Wouter & Ymke 
This game funded on Kickstarter back in 2020, but next week on April 26, a new campaign for the game, along with a fresh expansion, will launch on Gamefound: http://bit.ly/uprising-2
1-4 players, age 13+
Playing time: 120-240 minutes
Designers: Cornelius Cremin, Pawel Mazur & Dirk Sommer
Artwork: Igor Desic, Bartek Fedyczak & Dirk Sommer
Publisher: Nemesis.Games
https://uprising.nemesis.games/about-us/
Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor takes place in a fantasy setting as players will find themselves in one of the last remaining places of civilization in the world. In this cooperative game, you must work together and face off against not one, but two opponents: The Empire and the Hordes of Chaos. Both are driven by an AI and will collect victory points during the game. You’ll win by ensuring that each player individually has gained more points than both opponents by the end of the game.
Each player controls their own asymmetric faction, which has its own strengths and weaknesses, to take on the Chaos and The Empire, who over the course of the game will also be fighting each other. From the center of the map, the Empire is dispatching their legions while the Hordes of Chaos will move from the edge of the map, leaving curses whenever they move.
Your job is to move and explore new terrains, build Havens, solve quests, and defeat opponents’ armies. You perform actions by placing tokens on your player board, and most turns are very quick, so there is only a small amount of downtime.
At first glance, it seems like there’s quite a bit to take into account, but after a few turns, everything comes together quite nicely. In fact, the rules are not that complicated and the gameplay is very straightforward, only the initial teach can take a while due to the many options the game has to offer.
There’s an adjustable complexity and play time, and lots of variety in factions and their items. Also how your opponents play will be different each time.
The production quality is truly stellar, with great components and a handy insert.
Battle is resolved by rolling dice which can be quite swingy, and it can be hard to recover and rebuild your units after losing a battle.
If you love playing epic 4x games and you don’t mind a bit of randomness of dice, I can highly recommend Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor!
