This strategy has dramatically effected our playgroup.

Even when no one starts with Alpha Centauri (the only windfall homeworld), the strategy is now to assume SOMEONE is going to choose
Consume Trade because the chance of Settle is so high.

(If you dont know what i mean, im saying someone is going to choose Settle, and if you have a windfall world, you DONT choose settle, you choose consume trade, so you can ride their settle, but you'll end up being the only one who draws cards on Turn one.)


The end result is that two or more players start playing chicken and keep choosing consume trade. Its viable because you don't benefit anyone else the way you benefit others with the other actions.

I guess it conveys the fact that all players who don't have an opening Good that choose Consume Trade are holding a windfall world.

Except when everyone else chooses explore +1, you're down a card because your consume did nothing for you. And then they develop and you're down another card. And then they explore again and you're down three cards because you kept playing consume and no one has settled yet.

Ah, so to hit another point, the strategy improves as the number of players increases. The strategy also improves with the presence of New Sparta. In a four player game, the amount of potential gain overwhelms the chance of failure.

There are a number of features that arise when you increase the number of players:

(1) Statisically, the odds of any given phase being chosen goes up in proportion to the number of players.

The consequences are tremendous:

(a) Blue Production worlds go up in card selection value. The reliance on riding someone elses' chance Production phase assures the Blue production player that he can focus on developments and settlements that generate VP and draw cards on consume and production.

(b) Rare (Brown) production worlds also go up in card selection value. Again, like blue, the number of ways to develop card advantage without ever having to cast consume trade goes way up if you can reliably assume an increased chance of riding someone elses's Production cycle.

(c) Green and Yellow have to get very tenacious as they will most likely be earning their VP through card-for-points : Deficit Spending and Merchant world.

(d) And who gets left out of the whole mess? Military. Military's reliance on choosing settle or get cut out of production means that every other player will be riding Military's back to victory. Also, Military desparately needs a hybrid strategy or just plain luck and pull New Galatic Order. In fact, a game with Military means if someone is playing heavy production, the odds of Production winning go up dramatically. I personally feel its important to get the board set up early on so that as soon as turn 5 im already going into a
production->2xVP cycle and generally allowing myself to ride everyone else.

(e) With increased number of players the chance for a good to be accidentally consume at the wrong time go up. Thus, losing a Green (Genes) world good is much worse than a blue. The Green/Yellow has much more at stake, even though he paid for the increased value already. That seems to me a negative side to Green and yellow.

This thread reminds me about "Settler fear" (or perhaps hesitation). This is similar to "Craftsman fear" in Puerto Rico...whoever calls craftsman looses a tempo because the next player can Trade/Ship.

Here if you call settle someone else may trade a windfall. (Pre-Sentient Race or Alien Robot Sentry in the worst cases). In most cases (unless you are Alpha Centauri or Earth's Lost Colony), all players desperately want a production world, to make sure that AC/ELC don't just keep trading/producing (i.e., to leech). But you'd rather have someone else settle and you trade, instead of vice versa.

An interesting dynamic. Still thinking about it.

The potential for each phase does go up with the number of players, but it isn't anywhere near a linear increase. Players tend to find themselves with the same requirements on the same turns, and will frequently be forced into picking the same action. The most obvious is Consume/Trade after a Produce in the early turns of a game.

It can be key to break this synchronicity and pick the role that magnifies the difference in position between your own situation and the other players. This is where a military strategy can find a niche. One option is early Settles. Early on the other players will not have many free cards to spend, so repeated Settles of Military worlds when they are thin on cards will either gain tempo or stretch their hands. This will potentially load up your tableau for future Consume or Trade options when the other players don't have the goods to take advantage of the Consume phase.

One should pretty much only pick settle early in the game if their play is awesome, for this very reason. Dont pick settle to build some crappy little world, or even an ok world. Only pick it because your play is much superior to what your opponents probably have. Obviously, playing a military world is strong because its free.

This is pretty much a 3-4 player thing, since in 2 player someone with a windfall world will generally pick settle/trade themself.

People who complain about Race being multi-player solitaire should be pointed to this thread. A good example of things that you probably won't think about in your first couple of games, but that demonstrate that the game is really pretty interactive once you start understanding how it works...

To channel Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. You play the card from your hand (+1 card), you draw for the privelege (-1 card), and you pay the opportunity cost of not picking another role (+1 card), for a net cost of one card!

I would say that it doesn't mean what you think it means. In Race For The Galaxy, "free" means "at no additional cost beyond the card itself".

And some would say "free" is when you play a card and end up with the same number of cards in your hand. i.e. playing a development at cost 0 and then drawing a card from public works.
There's no definition of "free" in the rule book so people can really define it how they want.
The point is that if you can get a good world out by paying little or no cost (such as a military world) it's clearly to your advantage. The Develop and Settle bonuses are rather weak. You should only pick them when you think you can make a better play than your opponents during that phase. If you have only an average play to make, save it for when an opponent picks the phase. Meanwhile, try to get some cards in the hope that you can come up with a better play before a Develop or Settle comes up.

The other benefit of Consume/Trade on turn one is that it ruins the first turn windfall for Old Earth, Earth's Lost Colony, and to a lesser extent Epsilon Eridani. Their goods will get consumed. In this way it can serve as a minor stall too.

I often look for moments during the mid-game when it seems extremely likely that "Settle" will be called and I have turned losing games around by dropping a windfall world and consuming it in the same turn.

In general, however, I think it's a poor strategy for the opener -- especially if your group does it enough to be aware that someone may try it.

Explore gives a straight-up bonus of one card. So does choosing Develop or Settle. Given that your opening hand is just four cards, giving that up is a big deal. Your payoff is big when it works, but when it doesn't you can end up way behind.

Yes. If you choose it and play something weak or average, and an opponent plays something strong, youre falling behind.

If you dont have something strong to play, you needto explore, get more options, and slow the game down, hopefully getting somethign strong to do. When people explore a lot and dont develop or settle as much, it slows things down.


A military player shouldnt settle a bunch early on, it will just help a producer get their setup going. Rather, they should settle a little, for windfall, trade, increase their military, and explore for the cards they will use to score points later. In the midgame, the military player begins settling a bunch.

It's a minor deterrent, but I wouldn't say that it's a complete "ruin."

Case in point: I was playing Earth's Lost Colony in a 4-player game yesterday, where Alpha Centauri was in the game.

First turn: I choose Develop, AC chooses Consume: Trade, other players choose Explore and Settle. I put out Drop Ships (!) and Reptilian Uplift Race (!!) and the Genes good on RUR gets consumed for a dinky VP chip (!!!). But so what, I can just produce next turn -- and chances are, I can settle almost anything that comes my way.

Second turn: I choose Produce, other players choose Explore, Settle, Settle. On the Explore I find Rebel Underground and play that on the Settle! So, going into turn three, I'm nowhere behind on tableau tempo, I have a Genes and a Novelty good sitting in drydock, I already have one good's worth of consumption, and I have a total of 10 VPs already. Furthermore, I have one card in my hand (from RU's produce power).

I eventually win the game, with what seems like a very schizophrenic tableau -- on the left side is Consumer Markets, Free Trade Association, and four Novelty production worlds, whereas on the right side is Drop Ships, two Uplift worlds, Rebel Underground, and Rebel Base (since on a previous turn I had built New Military Tactics speculatively).

I played in a 4-player game without AC, where TWO players chose Trade-Consume in the first turn - both expecting one of the others to Settle. Turn 2, they did it again, except the fourth player in the group chose Settle. Sadness! I will continue to wonder how long it would have gone on, without settling...if only the fourth player hadn't caved. Would he have broken their stubbornness? Could we have gone an entire game without settling?

I was once in a three-player game that went:

Turn 1. I choose Explore, other two players choose Explore and Consume:Trade. We laugh at the audacity of the player choosing Consume:Trade.

Turn 2. I choose Explore, other two players choose Explore and Consume:Trade (same guy). We laugh some more.

Turn 3. I choose Explore, other two players choose Explore and Consume:Trade. Third time's a charm, right? By now this is feeling quite silly.

Turn 4. I choose Consume:Trade (!). Other two players choose Settle (!) and Consume:Trade.

It's all about timing.

I've seen times where three players picked Trade and did nothing on turn 1, whle one person explored.

I've seen a player pick Trade on the first 4 turns, with no settles. Then on turn 5 trade again, finally get a settle, sell a windfall good, and go on to win the game!