Off the Shelf rolls on, this time with
Race for the Galaxy was originally published in 2007 by Rio Grande Games, as designed by Thomas Lehmann. The game actually began its life as a card game version of Puerto Rico. However, when Andreas Seyfarth (designer of Puerto Rico) decided to take on the card game (later called San Juan), Thomas Lehmann retooled it, added a sci-fi theme, and boom – Race for the Galaxy.
Each player gets a hand of six cards and a starting world at the beginning of the game. From the six, they choose four to keep and two to discard. The starting world goes into play immediately. Players also get a deck of seven action cards.
Each round, players will select one action card to play (unless you’re doing the two-player game, in which case you select two). Simultaneously, all action cards are revealed. The chosen actions determine what get done in the current round, and anything not chosen gets skipped. Actions get resolved in order, with all players getting the opportunity to do it, and the players who chose the action gets a bonus. It’s possible, and even likely, that multiple people chose the same action. In that case, all players who chose the action get the bonus.
- Explore: During this phase, all players get to draw two cards and keep one. The player who chose the action could choose to draw an extra card and keep an extra card, or could choose to draw five extra cards.
- Develop: During this phase, players can play one development card from their hand (marked with a diamond). A player pays for a development by discarding as many cards as the number printed in the diamond, with the player who selected the action getting a one card discount.
- Settle: During this phase, players can play one world from their hand (marked with a circle). If the world is a regular world (with a black circle), it is paid for by discarding cards from your hand. To settle a world with a red circle, a player will need to have military strength equalling or exceeding the number in the circle. The player who selected the action gets to draw a card after paying for their world.
- There are a few different kinds of worlds. If the world has an empty circle, it doesn’t really do anything. If the circle is filled with green, blue, brown, or yellow, it’s a production world and can produce goods during the Produce phase. If the world has a colored halo, it produces a good immediately when you settle it.
- Consume: During this phase, players may turn in goods for points. Goods are just cards from the deck that are kept face down and tucked under a world. It doesn’t matter what they are. To consume a good, a player must have a Consume power. When developments and worlds come into play, they have certain abilities that are now available, listed on the side of the card with the relevant phase for their activation. In order to consume a good, a player must have a Consume power that will allow them to discard a good for points and/or cards.
- There are two possible benefits for choosing the Consume action. The first is Trade, which happens before the general Consume. Here, a player just discards one of their cards without needing to use a Consume power, then draws new cards depending on the type of good discarded (novelty/blue=2 cards, rare/green=3 cards, genes/brown=4 cards, alien/yellow=5 cards). Only a player who chose Trade can use this action.
- The other is x2. This allows a player to get twice as many points for using Consume powers.
- Produce: During this phase, players with Production worlds (those with filled in colored circles) get to produce a good. Each world can only hold one good. A player who chose this action may also produce at a Windfall world, which normally only produces when settled.
Once the phases that were chosen are all resolved, the round ends and players choose a new action for the next round (it can be the same one chosen in the previous round). However, if the VP pool is empty or if someone has 12+ cards in their tableau, the game is over. Add up points, and the high score wins.
I first came into the hobby in 2007, and Race for the Galaxy was the new hotness at the time. Puerto Rico was currently the number one game at BGG, and people were absolutely in love with this take on the system. I think I got my copy in 2009 – at least, that’s when my first play was. I’ve played a bunch since, mostly with The Gathering Storm expansion (more about that later).
The game has a sci-fi theme that I honestly hardly ever pay attention to. I’m not really a theme guy to begin with, and while it’s fun that the game is in space instead of on plantations in Puerto Rico, there’s not really a narrative. Later expansions tried to infuse some more thematic tie-ins, but the way it is, I’m just trying to get cards out and score lots of points. This is not to say that the theme is bad, it’s just not something that’s necessary for enjoyment. I know a lot of people get more into the lore when playing.
Mechanically, this game is what has been known as a “role selection” game, though it’s probably more accurately called “action selection.” This has long been one of my favorite game mechanisms, where players choose different roles (or actions) for the round. It originally comes from a pair of German games, Verräter and Meuterer, and was later featured a bit more promintently in Citadels. Puerto Rico refined the mechanism to perfection by having actions everyone could do, though the chooser got a bonus. It’s been used in a bunch of other games since, including Glory to Rome, Libertalia, and Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition (which has a lot of similarities to RFTG).
I’ve always enjoyed this mechanism for several reasons. A big one is that it really cuts down on downtime in games – players are choosing things to do, and then everyone gets to do them. It’s also really fun to figure out the combination of roles/actions that will work best for your plan, and that won’t help others. There’s a good amount of guesswork involved – I really think Player A needs cards, so they’ll probably do the Explore action, so I don’t need to.
Race for the Galaxy is also famous for multi-use cards. Here, a card can be used for its stated purpose (a development or a world), or as a good, or as currency to pay for other stuff. Because they are used for multiple purposes, you’ll want to acquire them when you can because they go fast. And you can’t be too precious about the cards you already have – you have to make some tough choices about what you need versus what you want.
Another thing RFTG is famous for is its use of symbols. In an effort to make the game more language independent (though not entirely), the game uses a lot of symbols, and when you’re first playing the game, you almost need a Rosetta Stone to translate them. There is a guide to figuring them out, but RFTG became the posterchild for overuse of symbols when released, and still remains there to this day. Having played a bunch, I can understand them fairly well, though I do need to sometimes refer to the guide, especially if I haven’t played in a while.
Now, to the expansions. I own The Gathering Storm (expansion #1) and have played Rebel vs. Imperium (expansion #2). TGS adds goals to shoot for and new cards (including new starting worlds), but the main reason I like it is because there’s also a solo mode. It’s a bot, with its own playmat, and tokens to guide how it plays based on its starting world. There are dice, which help determine the bot’s action, and it’s really tough to beat. Very dependent on luck, but when you can beat it, it’s very satisfying. Admittedly, it is a bit clunky, but once you understand it, it’s a lot of fun.
RvI, on the other hand, adds more interaction by allowing players to attack opponents, as well as a special two-player scenario. I played it once, and it seemed too convoluted to me, so I’ve never sought out another play or my own copy. I’m not an expansion completionist, and I’m happy with just stopping at TGS. The Brink of War is the third expansion, and that was followed by Alien Artifacts, which apparently started a new story arc and was incompatible with the other expansions. Another expansion, Xeno Invasion, came out in 2015, again incompatible with the other expansions. Xeno Counterstrike, the next expansion in the Xeno arc, is supposed to come out sometime this year.
The RFTG family has grown in other directions as well. Roll for the Galaxy is the dice game version, Jump Drive is a simpler version, and New Frontiers is a board game version. I have played Roll, and it was fine, though I played with people who new what they were doing and got crushed. I haven’t played the others, but New Frontiers seems interesting.
Anyway, I’d say Race for the Galaxy is way up there on my favorite games. For the Off the Shelf rankings, I put it at #3 so far, behind Puerto Rico and Cosmic Encounter. And that’ll do it for today – thanks for reading!
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