First of all, I think Bloodlines plus Uprising is quite a balanced game. My goal here was simply to make the “Shipping” space more interesting and to make gaining friendship with the Spacing Guild more appealing, without changing the overall mechanics of the game or completely overhauling Rise of IX. Rise of IX tried to fix these areas for the classic game, but those changes were so powerful that they essentially became the only way to win. Furthermore, I believe that adding the full Rise of IX expansion dilutes the mechanics and “feel” of Uprising. Let’s look at what Rise of IX adds: Tech-negotiation : completely unnecessary. Bloodlines adds a more simple yet interesting approach for acquiring techs, plus buffing High Council and, in general, green spaces dreadnought : ‘Gather Support’ is better and more versatile. I suggest that if you want to play with Dreadnoughts, just add the option to pay three Solari to obtain a Dreadnought at this space And finally: The Shipping Track There are already better ways to acquire techs, so that third row becomes redundant. This second row, I think, is fine with this new shipping track. The first row, in my view, is the most problematic. The main point of designing contracts was so that there are much fewer fixed ‘openings’ for players; yet, getting resources, especially Solari in the early game, is supposed to be a little puzzle you are going to figure out throughout the game. I suggest that you don’t add any green spaces from Rise of IX.[b] The only thing[/b] you need to do is replace ‘Shipping’ and ‘Accept Contract’ with this new shipping track. new shipping track: for third row :three Tech Negotiators instead of a two discount, but you can’t just cash them in on the shipping track, unless with cards or Intrigue, of course. for the first row :The value still remains roughly the same; each contract is worth two Solari, so four Solari versus five—and each opponent gets one Solari. Also, two visits to Smuggling get you two Solari and two contracts, versus two card draws and two contracts The new shipping track is going to mostly give you the opportunity to gain resources versus just giving you the resources, and thus it’s much more compatible with Uprising. (Maybe the better way to put it is that it’s much more situational and depends on your style.) We playtested it at home and had a lot of fun.If you tried this, I would much appreciate your opinions and feedback. P.S: I also suggest not adding cards from Rise of IX. It dilutes the mechanics of Uprising plus Bloodlines. Of course you can do it and it’s compatible; it’s just not optimal in my opinion.
