Race for the Galaxy

[Dracos]

Is a fairly neat 2-4 player card game.  Merc introduced it to me this weekend.  It does exist on Board Game Arena, but...

http://keldon.net/rftg/ - this is a better option, providing clearer view of cards, online play as well, and AI opponents for the mix.

Anyhow, sharing :)

[Merc]

=)

[Merc]

The Keldon version also comes with some of the expansion packs.

I'd strongly recommend playing with Gathering Storm + Rebels vs Imperium, though make sure to have goals and takeover disabled.

The extra cards from those two expansions adds a fair amount of new cards to play with, so you can have a really varied game.

Goals aren't bad, but they may tunnel-vision you to try for a certain game style of play, and if you don't draw the cards you want, you're screwed. Takeover (stealing cards from other player's board) is just a mean mechanic in general, so I never play with it (unless it's with the AI, whom I don't care about screwing over).

I would note that BGA is possibly a bit better to start playing with though, as it lets you set a game without a timer (you have a time limit with Keldon's version to play) so you can ask questions or such. It also has a summary of powers that cards have, whereas Keldon just shows the icons/symbols. Keldon's is better once you're familiar though since it teaches you symbology and requires much less mouseover than BGA.

[Merc]

Ouch. Drac murdered me last game. 63-36 or something like that. I suppose I did tell him losing to the AI was a good way to get better, but ouch :)

[Dracos]

Ouch. Drac murdered me last game. 63-36 or something like that. I suppose I did tell him losing to the AI was a good way to get better, but ouch :)

It is now one of my TWO wins.

In general, the AI is brutal.  In one on one I've not seen the AI score under 35 points, generally ranging in the mid 40s to 60s, every game.

My win against Merc was a positively monsterous Factory of Consume/Produce that was devouring 8-10 points per round and producing a bunch of cards.

My win against the AI was another produce factory, but the base of it was a ton of rebel cards (really I got an enormous set of rebel draws).

It appears against the AI that it can be pretty heavily draw based.  Sure you can make a starting plan, but a lot of the 6/? cards are game changing.  It's not uncommon for the winner to have 1 card be worth 10-20 points, which in general is about as valuable as an entire row will probably be otherwise.  And which one you see can matter a lot.  Sure you paid 6, but was that to the one that is worth 18 points with your set up or 8?

It's still a fun little distraction anyway and one more thing I'd be glad to play with people.

[Merc]

Part of fighting against the AI is that it does have a certain 'personality' so to speak. In a way, I find it easier to predict what the AI might play than what you might play as a result of playing it a lot more often, so I can usually get a fairly close score to it when I lose, and beat it about half the time.

Last night I played a few games against it, and even rusty against it, typically both our scores were in the 30-40 range unless we played the 6-cost development cards, in which case we'd see the 40-60s you saw.

A tip that might help you with the AI: Don't play settle very often. The AI actually likes it if you play it, and will in fact try to predict when you'll do so, especially if it has a cheap windfall planet handy, in which case it'll play Consume-Trade or Consume-x2 and cash in on your settle action. If you don't settle very often, you'll start to see the AI occassionally play consume actions that don't do anything for it as a result, and as such you made it waste an action.