Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: Re: Solo/Robot question : World #7

apokai — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:34:08 +0000

The small 'robot == PRODUCE' tile is double sided.

Got it. Make perfectly sense now! :)

BTW, what a quick answer! :D

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: Re: Solo/Robot question : World #7

byronczimmer — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:29:25 +0000

The small 'robot == PRODUCE' tile is double sided. In the linked picture, it's the one with the 4 and 7 on it.

The symbols of
ROBOT (curvy arrow) to PRODUCE
ROBOT (curvy arrow) to TRADE
indicate to flip that small tile.

The effect is the next time the 'ROBOT' result is rolled on the die, the robot will have changed its behavior.

This simulates World 7 (DAF, right?) flopping between Produce and Trade, which is similar to normal play behavior.

Thread: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: Solo/Robot question : World #7

apokai — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:19:44 +0000

by apokai

Hi,

I played this week-end with the solo rules. Drew the World #7 for the robot and I had some problems understanding the rules with this specific world.

Actually, this world requires two modifications on the Robot Sheet. For the produce phase (V), rule says:

1- Economy + 1
2- Robot goes to Consume phase (IV)

I don't understand the 2nd one. Does it means that in the same turn, we do the consume phase? And is the player eligible for this action too (So it would be a 3 phases on this turn instead of 2?!)

Or does it means that on the next turn, one of the two dices go directly to consume phase (IV)?

And to complicate the case, the Consume phase as opposite symbol which says that robot goes from consume (IV) to produce (V)...

Some1 can share some lights? Here's a pic of the rule modification for world #7 http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/386847

Thx!

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: First turn trade/produce as Damaged Alien Factory in 2 player advanced

palanq — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:38:05 +0000

by palanq

Hm... here's my 2 cents. It depends on your whole hand as well as the probability of your opponent settling.

If you have a windfall and a cheap dev in your hand, T/P at worst puts you at a 1-card disadvantage (+ some hand quality disadvantage if your next best option was E/P).
- That disadvantage could be pretty significant if the rest of your hand sucks (like a windfall and 3 6-cost devs) and your opponent calls a dev or two
- Or it could not really matter much, if you have a nice early-game dev in hand (e.g. investment credits) or if your opponent calls E1/E5 or something

So it's hard to say and depends on their start world, your entire hand, and the metagame.

My ideal hand for T/P with DAF would be something like empath world and a couple other cheap devs without any other production world in hand.

If I have a good production world (spice world, mining world) in hand though I would just E1/P. Why? Now if your opponent calls settle, he doesn't gain any advantage. If he calls dev, hopefully your E1 helped you get some good early game dev. so, you're safe.

does this make sense to y'all?

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

entranced — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:53:41 +0000

by entranced

byronczimmer wrote:
*Which* Explore is bigbimbo calling

Sadly Genie doesn't specify in the heading i was copy/pasting. I just did the math, and it was Explore +1/+1 each time.

byronczimmer wrote:
on which round did he settle New Earth (presumably fleeing the Doooooomed world)?

bigbimbo chose Settle on turn 1 and settled Terraformed World.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

byronczimmer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:09:45 +0000

by byronczimmer

*Which* Explore is bigbimbo calling, and on which round did he settle New Earth (presumably fleeing the Doooooomed world)?

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

Elgar — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:16:49 +0000

by Elgar

I'm with the Marines/FPC crowd on this one. This hand screems big military moreso then green. The military here sets up leeching the alien warship next turn. I think GGP isn't worth enough in this situation.

I would discard GGP and DAL for the marines. Keep ARSW just in case you explore into another military alien planet (or DAW). You are left with 7 cards after this turn (from most important to least): LAW, NGO, RB, IL, HW, EF, ARSW.

On the next turn, you've got 2 options. I could be tempted to call develop (IL payed with EF and ARSW), spec'ing to leech a settle to drop HW and LAW. Trade the next turn hoping to leech RB.

Otherwise, trade, and leech dev for IL discarding HW in addition, and leech settle with LAW. Worse case scenario is no dev, settle or produce, and you hit max hand size.

Obviously you want to keep NGO, as it's a very nice monument (once LAW is in play you've hit max military needed). RB as well.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Sessions:: Re: Alien strategy taken to the extreme vs. Keldon's AI

Stunna — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:50:51 +0000

by Stunna

Alien strategy can work just fine, but it's usually a hybrid strategy. Alien/military is the most common, but alien/replicant can also work well. That being said, you can come up with some senseless (but still effective) combos, like alien/genes, which aren't good ideas in the abstract but can be effective on the spot. Being able to mix up seemingly unrelated strategies was one of the subtleties that helped me to keep improving after my first sets of games.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: Advanced Strategy: Being aware of the "freshness" of cards in the opponents hand

entranced — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:27:52 +0000

by entranced

onigame wrote:
Tracking whether or not an opponent is taking extra time on Explore... well, I'm questioning the etiquette of using that information to influence strategy.

I would rather not RftG turn into a game where I have to carefully
and methodically slow down my fast turns for fear that opponents will
make inferences from my speed. I don't want to have to shuffle my
action cards repeatedly so people won't track from where in my pile I'm drawing from. I don't want to have to wear sunglasses and baseball caps at the game table. That just doesn't feel like part of the point of the game to me.

Until there's RftG World Championships, you're safe. :) Those are all byproducts of high level, high stakes competitive play in any game - all information/edges you can glean are valuable.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: Advanced Strategy: Being aware of the "freshness" of cards in the opponents hand

onigame — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:07:37 +0000

by onigame

Tracking whether or not an opponent has gotten new cards recently seems okay to me.

Tracking whether or not an opponent is taking extra time on Explore... well, I'm questioning the etiquette of using that information to influence strategy.

I would rather not RftG turn into a game where I have to carefully
and methodically slow down my fast turns for fear that opponents will
make inferences from my speed. I don't want to have to shuffle my
action cards repeatedly so people won't track from where in my pile I'm drawing from. I don't want to have to wear sunglasses and baseball caps at the game table. That just doesn't feel like part of the point of the game to me.

Your mileage may vary.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Sessions:: Re: Alien strategy taken to the extreme vs. Keldon's AI

Eric Brosius — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:15:10 +0000

by Eric Brosius

Stormparkiet wrote:
you shouldn't try to force it, that's just doomed to fail.

Yes, I had both Alien Tech Institute and Deserted Alien World in my opening hand. Since my starting world was Damaged Alien Factory, the cards were just begging me to try this strategy.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Sessions:: Re: Alien strategy taken to the extreme vs. Keldon's AI

ackmondual — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:57:41 +0000

by ackmondual

Stormparkiet wrote:
Sure is nice when a strategy comes together like that, isn't it? I can vouch that an Alien strategy can work even against real opponents, although you shouldn't try to force it, that's just doomed to fail. Also, the more expansions you add, the likelier the Alien strategy becomes. I'm curious what the next expansion will do for the Aliens.

I'm thinking a 1-cost/defense alien world or more yellow production worlds. Another 6-cost for aliens, although not to mirror ATI. Sort of like Uplift code which works for a mish-mash of cards (not all of them synomonous with green worlds). Or perhaps a non-6-cost dev for yellow worlds. Perhaps discard or pay-for-yellow military world power.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Sessions:: Re: Alien strategy taken to the extreme vs. Keldon's AI

Stormparkiet — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:38:43 +0000

by Stormparkiet

Sure is nice when a strategy comes together like that, isn't it? I can vouch that an Alien strategy can work even against real opponents, although you shouldn't try to force it, that's just doomed to fail. Also, the more expansions you add, the likelier the Alien strategy becomes. I'm curious what the next expansion will do for the Aliens.

Session: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Alien strategy taken to the extreme vs. Keldon's AI

Eric Brosius — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:57:26 +0000

by Eric Brosius

I recently downloaded the AI for Race for the Galaxy and have been playing it to see whether I learn anything new.

This evening, in a 3-player game using only the first expansion and no goals, I started with Damaged Alien Factory. I then built my tableau in the following order (the s mark the Alien cards):

Damaged Alien Factory
Deserted Alien World
Alien Tech Institute
Alien Toy Shop
Deserted Alien Library
Alien Robot Scout Ship
Space Marines (how did a non-Alien card get in there? Needed it for the next card...)
Lost Alien Battle Fleet
Alien Robotic Factory
Deserted Alien Colony
Rebel Underground (for some reason, the Alien cards seemed to have run out)
Terraformed World

to win 58-26-12 (I had exactly 2 VP chips from the one time Alien Toy Shop operated.)

Before I started playing with the AI, I rarely went the Alien route, but I've become convinced that (at least against the AI) it can work. I'll have to watch for this against real life opponents. Of course, if you can magically make the cards you need appear when you want them, it can work really well.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

hibikir — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:56:05 +0000

by hibikir

Seems easy to me: You have NGO in hand, and the capability to get to 10 military, all while having a very good chance of getting the 1 of each type goal. It also puts you in a great position of auto-winning if you win the Terraforming Guild lottery.

Play Space Marines, then Penal colony. That puts you at 5, so you'll be able to play free cards on settle, and gives you a great reason to play IL on a develop. Therefore, my next call is probably Trade, to set myself up with a full hand again, building whatever the other players don't. I probably would call settle instead if all other players end up with 4 cards in hand though.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

meyerg — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:39:43 +0000

by meyerg

To quote Wesley, "What are our assets?"
We do not have a good chance to get the two primary goals,
but our main asset is our ability to effectively leech develops and settles and produces to our hearts content while trading a genes good for 5 when it is full. We also hold the NGO, plenty of enablers, and improved logistics to keep the P/Cs from killing us too quickly.
It is too early to deplete our hand down too much, and we should plan on trading next phase for 5, so we don't want a full hand either.
I like the flexible space Marines/ Hive World. You have effectively two green production worlds now and you do have one consume ability that consumes two greens for 3 in your hand.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Variants:: Re: Is anyone building this?

thelric — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:57:55 +0000

by thelric

There is no need to develop something from scratch, as Strange Eons supports adding new kinds of cards and other components using plug-ins. Jon New has already added cards for the Talisman board game using this system.

You would need to prepare the art, of course, and there is a small amount of scripting involved, but it probably requires more patience and a willingness to experiment than it does coding skill. Jon was able to extend some of my example code into a full-blown Talisman support plug-in, and I don't think he had prior programming experience.

Cheers,
Chris

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

NtNScissors — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:01:40 +0000

by NtNScissors

Firstly, this is no God draw. Not with those goals - and not when you haven't seen Terraforming Guild pass through your hands (this is, after all Gathering Storm where TG is imba).

Secondly, let's have a look at your opponents. bigbimbo looks like he's going to be a troublemaker. He's done a first turn Doomed World -> Terraformed World, *and* used two of his precious early-game cards to put down Space Mercenaries. He's got nothing to show for it so far - and he's not called Settle until this turn, when all the players have hands full of cards. Likely to be adding pure randomness to the phase selection choices, which is no good for your specialised hand.

zebulon has so far not used either of his consume powers. His turn 3 produce was a small gamble which turned out very badly for him - Genetics Lab for you and Mining Robots for codeman73, meaning both of you have gained a card-advantage over him. He then goes on to call Trade on turn 4 - for a net gain of one card over the leeched consume. Could be a half-naked trade?

codeman73 called Develop in turn 1, and then skipped the Settle. After 2 trades, he still calls Explore on turn 5. Overall, my impression is that both zebulon and codeman73 are quite conservative players.

Thirdly, we move on to your goals. It really is quite ill-suited to the hand you have kept! The goals you would have liked to see - Galactic Status, Budget Surplus, Greatest Military - all missing. The only consolation is that Greatest Infrastructure is missing too, otherwise codeman73 could be hard to catch.

Fourthly, your hand. You have chosen to keep a hand completely devoid of consume powers. You are already trading Genes for 5, and can leech produces on your Uplift. This means that you probably do not want to go down the Overlord Discoveries path. Since you can't consume the Alien goods that you get, they might as well be absent - which means you're playing Alien cards purely for their intrinsic worth, plus the 3 points from the goal. Not worth it.

The same argument applies to aiming for the System Diversity goal. Four colours of goods with no way to consume them for points? No good. If you want to put down high-scoring cards without bothering about consumption, you're better off going Rebel Base. Innovation Leader is out of your control - you have no phase II powers, and your only consume power is sitting on a 6-dev.

So it boils down to either (i)playing GGP, (ii)going all-out military, or (iii)staying flexible. If you go down the early GGP route, you have a decent chance of snatching that Galactic Standard of Living goal - if you don't, you can pretty much kiss it goodbye (again, due to no consume powers).

My opinion is that the early GGP path is no good. zebulon already has 2 good consume powers down, and after he adds a few worlds he could suddenly be consuming as many points as you each round. Meanwhile the GGP Consume/Produce cycle doesn't have any card income, which could royall screw with you if the others decide to speed up their tableaux.

However, I also wouldn't want to give up the possibility of GGP by going full military, since all it takes is for Alien Toy Shop to show up and you'll be on your way.

So, this turn I will develop Space Marines, discarding Alien Rosetta Stone World and Deserted Alien Library which is completely consistent with the earlier discard of Alien Robotic Factory. If as expected, both zebulon nor codeman73 place slow, conservative developments, I will settle Hive World, keeping my options open and keep two Genes goods for trade. However, if I see either one of them making a promising rush for victory (e.g. zebulon putting down Terraforming Guild or codeman73 with Imp Logistics), I would be tempted to settle Former Penal Colony instead. This brings my Military to 5, allowing me to leech the next settle for Lost Alien Warship if it happens.

Either way, I still need to see some more cards in the medium term, since I don't hold all the pieces of the puzzle yet. I see myself challenging for just one goal (either Galactic Standard of Living in the GGP path, or System Diversity in the Military Rush path) and so the 30-40 points from my current cards is not enough.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

Kester — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:08:47 +0000

by Kester

With no new cards until next turn's trade, you want to play cheap. Develop Expedition Force or Space Marines, then settle either Hive World or Former Penal Colony. I'd go Space Marines and Hive World without goals, as you then have 2 turns of good trades set up, and obvious scoring and produce leech with Galactic Genome Project. But EF gets you towards the all powers goal, and FPC towards the 4-worlds, as MrWeasely says, so it's a bit of a wash. It depends what others develop. Aliens are the obvious candidates for discards here, they're too expensive right now.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

FakeDutch — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:39:26 +0000

by FakeDutch

I'd go with the Aliens instead. Alien Rosetta is so good :)

Keep the blue military settle for goal and abandon the green. Keep Space Marines/New Galactic Order/Rebel Base.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

MrWeasely — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:29:57 +0000

by MrWeasely

My first thought was to Go Green, but Green's a loser with Largest Industry and Greatest Production goals out there.

So instead I would go for the 4-colors First, by developing Space Marines, and settling Former Penal Colony. That gives the Lost Alien Warship on the next settle, and only needing a brown world for the 4th color. After that you can temporize on a settle with Rebel Base, and you can try to get down New Galactic Order the same turn you trade a good.

Thread: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: What is the Optimal Turn Play With This God Draw?

entranced — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:22:19 +0000

by entranced

The toughest decisions in RftG feel too complex to enumerate - a mix of opponent prediction and mathematics, filtered through multiple path options. However, there are relatively complex decisions easier to describe and discuss: military games with a god draw. The primary focus is which cards to play/discard.

In the following scenario, what do you develop and/or settle this turn, and what do you discard as payment? Extra credit for explaining your plans for future turns. I'll post results and thoughts after some replies.

Players

(Known genie.game-host.org ratings at the time.)
1635 entranced
1541 zebulon
1576 codeman73
1296 bigbimbo

Phases

[c] Explore Develop Settle Trade X2 Produce

T1 codeman73 entranced
zebulon
bigbimbo
T2 bigbimbo entranced
zebulon
codeman73
T3 bigbimbo codeman73 zebulon
entranced
T4 bigbimbo entranced
zebulon
codeman73
T5 codeman73 zebulon bigbimbo entranced[/c]

Game State

[Your discards so far: Free Trade Association, Deficit Spending, Old Earth, Alien Robotic Factory, Radioactive World.]

the Gathering Storm with goals: Game #____

Available goals

]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>

Draw deck size: 38 - Discard pile size: 45 - Chips left: 48

Chosen Actions: Explorecolor=blue]codeman73[/color->Developcolor=purple]zebulon[/color->Settlecolor=green]bigbimbo[/color->Producecolor=red]entranced[/color

Your Hand
]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>]]>
You have 11 card on hand
Action: Produce
Status: Develop
Your tableau: Total points = 4p (0 chips)
Goals entranced
]]>]]>]]>

zebulon has 11 card on hand
Action: Develop
Status: Develop
zebulon's tableau: Total points = 2p (0 chips)
Goals zebulon
]]>]]>

codeman73 has 11 card on hand
Action: Explore +5
Status: Develop
codeman73's tableau: Total points = 2p (0 chips)
Goals codeman73
]]>]]>]]>

bigbimbo has 9 card on hand
Action: Settle
Status: Develop
bigbimbo's tableau: Total points = 5p (0 chips)
Goals bigbimbo
]]>]]>

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Strategy:: Re: Advanced Strategy: Being aware of the "freshness" of cards in the opponents hand

ROMagister — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:41:52 +0000

by ROMagister

[Who can move this under basic RftG? Nothing GS-specific here]

hmmm... lots of 'stale' cards may mean they just don't work together, needing, say an Explore to find a 6dev matching the rest and using the stales as cash. Or, the 6dev is already there but short a few cash-cards to play it... again an Explore.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: General:: Re: Has anyone used their blank cards?

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:17:22 +0000

by rwinder

So I uploaded my attempt at a small expansion for Race with the blanks to a geeklist. For those who are interested: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/47437

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:51:09 +0000

by rwinder

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The windfall worlds in my mini-expansion for RftG themed around a new color text: "MYSTIC"

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:50:26 +0000

by rwinder

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The production worlds in my mini-expansion for RftG themed around a new color text: "MYSTIC".

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:48:31 +0000

by rwinder

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Gambling World Alpha, the oldest of the Gambling Worlds, while these days hopelessly out-of-touch with the larger universe, has nevertheless acquired a mystical reputation.

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:47:48 +0000

by rwinder

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The barren worlds in my mini-expansion for RftG themed around a new color text: "MYSTIC"

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:46:45 +0000

by rwinder

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The normal developments in my mini-expansion for RftG themed around a new color text: "MYSTIC"

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:46:26 +0000

by rwinder

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The 6-cost developments in my mini-expansion for RftG, and also an "experiment" in using Sharpies on the cards.

New Image for Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:03:40 +0000

by rwinder

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After centuries of licentious revelry, the citizens of Gambling World Beta turn a corner.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: General:: Re: Has anyone used their blank cards?

rwinder — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:03:29 +0000

by rwinder

This is not a bad idea, but my preference is to use these cards as a new expansion of my own ideas. In fact, I have already taken the big step and put marker to card (using Sharpie Ultra-Fine points). The results are satisfactory but my penmanship is not the greatest. I'll probably upload examples of my mini-expansion in case anyone else wants to try using markers.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: General:: Re: Has anyone used their blank cards?

Bundyman — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:10:15 +0000

by Bundyman

Try this variant, if you like variants:
I modified the game play with the 17 blank cards. The blank cards are shuffled in the deck, after all players got their 6 starting cards. When you draw a blank card you can get a bonus -1 for a new world or a development price. The conditions of the blank card must be exactly according to the card in your hand, which means the color and the type (windfall world, rebels etc.) must be the same. Pay with the blank card in the right phase out of your hand and you can decrease -1 points of the costs. When you pay with a blank card to settle a world or build a development, all other privileges of your actual display are active.

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: Re: robot player question

vinoc0388647 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:59:15 +0000

by vinoc0388647

oh noes i been playing wrong *tear* lol ok well lets see if I can keep winning playing the right way now, thanx!

Reply: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: Re: robot player question

QBert80 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:53:51 +0000

by QBert80

If you are playing on easy or normal, they're worth 6pts each. If you're playing on hard, they're worth 9pts.

Thread: Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm:: Rules:: robot player question

vinoc0388647 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:49:24 +0000

by vinoc0388647

this may be a dumb question but how do you count the vp's for the robot's six cost developments? Do they have a set score or do they score normally like if they were a human player? For example if the robot has new galactic order do you count its total military or does it have a preset vp score?