galacticempires.no-ip.org/GE
(Main Site)
galacticempires.sytes.net/GE
(Mirror)
This page brought to you by Eric B. Smith <ericbsmith42@gmail.com>
Looking for trades? Check out my Needs/Wants and Haves/Trades
I now have Booster Boxes, Card singles, and some other items for sale. Visit the Gift Shop to see what's available.
So what is the Galactic Empires Card Museum? It started out with me trying to clean up the web version of the rulebook, then by adding some rules to it that only appeared in magazines. Then I began scanning cards, eventually getting scans of every version of every card printed, something on the order or 3,200 cards. All of that has taken years, both to scan and then to organize the cards. It's a symptom of my insanity, and you get to benefit from it! Thanks largely to the efforts of Joe Collins and Craig Sentz I've now managed to post almost every GE card ever released.
The community that used to exist around Galactic Empires has sort of broken up, but a couple of us are trying to rebuild that community. We have a Facebook Group - Galactic Empires CCG Players, Collectors, and Sales. I recently acquired the Galactic Empires CCG subreddit and set up an online Forum. Beyond that, I've also recently added a plugin for VTT play to LackeyCCG which you can read about below. Or drop me an e-mail at ericbsmith42@gmail.com
Galactic Empires was perhaps the third CCG ever released, right on the heels of Magic: The Gathering and Spellfire. It was certainly the first Science Fiction CCG. Companion Games released the original set in late 1994 and continued releasing new cards through the end of 1996. At that point Companion Games declared bankruptcy and the rights to the game were acquired by one of the creditors who let the game die.
Galactic Empires is largely a Ship-based combat game, though there are a number of different kinds of cards which can can be played to affect the ships or the combat. Terrain provide resource points which you used to "engage" the Ships, Bases, and some other cards. Bases are played to Terrain cards to help protect them. Crew and Equipment can be played to Ships or Bases enhancing them. Ability cards can be played to Crew or various other cards to enhance their abilities. Hazard cards represent various space anomalies which can damage Ships and sometimes other types of cards, while Monsters represent space creatures which can attack Ships, Bases, Crew, or some other cards. Luck cards represent particularly lucky or unlucky things happening, while Occurrence cards represent significant events which affect the game.
Each player builds a play deck themed around one of many released empires. They can add ships of some minor empires to support their deck as well as cards of the various other types to flesh out their deck. Decks must have at least 40 cards, however the deck stocking rules are somewhat restrictive and to be able to stock the more powerful cards the deck will need to be much larger. Most tournament decks were 100-150 cards, meaning that the slimed down fast play deck of other games are less useful in this one.
Series I [August 1994] is the label collectively given to the first two sets released, often called Alpha Edition and Beta Editions. The original sets were based largely on empires, artwork, and lore that had originally been developed by Companion Games for use with the Starfleet Battles wargame. These sets were released as test sets; Alpha contained 91-cards while Beta made some changes to the artwork and rules on a few cards, and had only 90-cards. These sets contained cards from two major empires – the Argonian First Republic and Krebiz Capitalist Alliance. It was released in 10-card booster packs and 50-card starter decks; the starters had a fixed selection of cards, including ships from both empires. Each empire's ships had unique abilities as well as unique cards which could be played to their ships to improve them. It had a couple minor empire cards as well; the distinction being that major empire cards could only be used in decks built around that major empire while minor empire cards could be used in decks built around them or they could be used as support cards in decks of other empires.
Primary Edition (Series II) [December 1994] was the first true core set which followed shortly thereafter. This 439-card set greatly expanded the number of cards and included cards for playing several new empires including the Argonian and Krebiz from the first set plus two new major empires, the Mechad Holdfast and Corporate Aggressors, as well as adding several minor empires to the game – the Bolaar Pirates, Indirigan Nomads, Vektrean Mercenaries, and Space Dragons. Cards came in various rarity levels; Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Entity. Common and Uncommon seemed to have the same distribution in expansion packs, but Commons also appeared in starters (thus making them more common). It was released in 36-pack booster boxes, with each pack containing 12-cards. Two 55-card starters were released, Basic Deck A came with Argonian & Krebiz like the Series I starters while Basic Deck B contained Mechad & Corporate ships. 50 of the cards in each starter were fixed Common cards, with 5 additional random Uncommons cards.
German Gold Border (Series G) [?? 1995] was the only foreign edition of the game, being released in Germany sometime in early-to-mid 1995. The cards were based on Primary Edition, cutting it down to 299-cards and reducing the rarity levels to four (common/uncommon/rare/entity). In order to reduce the number of cards they entirely cut out the Ability cards and Dragon Empire. Since there were no longer dragons they couldn't easily use the box artwork from Primary Edition so opted to use the box art from New Empires instead.
New Empires (Series III) [March 1995] was the first big expansion, containing 210-cards and adding four new major empires, the Clydon Empire, Plasma Occupied Territory (P.O.T.), Scorpead Dominion, and Tufor Protectorate as well as adding a minor empire, the Nagiridni Pirates Indirigan Nomads Tribe. A new starter called Basic Deck C was released which contained P.O.T. & Scorpead cards. Like the previous starters this 50-card deck was fixed and contained the 50 Common cards from this set, though no random cards were added.
Powers of the Mind (Series IV) [July 1995] had 152-cards and introduced three new major empires - two Psy based empires, the Psycanti and Visonic, and a parasitic race called the Filarian Infesters which could infest and take over opponent ships. This expansion was perhaps the weakest of all the expansions, with the new empires playing very differently than any of the other ship-based empires. There were also no starters for these empires ever released, meaning in order to track down enough cards to play these empires you had to buy booster boxes of cards. It also introduced a set of new rules for playing Psy's and using their abilities. The set was released in booster boxes containing 36 packs with 12 cards each.
Time Gates (Series V) [August 1995] was a 157-card expansion and was perhaps one of the strongest expansions due to the number of powerful "time" cards it contained. It introduced two new minor empires the Time Knights and time traveling Tranoan Empire. Cards from these empires worked quite well as support cards in other decks. It introduced a set of new rules for a new play area called the "Time Origin" where Time Knights, Tranoan ships, and a select few other cards would be moved to when destroyed in the main play area. The set was released in booster boxes containing 36 packs with 12 cards each.
Universe Edition (Series U) [November 1995] was a major core set with 564-cards, designed to replace Primary Edition and New Empires. It largely drew on cards from Series II & III, with a few cards from Series IV & V. The set was released in booster boxes containing 36 packs with 14 cards each. It also had ten different 100-card starters, each relatively playable and themed for a single empire. Each starter had a window in the back allowing you to see one of the empire specific cards in the deck, allowing you to differentiate which empire the deck was for. Going forward all starters would be labeled "Universe Edition" no matter which set they belonged to. 80 of the cards were randomized, while 20 of the cards were fixed for the empire of the deck, with decks themed for the Argonian, Clydon, Corporate, Krebiz, Mechad, P.O.T., Scorpead, Space Dragons, Tufor, and Vektrean empires.
Advanced Technologies (Series VI) [January 1996] contained 152-cards which were mostly "power" cards and ships for the various empires as well as upgrades for their ships. It introduced the Vacaters of Bolaar V Indirigan Tribe. The set was released in booster boxes containing 36 packs with 12 cards each.
Piracy (Series VI) [May 1996] was a 205-card expansion themed around pirates. It reprinted and added to the Bolaar Pirates and Nagiridni Pirates as well as adding a new major empire, the Leopan Conquistadors and two new minor empires, the Corporate Pirates and the Vicious Six Indirigan Pirate Tribe. The set was released in booster boxes containing 80 packs with 6 cards each.
Comedy Club on the Far Side of the Galaxy (Series VIII) [July 1996] was a 174-card expansion released in four different 100 card starters. Each starter had a pre-selected set of cards many of which had up to four versions which only differed by having a different quote on them. Intended largely as a joke set, it introduced a new major empire based around ancients Installations called the Comedy Club Network.
Persona (Series IX) [August 1996] was a 205-card expansion themed around the Persona class of cards - cards that were unique and only one of which could be in play at a time. It introduced a crew based empire the Nobles and the Lone Wolf Indirigan Tribe, and had a decent mix of useful and powerful cards. The set was released in booster boxes containing 80 packs with 6 cards each.
Galactic Invaders (Series X) [July/October 1996] was a 256-card expansion which introduced several new empires in July 1996 with five new 100 card starter decks for the major empires – Aqaaran, Gekonauak, J'xar, and Zedan as well as the minor empire the Orgon. In October the booster boxes were released and introduced the minor empire the Treglean and the Andromeda Bound Indirigan Tribe. This set is generally well regarded with the new empires being unique and fairly well balanced, if a little powerful. The set was released in booster boxes containing 80 packs with 6 cards each and starters which contained 101 cards, each with 21 new cards for the new empire and 80 cards drawn from Universe Edition to fill out the starter.
Allied Forces (Series XI) [December 1996] was a 145-card expansion which was released in a set of twelve 100 card starter decks. Each deck contained 20 new cards for the new empire and 80 cards drawn from the Universe Edition to fill out the deck. A few of the decks were for previously released empires, including the Bolaar Pirates, Corporate Pirates, Leopan, Nobles, and Treglean. Decks for the first three empires contained both reprinted cards fom the Piracy set and new cards. The remaining seven starters introduced new Allied empires – minor empires which were allied with one of the major empires. While they could be used as minor empire cards in decks of any empire, they had some game mechanical benefits if used in a deck of their allied empire. These empires included the Drone (Allied - Mechad), Erodi (Allied - Tufor), Pakta'don (Allied - P.O.T.), Paraloid (Allied - Clydon), Shon-ti (Allied - Zedan), Tarra'ki (Allied - Argonian), and the Trochilidae (Allied - Leopan).
Primary Tactics [May 1996] was an audio drama released on cassette and CD featuring the voice talent of Alexander Sidig. It came packaged with one of two promo cards, the C10 Battle Advisor or the E7 Megasonic Phase Distorter. You can listen to it below.
The Play Mat [May 1996] was released near the end as well. It came with the promo card E6 Control Matrix.
There were at least seven promotional card runs which were printed for the game, containing approximately 363 cards. A number of Space Dragon, Bolaar Pirates, and Nagriridni Pirate ships were released as promotional cards, as well as the Aesthetics minor empire. A number of Indirigan Tribes were introduced as parts of these promotional sets, including the Council of Six, Garshain, Gray Death, Infected, Insipid, Meerkats, Propagationist, Vinciennes Pirates, and Violator's Pirates. Galactic Empires had the distinction of having released the most Promotional cards of any CCG for at least a decade after the company went out of business, largely because the company had started allowing people and companies to special order Promotional Cards with their name or business name, phone number, or other contact information on them. Many game stores and distributors ordered cards and handed them out or sold them as a form of business card or premium card to players and collectors.
I've written a page that allows you to open virtual packs of cards. These packs are set up with the same probabilities as real packs of cards, and even as real booster boxes (where you are guaranteed at least one, sometimes more, ultra-rare Entity cards per box). So you can open a random starter or some random boosters.
It's late 2023 and I've opened a Gift Shop!
Much of the advice that follows I wrote in late 2022 and it still applies. However, in my Gift Shop I am now offering Universe Edition Booster Boxes, Time Gates, and Powers of the Mind at a price well below where they've been for a long time, which makes my Gift Shop the best place to start collecting!
So you're interested in collecting the cards now, in late 2022 or later, but need to know where to begin. To start with, eBay is basically the only marketplace where you can get cards at this time. A number of sellers have singles, and once you know what you're looking for they can be a good place to pick up cards. One seller, MrMystery, has a large number of singles available not just on eBay but a lot more he doesn't list. Another seller, PBMExpress, has quite a few Booster Boxes available. While he lists only 1-2 of each available, when they sell he renews the listing with another one or relists a new set, and has been doing this for years. There are a number of other sellers with various starters, boosters, singles, and mixed lots of cards available.
The best place to start is with Primary Edition (Series II). Starters and Booster Boxes are still readily available and cheap and you can get a good base of cards for deck building from them. However, the Starters each contain 50 fixed cards, with just 5 random uncommon cards per deck. Getting more than a couple of each Primary starter deck doesn't get you much variety. Given the prices, getting maybe one Starter Display Box, containing 12 Decks, 6 of each of the two variants, may be worth it, but definately not more than that. Booster have their own issue with card distribution, which I explain below; in short, Very Rare cards were split into two groupings and cards from only one grouping or the other show up in an entire booster box; this issue is further exacerbated by the fact that most of the sellers with stock today only have booster boxes with cards from Group 1 of the two groupings, and Group 2 is the grouping which conains all the most powerful ship cards in the set. So it can be difficult to get the Strength 7-10 ships and Dragons for several of the empires, not to mention other more powerful VR cards.
The next best set to get is Universe Edition (Series U). It is a lot pricier today than it used to be, but has a good mix of cards, espeically ships from the main empires. In particular, the Universe Edition starter decks contain 15-19 ships, plus a few support cards, for one empire and a large number of Very Rare and Rare cards. In fact, each Starter has basically 8 booster packs worth of VR and R cards. Each Starter has a window on the back side which reveals one empire specific card, letting you know which of the empires the deck contains.
However, you need to be careful because all starter decks from later sets also say "Universe Edition." The Starters from Galactic Invaders and Allied Forces are extermely hard to come by, so if you happen across any of these for a good price then get them. However, Comedy Club starters are still relatively common and don't contain the same kind of card mix that other starters do. They can be worth collecting, but they are not as good as other Universe Edition Starters for building your initial colletion for deck building. You can tell the Comedy Club starters by the Road Signs card that always shows through the window.
After Universe, the next best sets for deck building are New Empires (Series III) and Time Gates (Series V). New Empires Boosters are hard to come by and relatively expensive, making it less suitable for initially collecting these days. New Empires Starters, on the other hand, are relatively easy to find, but all contain the same 50 fixed cards, making getting more than a couple decks pointless. Time Gates is a very good set with a nice mix of power and interesting cards and boxes are less expensive (and Time Gates is now available in my Gift Shop). But, given the choice between starting with 2-3 Time Gates Booster Boxes and 1 Universe Edition Booster Box the Universe box will give you a better mix of cards off the bat, including the main empire ship cards you need to build a deck. Time Gates boxes will give you more and better cards to expand your collection's deck building capabilities. So get 1-2 Universe Edition booster boxes or a handful of Primary Edition booster boxes before getting some Time Gates. Then get the Time Gates booster boxes to expand the deck building choices.
The next couple sets worth getting are Advanced Technologies (Series VI) and Piracy (Series VII). Both of these sets offer a good mix of power cards and minor empire cards. Advanced Technologies also offers good power cards to expand the core empires found in Primary, New Empires, and Universe while Piracy centers on the Piracy theme and introduces several minor Pirate empires, expanding on only one of the minor empires found in the earlier sets (the Bolaar). The main drawback of these two sets is that the only seller with any available is selling booster boxes for nearly double the price you can get Universe booster boxes for, and 6x the price of Primary booster boxes, making these two sets more of a nice expansion to a collection than necessary purchases to play the game.
Comedy Club on the Far Side of the Galaxy (Series VIII) can be a decent set to collect and it's relatively easy to get more than enough cards to build a deck with. Each starter contains the same assortment of cards; about 75 of the cards are identical and fixed in every starter while the other 25 cards are identical but have a different quote on them. There are 4 Entity cards which show up 1 per Starter, so the only real variety between Starters is the Entity. Each deck contains enough Comedy Club Network Empire cards to build a decent deck. Two Starters will get you enough to tweak it. 3-4 Starters is far more than enough other than collecting all of the card variants and all four Entity rarity cards. It can be a good addition to a collection once you are starting to look for more cards to get, it's just not a great place to start.
Despite its price and availibility Powers of the Mind (Series IV) is not a great set for core deck building. It introduces three new empires which are only found in this set and which play very differently than any of the other empires since all three are crew-based empires rather than being ship-based like all of the others. The good thing here, though, is that 1-2 Booster Boxes should give you more than enough cards to build decent decks for each of the three empires, So if you do decide to get some it's not that expensive to try to make it work.
If you happen across any Persona (Series IX) Booster Boxes, Galactic Invaders (Series X) Starters or Booster Boxes, or Allied Forces (Series XI) Starters for a good price then get them. They are rare and valuable, and you can easily trade or sell them to get other cards. Otherwise, don't worry about them unless you get very deep into collecting.
There are tons of Promotional cards available. Galactic Empires had more Promo cards than any other game for a decade after it's release. Many of these cards are "power" cards, basically because the company allowed people to design their own cards, adding features by paying extra. So some of the top players, distributors, and retail stores ordered power cards which they could play with or sell to tournament players for a premium price. Many of these can be a good addition to a collection, but they are more expensive to acquire than acquiring bulk cards from booster boxes and get you less variety. These cards are largely for serious collectors.
A few years ago I was having a conversation with someone about the distribution of Very Rare cards in Primary Edition. This conversation led me down a rabbit hole examining the card distribution and print sheet layout of cards from every set. Writing this information out led to more than a more than 9,000 word article which I originally placed on this page but have since moved to its own page. This article gets into the nitty gritty of the printing process, the layout of cards on the print sheets, and the distribution of cards within the rarities, booster packs, and starters.
I have a complete card list available to download, in Excel 2000 or Excel 2007+ format. In each file is two sheets; has the Quantity columns blank while the other is filled out with my cards (including cards I'm seeking and cards I'm willing to trade. The leftmost three columns contain a number sequence for sorting; if you sort by the first column each set will be seperated out into different sections. The second column sorts all cards together by type then strength. The third column is the same as the second, except that the German Gold Border set is moved to the bottom of the list instead of being mixed into the rest; the third column is the default sorting method the sheet starts in. Of course, you can sort the tables in any other manner you wish, and these three columns will allow you to return them to the default sorting order.
| Excel 2000 Format | Excel 2007+ Format |
My first new addition to the website in over a decade is the Card Gallery. This page allows you sort the cards by Set, Type, Strength, Rarity, Empire, Class, and other special abilities. Similarly, the Card List is a sortable list of every GE card complete with information for all cards - including the image artist.
Primary Tactics was an audio "tutorial" produced in 1995 which served as one part audio drama and one part introduction to the major empires of the game. It was released on CD and Cassette Tape, and came with one of two different promotional cards, one of which appeared in 1/8 packages. It featured Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as a battle advisor who gave brief advice on each empire and Joni Ortman as Desiree, the computer who guides you on the adventure between the various empires.
In early 2022 I made some videos cracking open various packs of Galactic Empires cards, including some boosters and starters from Alpha/Beta, Primary Edition, Time Gates, Universe Edition, and Galactic Invaders.
Galactic Intercom was a Newsletter produced by Companion Games in support of Galactic Empires. It contained some FAQs, card lists, tournament rules updates, and other information. Galactic Fire was a full fledged magazine which continued support for Galactic Empires as well as supporting some of Companion Games other products. Below are PDF scans of some of these magazines; some of the pages are pretty poor quality.
This PDF includes a number of articles that were released in 1995 in various magazines introducting Galatic Empires, including The Destruction of Argon VIII which was a premium article in Cantrip Magazine #1, then a series of articles which appeared in several issues of Scrye Magazine. It also includes all of the Advertisements which I have found.
|
|
|
Skeeve's GE page at http://home.inreach.com/skeeve/ shut down some years ago. I've mirrored his site on my website. |
LackeyCCG is a program that allows users to play card and board games on a Virtual TableTop (VTT). You install games as Plugins for the program, and there are many card and board games available.
There are two ways to install Plugins in LackeyCCG. You can download a zip file with everything you need to install it, or you can go to the Plugins tab in the program and paste an installer URL into the Automatic Install/Update field. I've chosen the later route; copy the following URL and paste it into LackeyCCG to begin the install process.
Galactic Empires is a collectable card game, long out
of print due to the demise of Companion Games. However, the game has never
quite died due to a dedicated (though small) fan base on the internet. You
can still find cards for sale on eBay,
and can also visit
Galactic Empires.org.
I've been working on editing the unofficial Universe
Edition v2.1 rulebook revision, which is an attempt to collect rules
from various published sources into one place.
| Errata | Universe Edition Rulebook v2.1 | Tournament Rules | GE Play Mat (PDF) |
| FAQ | Universe Edition Rulebook v2.1 w/Header | Indirigan Touring Game | All of the above in one ZIP file (~1MB) |
| Q&A | Universe Edition Rulebook v2.1 w/Table Of Contents | Quick Learners Guide | Universe Edition Rulebook v2.0 (PDF) |
|
"Dragons of Space" Puzzle
© 1994 Ed Beard Jr.
|
|||
It can be difficult to tell cards from the various expansions from one another, even to someone familiar with these cards. Companion Games never tried to make it easy to differentiate the various expansion sets as some other companies did (especially later on). A quick rundown of the major differences:
Series I (Alpha & Beta) have a textured/dimpled surface; later sets had a smooth surface much like most other CCGs. The rules text is in a text box, where later sets removed the text box and place the text directly on the card background texture. The best way to differentiate cards between the Alpha and Beta printing is the Beta printing card back has the Trademark ™ under the last 'S' in the word Empires, while Alpa cards lack the Trademark ™. The entire print of Alpha cards seem to be slightly brighter, while Beta are a little darker.
Series II (Primary Edition) & Series III (New Empires) have a narrow white card border measuring 1/16th inch (1.5mm), with no frame between the white border and the card itself; the card texture simply bleeds into the white border. The card illustrations also have a wide colored frame around them, while the text is printed directly onto the card background texture.
Starting with Series IV (Powers of the Mind), Series U (Universe Edition), and all later sets there is wider white card border measuring 1/8th inch (3mm). In addition there is a thin beveled frame between the white border and the card. The image frame was also replaced with a thin beveled edge for most of the cards reprinted in later sets, though a few cards retained the larger colored border.
Differences between individual cards which were reprinted from one of the later sets into one of the other later sets are more difficult to tell and usually must be done on a card-by-card basis, identifying minor art changes or rules corrections. Many cards had slight changes in text placement, including placement of the artists name, the card title, and the rules text. As of the most recent update to this website I have posted scans of almost every card from every edition to make it easier to distinguish between them.
| Argonians-1 | Centaurian | Krebiz-2 | Mechad-1 |
| Argonians-2 | Far Side-1 | Krebiz-3 | Vektreans-1 |
| Argonians-3 | Indirigan-1 | Krebiz-4 | |
| Scorpead Destroyer | Scorpead Heavy Cruiser | ||
As I said above, the lore of Galactic Empires was taken largely from some unofficial Starfleet Battles supplements. From what I understand Companion Games was even sued to stop them from publishing these supplements. Now they're mostly of interest to Galactic Empires players for the little bits of lore that's present in them and the maps of the Far Side of the Galaxy that some of the supplements have.
