receive its 3 tactical cards. If taken, they are placed apart in a tactical deck. So this deck includes tactical cards of all the heroes you have. Typically, these cards are powerful. How to draw them is quite original: when you play a hero from your hand, you may draw a tactical card from the « tactical » deck as long as the top card of the deck is a card of the right hero (the name of the hero is printed on the back of its tactical cards). You can always discard a card from your hand to discard the top card of this deck.  The more heroes you will have, the more difficult it will be to pick up the corresponding hero’s tactic card. These tactic cards increase the capacity of your hero when you activate it. It’s pretty cool to play and allows interesting combinations. But the game is a little more complicated.

These two modules are compatible with the extension Gallactic Orders. They add variety and more difficult choices without deeply altering the basic game which is still as good!

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Philrey212:     7/10

To start with, I’m not a big fan of deck building games. Core Worlds, the base game, offer a bit more than that in making the mechanism a bit more complex. I must also admit that I appreciated more our last game but I don’t think it is linked to the extension.

We are here to talk about the extension so I’ll stick to the extra it provides.
First, the heroes. This by itself is a good idea but it does not add much to the game play in my opinion. Except some variety for sure. And also a bit of luck in the heroes’ tactical cards deck (even more if you decide to have several heroes since all the tactical cards of all the heroes will go in the same deck). This brings also a bit more complexity in the hand management of those cards, only one can stay in your hand from turn to turn (complexity is acceptable here, let’s face it;)
Then we have the Advancements. Another small add-on that provides a somewhat greater choice in the available cards to « buy ».

To conclude, I’d say that Revolution is a small extension that mainly offers some extra variability to the base game.

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Pascal:     7/10

This was the first time I played at Core Worlds.  So it’s difficult to rate the extension only.

I’ve really enjoyed the game.  Compared with other deck-building games, it manages to provide some differences that make it interesting.  The cards we can buy arrives progressively during the game.  The cards of level 1 are weak, and at each following phase, cards becomes more and more powerful.  Cards that are not acquired stay available for one more turn, but with a coin on top of them, making them more interesting afterwards.  The army units are of type fleet or ground.  I like also the fact that everybody knows in advance the worlds that can be acquired at the end of the game.  We can thus build our deck and choose the right cards in our « war zone » with a clear and well-known goal.

Concerning the extension, I’ve appreciated the advancements cards.  They provides additional strategies and possibilities.  It’s quite harder to take the right decisions.

The tactics cards are fun to play, but this is an additional deck we have to manage.   This makes, from my point of view, the game a little bit too much complicated.  The game is already good and complex enough without this extra.

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