From: Francois Charton <deef@POBOX.OLEANE.COM>
Subject:      Re: SPI Compendium - Freedom in the Galaxy

D.H. wrote:
>
> Freedom in the Galaxy
> Howard Barasch, John H. Butterfield
>

Star Wars by SPI. Rebels vs the Empire in a far away galaxy.

The game map depicts the galaxy, divided into five provinces, each
containing 5 to 10 solar systems with one to three planets. Each planet
has a "loyalty level", which ranges from Patriotic (as loyal to the
empire as can be) to Unrest (ready to rebel). When planets are "unrest",
the rebels can try to start rebellions and gain control of them. In the
beginning of the game, all planets are under imperial control. The
objective of each player is to gain/retain control of planets when the
game ends.

The game is played on two different levels: character-level and
army-level.

Each player controls several characters, who travel from planet to
planet, performing missions. The basic missions are "diplomacy", trying
to shift loyalty towards "unrest" or "patriotic", and "start/stop
rebellion"; but many others also exist, such as "gain characters" (which
enable a player to have more characters, and then perform more missions),
"assassination" (getting rid of some enemy character which bothers you),
"gather information", "sabotage"...

The imperial player begins the game with military units, and the rebel
may gain some when he controls planets. These are used in army vs army
combat, but also to search and destroy the enemy characters (the more
enemy military units there are on a planet, the more risky your missions
become).

The result is a very fun game, challenging for both players.

The rebel player tries to shift planet loyalties and to start rebellions.
His task gets easier as time goes by: when a planet shifts loyalty or
rebels, nearby planets, or planets occupied by the same race, have their
loyalty shifted, through some kind of domino effect. Also rebellions
produce armies for the rebels, which help to offset the strength of the
Empire.

On the contrary, the Empire starts the game strongest, but does not have
a chance in the long term. His objective is to slow the rebels enough to
maintain a large hold of the galaxy at the end of the game. For this, he
uses his military units to hunt the rebels, and his characters to conduct
(mostly) diplomacy missions, to try to reverse the tide.

The game system is quite easy to learn, plays smoothly and is very good
for solitaire play. The larger "galactic" scenario (IMO the only
interesting one) should take 15-20 hours to complete (less if the rebels
win). But it should be very easy to turn into a shorter game, by changing
the victory conditions.

Francois