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RACE FOR THE GALAXY

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BGG Link


Designer: Tom Lehmann
Our Rating: 10

DESCRIPTION

Once upon a time there was Puerto Rico, an exceptionally clever game that implemented the idea of 'role selection': I pick something to do and get a bonus doing it, everyone else gets to do it normally. Once that's chosen, no one else can pick that role until the next round. Puerto Rico was not overly complex: it had some basic principles, three currencies (coins, goods, victory points), and had a predictable ending - when enough buildings were built or when the VPs ran out. It had one luck factor: the drawing of plantation tiles. Everything else was deterministic. It came out in 2002, and after awhile some people declared it "solved" and moved on to other things.

Puerto Rico is easy to play but unforgiving. Games derived from its basic mechanism, and there are many, have built on the infrastructure, in many cases making the game harder to play, in others to make it more forgiving, in yet others to give it more randomness, and sometimes more than one of these. But its basic concept of role selection is now an ingrained mechanism in a wide variety of games in a wide variety of ways.

Around 2004 there was a sort of contest to create a card game based on Puerto Rico. At the Gathering we had a chance to play a couple of different implementations; one was designed by Tom Lehmann, a brilliant, insightful game designer whom we are happy to call a friend. As it turned out, parts of various prototypes, including Tom's, were adapted by Puerto Rico designer Andreas Seyfarth to create San Juan, published later that year. Credit was given for the various inputs.

Tom was left with a very good design, and according to what he told us, he took it and imposed it on a science fiction universe that at one time was going to be a collectible card game, back when that was a thing. Instead, in 2007 it became Race for the Galaxy, one of our most played games.

A key change from Puerto Rico: everyone chooses a role at the same time, and everyone can perform any role selected. Instead of round-robin turns, all choices are revealed at once, and evaluated in a specific order.

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Race has its adherents (like us) and its detractors. Detractors focus their ire on a few things:

  • The learning curve is steep at the beginning (it is, but not that steep);
  • The iconography sucks (it doesn't, but more in a moment)
  • It's multiplayer solitaire (it isn't, but more in a few more moments).

The learning curve is a problem. Usually the first few games – and it's not a long game in basic form, maybe half an hour – consists of fumbling around, trying to get things out on the table, and trying to read the cards and figure out what they do. I admit that for some friends this defeats them and drives them away. Nowadays there are videos and tutorials that didn't exist in 2007. It's a hard sell these days to tell people that they need 8-10 plays to get the feel of the game and understand how it works. Because it does work, and remarkably well.

The iconography complaint is, to me, like someone arguing that a foreign language is impenetrable because, you know, they use all these different words. The player aids aren't much help; the player aids developed by players are often not much help either. But once again, after a few plays these things become familiar and the synergies become apparent. In order for the game to be a card game, and in order for things to be language independent, they had to do something, and they did this, and it works.

Multiplayer solitaire is the most easily demolished argument. Anyone who plays Race and thinks that his/her decisions have nothing to do with anyone else's, is someone who simply doesn't play the game very well. Part of the skill is determining, and anticipating, others' choices so that you can take actions you don't have to select yourself.

We love this game, and have played it about 1500 times with the physical game. It's gone on just about every vacation since we first got it more than a dozen years ago.

EXPANSIONS

Nowadays we play with the first two expansions always, and a small subset of cards from the third expansion, for reasons described below. Cards have identifiers, and it's relatively easy to pull out just the starter set to teach a new player.

THE GATHERING STORM

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BGG Link

This expansion, published in 2008, added a fifth player (the original game had only 4), a solitaire system, and goals - some things to compete over which are either 'first' or 'most' in certain categories, as shown below.

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It also added some new start worlds, which introduced some variety.

REBEL VS. IMPERIUM

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BGG Link

This expansion introduced More Stuff and a sixth player, including a 'takeover' mode which allows players to conquer other players' worlds. It's very limited, requires certain specific cards, and is a mode we essentially never use.

We do like the Stuff, though, especially the 6-cost developments.

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THE BRINK OF WAR

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BGG Link

This expansion introduced a new flavor of victory points – prestige – which we found unnecessarily complex and artificial. We don't use the cards that use that symbolism, including the extra role 'Prestige Search'. But there is some interesting Stuff in the package, and we incorporate it.

ALIEN ARTIFACTS

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This expansion is incompatible with the others, and starts a new cycle. It adds some extra stuff to the base game, including a fifth player. It also has a deck for the Alien Orb, and introduces a new mode of play.

We haven't done too much with this so far.

XENO INVASION

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This expansion introduces the Xenos. They're invading. We have this and haven't done much with it.

NEW START WORLDS PROMO

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BGG Link

We use these as part of regular play.


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