One of the issues in party-based games like Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun or Traveller is making the PCs a party, not a group of strangers that have no reason to work together. I’m also a lazy DM who likes getting story ideas from my players, but not every game provides player-authoured story hooks the way The Shadow of Yesterday or Burning Wheel do.

Here is an easy trick that I think should solve both of these problems. It’s unplaytested, but it is based on various story gaming techniques, notably the character creation in Don’t Rest Your Head, Spirit of the Century and Mouse Guard. I’m not starting a new campaign in an appropriate game any time soon, but wanted to jot it down while it occurred to me. If you try it out, please let me know how it goes.

Hand each of your players a blank index card after you have presented the campaign concept and the players have come up with their character concepts, but before they’ve started putting numbers to character sheets. Ask them each to write down their character’s name, their own name and a sentence or two that answers the question (phrased here for a D&D-like game, but easily adaptable):

“What problem does your character want to solve by adventuring, even if he never earns a copper piece?”

Once everyone has written their answer, collect the index cards, shuffle them, and randomly hand them back out. If a player ends up with their own index card from the first step, have them trade with the player to their left. Then ask them to write a sentence or two that answers:

“Why does your character care about this goal?”

Make sure the players indicate who provided the second answer.

These do not have to be epic quests. The goal is to build enough player engagement and intercharacter connections to carry the game through the early stages of play. You can use the player-provided hooks to the campaign started and you can set up your own hooks and lures – tying them in to what the players are interested in – organically during this phase of play. Also, by the time the group settles these scores, they should have established real camaraderie.

Originally, my plan was to write a single longish article with a few pointers each for specific types of Consume strategy. As these things are wont to do however, it grew. Before long, I realized it would be better to do a separate, easily digestible article for each type of Consume strategy. I’m starting this series-within-a-series here with power Consume strategies.

Note that I am not writing with Rebel vs. Imperium in mind yet. I am rapidly racking up experience, but I’m not ready to write with any authority about it yet.

Key cards: Tourist World, Alien Toy Shop, Galactic Trendsetters, commodity worlds

A power Consume strategy tries to outpace other players by playing efficient Consume powers that score more than one VP per good. The point is to save tempi, building a powerful Consume engine more quickly than normal. When it works right, you finish the game by exhausting the VP pool before your opponents can hit their stride.

Typically, you want to try a power Consume strategy when you start the game with one of Tourist World, Alien Toy Shop or Galactic Trendsetters, plus a commodity world or two. The general idea is to play the commodity world, then Produce and Trade for the cards you need to play the other parts of your engine, although Alien Toy Shop reverses this order.

Alien Toy Shop is an especially nice start for this strategy, since it sets up a Trade for enough cards to play another key piece or two of the engine. You can even continue to Trade repeatedly until you feel you are well set up, although you must be careful not to put off consuming too long and diluting the power of your plan. Lost Species Ark World is also a nice start, although it is slower than Alien Toy Shop, since it costs more and needs to Produce before you can Trade.

Galactic Trendsetters is the least useful of the three power consumers to start with, since it only generates 4 points (with Consume ×2) per round and it does not include production capacity (a la Alien Toy Shop). It does make an excellent complement to one of the other two key Consume powers, though, allowing you to Consume for eight or ten points with only two or three goods.

Commodity worlds are important to this strategy because none of the key Consume powers generate cards. Picking up a couple extra points from builds, hopefully while continuing to grow your Consume engine, can make the difference between victory and defeat. It may even be worth refilling your hand with a Trade before you start your point engine rolling, especially if you think your opponents are ready to do some serious building right away.

Other Cards of Note

Galactic Studios can be useful in a power Consume strategy, but it is better suited to novelty and junk ball strategies, since it has a useful Consume power. It does work well as a complement to Alien Toy Shop, though.

Mining League and Galactic Genome Project can also be used as the engine of a power Consume strategy. However, it is harder to get them rolling because of the extra cost of setting them up.

A Colony Ship is not necessary, but it is a small blessing, since it can help you put down Lost Species Ark World, Galactic Studios, Tourist World or Galactic Trendsetters cheaply.

If you are playing more than one colour of world, Diversified Economy may be worth playing just for the card generation, although it is a luxury, not a key element.

One of the many topics that gamers find to divide themselves over is RPG settings. Not only are the settings themselves the topic of “love it”-”hate it” holy wars, but how settings should be presented and makes up a “complete” setting sourcebook also cause divisions. My own opinions on these subjects have changed several times over the years, aligning with almost every major fashion as it came along.

A few days ago, I made an offhand comment on Twitter about how exposure to Forge-influenced RPGs and theory prompted the most recent change in my views. This led Seth Ben Ezra to ask me how they did so, and this post is my response. Hopefully, it’s of some broader interest.

Treadmill Settings

Until recently, I loved, for lack of a better term, “supplement treadmill” settings. This is the current dominant model, but for readers that aren’t familiar with it, “treadmill” settings present the broad brush strokes of the setting in a core book – either an RPG’s core rulebook or a core setting book. For the lifespan of the product line, subsequent supplements are published that add more detail to the setting. These extra supplements mostly flesh out a specific area or organization, which future supplements can then dive into even deeper, covering major cities or factions within major organizations. Adventures can become a part of this, too, since they let groups tour a popular setting without putting the strain of preparation on the GM. Before long, there is an enormous amount of detail that players can immerse themselves in. If a line is especially successful, it could run to several thousands of pages and an accompanying line of novels.

I was a fan of treadmill settings during the early and mid-90s, especially Mage: the Ascension’s modern Earth with a “secret” history setting. There was a huge stream of sourcebooks that detailed that history as well as a huge number of organizations and conspiracies. This detail was a lot of fun to read, but I was the only one fascinated enough by it to spend hours reading about it. My game group liked the premise of the game, but trying to get them up to speed on the basic setting information, let alone everything found in the supplements.
I was spending a lot of money on books, acquiring a wealth of detail that was never going to appear at my game table. The story of the First Covenant (don’t worry about it) was unlikely to play a role in any game I ran as was the much-ballyhooed fact that Copernicus launched the Technocratic revolution. In fact, I had enough of these bits of trivia to last me the rest of my gaming life in the core book and the first couple sourcebooks. Of course, if I had a group that wanted to immerse itself as deeply as I did in the setting I could make casual references to all of that detail and history if I wanted without having to explain every single one, let alone all of the other detail necessary to make that explanation even make sense.

I finally gave up on Mage: the Ascension when the game’s third edition subverted many of my favourite setting tropes with a setting-wide cataclysm. This was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, however. The frustration of playing in a setting as complex as Mage’s had already doomed a few stabs at setting up a campaign. By that point, I doubt I would have done anything more than read supplements anyway.

By the way, I believe that this kind of “metaplot” – advancing a settings storyline and changing major elements of the setting in the process – is bad for gaming. Metaplots can be incredibly disruptive to groups that are committed to using the entire published canon for a setting when changes conflict obtrusively with what the group has established in their own play. Metaplot is not something that has to go hand in hand with the supplement treadmill model, however. Hârn , for example, has been slowly fleshed out for almost 30 years, but the setting’s timeline has not been advanced even a single second.

I have been on the player side of the treadmill setting equation, too. When I played D&D 3.5, the campaigns were set in Grayhawk and the Forgotten Realms. Both of these settings have thick libraries of established detail and history. The Realms, in particular, have spawned an ungodly number of gamebooks and, yes, novels. My DM and a couple of the players were familiar with the Realms, but, even now, I’ve barely read a page about them since Ed Greenwood’s old AD&D1 crunch articles in Dragon magazine. I recognize many of the names, but I have almost no context.

Seed Settings

The biggest difference between when I thought treadmill settings were the bomb and now is what I don’t need in a setting. Instead of page after page of detail, what I now want is material that helps me to build interesting situations (scenarios, adventures) that I can use in my games. Treadmill settings include this, but they bury it in holy days, demographics and the personal history of the basket merchant. I’m not even terribly interested in combat stats for every major NPC. That is the sort of information I can create myself when it comes up, customizing it to suit my group’s sensibilities. More importantly, I don’t want this stuff getting in the way when I don’t care about it.

I don’t just mean the phenomenon (which I’ve never experienced as a GM) of a setting fanboy contradicting something the GM says because it’s not what obscure supplement15 says. That can be dealt with by Crucifying Elminster. Rather, I don’t want to wade through all that stuff when what I really need is inspiration for my next game or campaign. I don’t want to have to pay for that stuff, either.

What I want in a setting is conflicts that PCs can get in the middle of, locations that stimulate a sense of wonder, and NPCs in broad outline that I’ll want my players to meet. There’s nothing wrong with touching on the fundamentals, either: lost temples are a dime a dozen, but I may want to use one that offers an interesting twist, and it may also give me a spinoff idea of my own.

I actually prefer help with coming up with my own material, including what I can spin off from another source of inspiration. Old school random charts get a lot of stick from treadmill setting fans, but they are a highly efficient method of stimulating a DM’s creativity. The problem with the old games is that they didn’t give the instructions – even minimal ones – on how to pull the results together into a coherent narrative, or at least a coherent picaresque. Traveller may have had the advantage of being pretty self-explanatory, but wandering monster tables and random dungeon dressing could create chaos in the hands of the wrong DM.

Many of the most interesting “new new school” games use the random charts or similar methods for generating situation. GM prep in Inspectres consists of rolling 2d6 four times, once for each of the situation generation charts, and that’s it. This gives the GM broad strokes describing a client and a mission that can then be filled out in play. The level of player authourship in Inspectres makes this kind of sketchy prep is a necessity, but it is important – and not at all typical – that the rules provide adequate tools for situation generation.

Setting random charts aside, I would point to Legends of Allyria and the world of Near from The Shadow of Yesterday as good examples of settings that I am fond of. Seth Ben Ezra devotes a mere handful of paragraphs to each of Allyria’s major setting elements, but the major landmarks, organizations and phenomena come alive. Characters that you want to play practically fly at you as you read. The Digger Paladins – from the ranks of anthropomorphic aardvarks that are mostly content to live alone in their burrows, the Paladins have visions of fighting evils in a city of steel and are drawn into the world to become heroes – are worth the price of admission by themselves.

Clinton R. Nixon presents each of the nations and races of Near with a page or so of text, plus a handful of crunch that roots this information in the mechanics of the game. The decadent Maldorians are one side of half a dozen conflicts, while the Qek are trying to protect the remnants of a world-shattering asteroid from those that would use its power for evil. Take element 1, throw it at element 2 and you have the basis for a short campaign. Just add PCs.

While Forge-related games showed me the light when it comes to seed-based settings, the did not invent them, and do not have a monopoly on quality setting design. The most recent version of Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor setting (the same setting material is presented in the D&D3.x and the D&D4 books; only the crunch is different) has excellent setting material that presents an old fashioned D&D setting that is ready for play. Colour is limited to a few key details that set each town or village apart, and the rest is a litany of adventures that are waiting to happen. If anything, I would criticize the book for not offering enough on the city of Blackmoor itself and the castle/megadungeon that shares its name. I suspect they will be fleshed out in future products (sigh), but I’d have been happier getting rid of half of the book’s crunch for a full chapter on each.

I also think the approach Wizards of the Coast took to the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms books was laudable in principle. Again, they present the different areas of the Realms concisely, focusing on events and personalities that promise adventure. The only problem is that they tied this approach to a major metaplot event that practically destroyed the established Realms to recast it in the image of Fourth Edition. I am not a Realmsophile, so it didn’t bother me much personally, but I can see why fans were upset about this. Fortunately, WotC seem to have learned their lesson, and are not doing the same thing with Eberron. In fact, I don’t think Eberron has had a major metaplot event yet.

Different Strokes

I realize that many roleplayers feed on all of the detail that I have rejected. They like the sense of verisimilitude it provides; the sense that they are playing in a “real” world. For these players, settings work best when all of the players in the group read all of the setting material they can get their hands on, so exposition at the table isn’t necessary.

This approach is never going to fly with the group I play with now, though, as much as a couple of players might like it to. Some of my friends just don’t want to immerse themselves in all that detail. They just want to play when the gang gets together, and leave the game behind when they leave the table. That is why the focused (in cases like Forgotten Realms 4e and Blackmoor, minimalist isn’t quite right) approach works for me, whether pre-established settings or the tools to produce situations of my own. While a bit of colour is important to bring a game to life, it’s also easy to produce in play, as long as the other players do not need to immerse themselves in it before they start to play.

Consume strategies are a tough nut for new Race for the Galaxy players to crack. They require a lot of moving parts – a handful of production worlds and the right mix of Consume powers to make them score efficiently. It’s easier to see how plans like throwing down a big military and then settling your brains out or leveraging discounts work, even if they are not always as efficient. Tom Lehmann has even said in public forums that he designed the Race for the Galaxy base set with a significant bias toward Consume strategies in order to nudge new players toward playing them effectively.

In this article, I want to present some general advice on how to get the most from Consume strategies. I will follow up in my next article with an overview of the major varieties of Consume strategy, with specific tips for playing each variety well. Finally, in a third article, I will present a few tips for fighting against Consume strategies.

Go Go Go!

While every strategy needs to be careful about wasting time, it is doubly important for Consume strategies. While points-per-build is an important consideration for build strategies, most Consume powers are fairly equal, generating a point or a point plus a card for each good consumed. This rate of conversion is good enough to win, although there are other problems you will have to face, of course. While converting goods to points more efficiently than this is good, it is not essential if you don’t dilly-dally rounding your engine into shape.

Consuming is inherently a come-from-behind strategy, however. Most production worlds are more expensive for the amount of VPs they score than other types of worlds. When you play them, you are investing in them, taking on a lower return up front in exchange for a promise that they will generate even more points than normal via consuming later in the game. A Consume-oriented player will be generally be behind – possibly well behind – for the first third or even half of the game. A smart builder will try to close out the game before a consumer can generate many points from his engine, earning the interest on his investment. The consumer can only prevent this by getting his engine running before the builder can lock in his advantage.

You therefore cannot waste time getting your engine in gear. Settle production worlds early and often, and use your opponent’s Develop calls to play developments that have useful Consume powers when you can. Production worlds that also have Consume powers — Prosperous World or Earth’s Lost Colony for example — cost a little more, but are important because they save you time, as can choosing a windfall world that features a Consume Power as your one windfall selection.

You want to use your opponents’ role selections for card generation as much as you can. Rely as much on your opponents’ Explores and Consumes, the Settle phase bonus and leeching for card generation as possible. Ideally you will only Trade when you are about to play something expensive like an engine card or a very strong production world along the lines of Lost Species Ark World or Galactic Studios.

Cards that can Consume more than one good per Consume phase are another valuable way to save tempi when getting set up. Tourist World, Old Earth, Mining Conglomerate and Galactic Genome Project are the kind of card that is worth splurging on provided you are producing appropriate goods.

Card Generation

It is extremely rare for a Consume strategy to win if it cannot generate cards as part of its normal operations. Generally, you will be scoring 4-8 points per Consume cycle, and it is not difficult for a builder to match that if he manages 2-4 builds in that time, especially when she is playing 6-developments and large rebel worlds. You are also trying to dig yourself out of a scoring hole, so you must score during your opponents’ build phases if you want any hope of winning. Whether you use the builds to expand your Consume engine or to simply pick up a few points to make sure you are gaining on the builders, using your opponents build phase calls is essential.

Strong card generation also gives you options when you find that you are being beaten at your own Consume game. If you let your opponent take on the burden of calling Produce, you can use your non-Consume phases to call builds. You can either strengthen your Consume engine, seizing the advantage from your opponent, or use your advantage in card generation to play valuable cards, overcoming your opponent’s Consume advantage through brute force. In multiplayer games, you may even have the option of exploring for strong plays occasionally, leeching the consumer’s Produces and the builders’ Settles and Develops.

In the two-player advanced game, it is not terribly important whether you draw cards during the Consume phase or the Produce phase. You will choose both – and generate cards from both – every round, so balance is not an issue. In multiplayer games (and two-player basic), you may want to favour balanced card generation – a situation where you are drawing roughly the same number of cards from Consume powers as you are from Produce powers – when you have a choice. While you get the same number of cards from your Consume engine every two rounds, unbalanced card production can be a little awkward at times, since big builds can leave you with an empty hand for a round if the timing is wrong. When this happens, the builders do not have to take the possibility of what you might build into consideration. With balanced card generation, you will always have a few cards in hand at the start of the round, so the choice between building or saving cards is driven by what you have available, not by the fact that your hand is empty. The difference is small, but it can add up to a build or two lost over the course of a game.

Engines

Engine, as far as I know, is a term that Alex Rockwell originally coined to describe the developments that allow a player to draw cards when they produce on their own worlds, like Mining Conglomerate and Research Labs. While this is a useful definition, I prefer to use it to refer to cards that a) consume multiple cards each Consume phase and b) allow you to draw plenty of cards while pursuing your Consume strategy. This means that I do not view Research Labs as a true engine card, but I do include Free Trade Association. I prefer this definition because it helps to identify cards that automatically generate a robust Consume strategy with a few appropriate production worlds in play.

While engines are (understandably) expensive, they are also extremely efficient. Consumer Markets is slightly stronger than three Consume powers that consume a good for a point and a card. While it only works with novelty goods worlds, it saves you a at least one tempo over playing three separate cards with Consume powers, two if you do not have to make a special effort to gain cards to pay for it. Those tempi can often be the margin between victory and defeat.

Other engine cards, with the partial exception of the less expensive Mining Conglomerate, are equally efficient, which is why I talk about all of the engines except Mining Conglomerate in the Game Changers article. If you have an engine card and one production world that works with it (or two different colours with Diversified Economy) in your hand early in the game, you should consider carefully before deciding not to pursue a strategy involving them.

Replicant Robots

While Replicant Robots is a nice card for any non-military strategy, it is a godsend for Consume strategies. All Consume strategies rely heavily on settling, so getting Replicant Robots into play early will save Consume players a lot of cards. It’s not unusual for Replicant Robots to pay for itself two or three times over in the course of a game.

That is not the end of its benefits, either. A lot of Consume strategies suffer from poor card generation. A consumer wants to continue to grow his Consume engine even after he has begun to crank out points, but if he is only drawing two or three cards with each cycle of the engine, this can be difficult. Trying to expand while saving for a key endgame 6-development is virtually impossible. With Replicant Robots in play, though, most production worlds are free, or only cost one card. Even minimal card production becomes enough to slowly increase your hand size and grow your engine at the same time.

Military

Another way a you can make the most of minimal card production when consuming is to play a small amount of military. Even +2 military is enough to Settle an occasional small military world as a free leech, giving you a chance to accumulate cards over the course of the game for a key development, or perhaps Terraformed World or an alien world. A small military can also, with a little luck, grow into the ability to play medium sized rebel worlds by the end of the game.

The problem with using military to leech cheaply is that it is less likely to help you grow your Consume engine. While there are a few low-defense production worlds and worlds with Consume powers that you can play with military, they are less common than windfall worlds, and your third windfall world does not usually help you as a consumer. Even among production worlds, only New Survivalists has a Consume power, which only gives you a card, and there are no military windfall worlds so far that have Consume powers.

I would choose playing Replicant Robots – or an additional Consume power – over playing military strength every time once I know I am playing a Consume strategy. Sometimes you do not have one of those options, however, and a little military is often better than not playing anything.

Produce — Consume — Consume — Produce

Normally you want to maintain a rough balance between your goods production and your Consume capacity; both leftover goods and unused Consume powers are wasted opportunities. Nevertheless, you do not have control over which cards you draw, and there will be times when your position is out of synch.

Sometimes you can take advantage of excess production, however. If you have at least two goods left after your Consume, it may be worth choosing Consume again before you Produce. You’ll score at least four points and deny any opponents that are out of goods a leech. If one of your opponents is also playing a Consume strategy, you may even force him to call Produce for you.

This tactic works especially well when you only have a couple of Consume powers, but one or more of them average more than one point per good consumed, say Galactic Trendsetters, Tourist World or Galactic Genome Project. It does not require a lot of goods to earn a good return on your phase selection this way, so four to six production worlds are enough to make two Consume calls in a row efficient.

Back-to-back consuming is less effective if your opponents have little or no Consume ability of their own. You have to do the math here and figure out if you score more points per round by calling two Consumes in a row or by alternating Consume with Produce. You also have to take into account how important producing is to your card generation. If you have several Consume powers that grant both points and cards, you should be fine, but if the bulk of your cards come from Produce-related powers, you may be costing yourself valuable builds by calling Consume twice in a row. Regardless, getting more Consume powers into play should be your top building priority.

Having taken a look at cards that change the game when they are played, I want to turn my attention now to cards that are undeniably powerful, but lack the extra oomph characteristic of a game changer. Their appearance may mark a transition between phases of the game, but only when it is the capstone of a power combination, or the last piece of a strategic puzzle. Often they cause little change in the tempo of the game when they are played. They save a player a tempo or three over the course of a game, but they do not drive you to the end of the game the same way Tourist World and Improved Logistics do.

Drop Ships

When playing a strategy that requires a strong military, failing to get over the hump from two military power to three can be a major problem, as can getting from three to four. Several factors play into why this can be so hard, but one major factor is that, normally, you need two or more sources of military power to get that high. Drop Ships can short circuit these problems in a hurry, though. With it in play, a military strategy that is stuck in neutral can suddenly start to roll out valuable worlds in a hurry.

Even when you are playing a power military strategy, Drop Ships is not a card you should automatically play, though. When you are trying to stockpile high defense worlds and military-themed 6-developments or you are having trouble getting cards into your hand you may not be able to spare cards to pay for Drop Ships. New Sparta can usually get by with Space Marines or a couple of +1s, while other start worlds may opt to play New Military Tactics, sacrificing a tempo to get a mid- to high-defense alien world and its military bonus into play on the cheap. Often you get a nice Trade as part of the package, too.

Late in the game, Drop Ships is almost always a strong play when you intend to get New Galactic Order into play. A lot of the time, though, its relatively high cost can mean the difference between a tempo spent playing a strong military world versus a tempo spent trading or exploring for enough cards to get rolling.

Combinations

Drop Ships does not feature in any combinations in the conventional sense. As a large boost in military strength, though, it can be a part of the mega-”combination” that lies at the heart of any military strategy.

Galactic Trendsetters

Either both Tourist World and Alien Toy Shop are underpriced or else Galactic Trendsetters costs too much. Actually, I suspect all of these may be true. Trendsetters does improve the efficiency of a Consume strategy the same way the game changers Tourist World and Alien Toy Shop do. It comes up short compared to them, though, because it does not save the Consume player a tempo. Tourist World is (effectively) two Consume powers at once, while Alien Toy Shop is an efficient Consume power and extra production capability (assuming you are calling Produce yourself). This may not seem like a big difference, but in a build versus Consume battle, one tempo is often the difference between ending the game on your terms or on your opponent’s terms. I even feel the difference when playing: when Tourist World or Alien Toy Shop hits the table, I can feel a small mental surge of energy, a call to arms. Galactic Trendsetters is always nice, or a bit annoying (depending who plays it), but it is only a serious challenge under certain circumstances.

You can cripple your hand by playing Galactic Trendsetters if you don’t already have strong card production in place, so it is a tricky card to play early in the game. Nevertheless, Galactic Trendsetters can be a very strong card when played at the right time. For a Consume player who is going full tilt but has more consumption than production, Galactic Trendsetters can improve his scoring per Consume cycle more quickly than another production world can. It is also an excellent card for a non-consumer looking to leech points from a consuming opponent.

Combinations

Galactic Trendsetters, Tourist World and three production worlds (or two plus a windfall world) is virtually a winning combination if you get it in play before the last round or two.

Not only does Galactic Trendsetters score 3 endgame points with Galactic Renaissance, its improved efficiency also works nicely with Renaissance’s endgame scoring for VP chips. If you know that you will be playing Galactic Renaissance, there is little reason not to play Galactic Trendsetters too, other than poverty or lack of time.

Mining Conglomerate

All the pieces are there. Card generation in the Produce phase? Check. Multicard Consume power? Check. Thematic connection between all powers? Check. It even adds a Trade bonus to the mix. Nevertheless, Mining Conglomerate cannot stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its brethren, Consumer Markets and Diversified Economy.

Its relative flaws are small, but numerous. For example, its card output does not scale as you build your position. While an extra 2 cards is powerful early in the game, it needs to be supplemented with other sources later on. Consumer Markets, on the other hand, can turn out a staggering number of cards late in the game, helping a player throw down multiple 6-developments in a hurry. Even Diversified Economy can get up to a four card output without too much of a stretch.

Worse, Mining Conglomerate’s card production can be blocked, especially in the early part of the game. When you are only one rare elements world ahead of your opposition, a poorly-timed Settle can cripple you.

Finally, Diversified Economy and Consumer Markets both max out at 6 VPs per Consume ×2, while Mining Conglomerate can only get up to 4 VPs.

Mining Conglomerate is not a bad card. It was designed with a different role in mind, though. Its lower cost (3 vs. 4 or 5) makes it a practical early game play. The Trade bonus and Produce power also fit an early game development better than they do the strategic keystone role. For a pure rare elements strategy, Mining League or junkball Consume are better focuses.

Combinations

The rare elements commodity worlds – Mining World, Comet Zone and Runaway Robots – can cover for Mining Conglomerate’s mediocre card generation while working with its other powers.

Mining Robots, Alpha Centauri and Replicant Robots attack the problem from the other end, putting less demand on Mining Conglomerate’s card generation. If you play a Develop strategy instead, you can substitute Investment Credits, Public Works, and Interstellar Bank.

Replicant Robots

The discount that Replicant Robots provides is huge; equal to what the game changer Galactic Federation does for developments. It makes a huge swath of non-military worlds cheap enough that a little leeched card production can get you through to the end of the game without pausing for a Trade.

The problem is that there are very few non-military worlds that turn cards spent and played into points as efficiently as military worlds or 6-developments do. Unlike Galactic Federation, Replicant Robots doesn’t cover for this by scoring additional points for each world put in play. Paying for military worlds with cards using Contact Specialist is more efficient than putting down discounted non-military worlds, too. The only non-military world holds in this light is Terraformed World.

Replicant Robots works best when you cover for this weakness. There are two main ways to do so: arrange to apply its discount to military worlds or use it to get a Consume strategy up and running quickly, letting those “inefficient” non-military worlds shine while saving a tempo or two.

The other tricky part about Replicant Robots is that it is an expensive card that only shines if you get it into play quite early, preferably during the opening. It can kill your momentum unless you have a follow-up Trade ready.

Combinations

Replicant Robots is almost mandatory to make a Contact Specialist strategy work. Without Replicant Robots, this strategy tends to get bogged down by a never-ending hunger for cards. Other solutions for this problem are even more expensive than Replicant Robots.

Trade League

Trade League is a flexible, but rather expensive card. It excels as a leech on an opponent’s Consume strategy, supplying the cards you need to fuel an expensive build strategy. It does not normally kick a strategy into gear, though, and strategies that Trade League is a lynchpin for rely on difficult to build combinations of cards. Merchant World plus Deficit Spending or Galactic Bazaar is one example. Deficit Spending or Merchant World with either a genes or alien world, plus a little traditional Consume capacity on top of that, is even more complicated. Ideally, you want to play a series of cards that feature Trade-related powers, too, so you score enough endgame points to put you over the top. There are some other, equally baroque possibilities, but the upshot is that, in almost 500 games of Race for the Galaxy, I can count the number of times I’ve seen this come together successfully on the fingers of one hand.

Trade League is not so much a game changer as a superleech. Against a consuming opponent use Trade League to leech cards, fueling your builds. Against other opponents, you can regularly Consume/Trade for a handful of cards, trying to outdo the builders when you leech their Develops and Settles. Ideally, you want to be able to Trade several times before you need to call Produce, choking the other players’ Consume leech.

Combinations

You can use Trade League against a consuming opponent as an alternative to Galactic Federation to drive a 6-development strategy. Merchant Guild is an excellent complement to this tactic in a multiplayer game.

Trade League can also substitute for Replicant Robots in a Contact Specialist strategy, although it is harder to get out safely in a timely fashion. You need to be ready to Trade immediately to refill your hand.

Race for the Galaxy cards are not created equal. Some are workmanlike cards that form the heart and soul of the game, but do not garner great accolades. Some only fill niches that are necessary to tie some strategies together, but are often of little use. A couple are actually rather terrible, looking to sucker players into wasting valuable tableau space on them.

Game changers are the cards that announce that a player is ready to get down to business. When they are played in the first half of the game, the pace of the game picks up. Maneuvering for a card here and a build there stops, and the real business of winning the game begins. They mark a player’s intended strategy because they allow a player to pursue that strategy with a real saving of tempo, often by drawing cards while pursuing their main strategy, but it can take other forms as well. Players typically make the transition from the opening to buildup or from buildup to drive by playing a game changer.

Some game changers can also be played at the end of the game for a last-minute influx of points, but that is not what makes them game changers. Galactic Federation is a game changer because it allows you to play a steady stream of developments, not because you can put it down at the end of the game for 6-10 points. Rebel Homeworld is a great card to play at the end of the game if you can, but it is not a game changer.

It is possible to bluff your opponent by playing a game changer with no intention of following it up immediately. This is a risky tactic, however, since most game changers are quite expensive. Playing them can bring you to a screeching halt if it does not add to your momentum; you need to make sure that you can refill your hand very quickly afterward. Improved Logistics and Alien Toy Shop are partial exceptions to this, since they are cheap enough.

This is the first in a series of articles that will look at every card in Race for the Galaxy, one-by-one. I’ve elected to start with the game changers because they are individual the cards which will have the largest impact on your game. After these two pieces, I will move onto the cards that fall a little short of the game changer threshold, before moving on to the rest of the deck.

Alien Toy Shop

Unlike most game changers, Alien Toy Shop gets used in a role other than game changer or game-ending point haul. It is the least expensive non-military alien windfall world, so it is normal to play it and trade the good just to cycle cards. What makes Alien Toy Shop a game changer is that it can form the basis of a functional Consume/Produce strategy. It does need the help of some form of card production to keep up with power building strategies, especially in multiplayer games. Any time a player with other Consume capacity and a bit of card drawing in place Settles Alien Toy Shop, the drive for the end of the game has begun.

Combinations

Alien Toy Shop is one half of a notorious killer opening. In a two-player game with advanced rules, Earth’s Lost Colony Settles Alien Toy Shop in the first round and closes out the VP chips during the seventh round. Playing this combination, you will score 26 points, provided your opponent can’t get enough of the VP chips for himself to cut the game off a round sooner. There is no doubt that this is a deadly combination, but its Achilles’ heel is a complete lack of card production. A resourceful and lucky opponent can exploit this by building a leech and throwing down builds for as many points as possible. This killer combo is slower and easier to fight in multiplayer games, since the other players can work off of each other to take advantage of its lack of card drawing, even without explicit collusion.

Alien Toy Shop also works well as part of an alien strategy, a Terraforming Guild strategy, and as a strong leech on an opponent’s Consume strategy with Alien Rosetta Stone World or Galactic Engineers.

Consumer Markets

Consumer Markets is always worth playing if you Produce more than one novelty good. Its card production stacks with any other effects you may have, so it can turn a shaky Consume engine into a dynamic Consume-and-build strategy. As a bonus, it provides a huge boost to your Consume capacity as well when have more (novelty goods) production than consumption.

Combinations

Consumer Markets works well with Free Trade Association, and together they form the heart of the most powerful version of the novelty goods Consume strategy.

In a pinch, the novelty commodity worlds, Gem World and Galactic Studios, make a decent substitute for Free Trade Association.

Diversified Economy

Like Consumer Markets, Diversified Economy can create a Consume strategy in a hurry. Unfortunately, the requirement for three different types of goods can be tricky to set up in a timely fashion. In fact, it is probably better to look at Diversified Economy as a way of gaining cards during the Produce phase. Two cards per Produce phase will go a long way toward getting your third good type into play.

When it does come into full force as a Consume dynamo, six points and 3-4 cards per Consume/Produce cycle can put opponents on their heels. If you have other Consume powers you can grow your Consume strategy into an unstoppable juggernaut.

Combinations

Diversified Economy is a strategy unto itself, although playing it in combination with commodity worlds can leave an opponent with no good options.

Galactic Federation

Almost any strategy that scores points by playing 6-developments will benefit from Galactic Federation, and playing it early in the game is a clear statement of intent. Other articles will discuss the fine points of the different forms of this strategy, so for now it is enough to point out that the −2 discount Galactic Federation grants when building developments does a lot to ease the hand management issues 6-developments cause. Normally card drawing is stronger than an equivalent discount, but discounts make it possible to build several large cards in a row without discarding potentially valuable builds as cash. It takes several cards in combination to really match Galactic Federation’s effect.

The points from Galactic Federation alone won’t win the game for you. You also need cards in play that will score bonus points from the 6-developments you intend to play, even if it is only as a leech on your opponent’s play. Developments work a little better than planets; Galactic Federation will score a point for them and many 6-developments score more for powers on developments that they do for the same powers on worlds.

Combinations

Although it seems like Investment Credits is a natural fit with Galactic Federation, further discounts aren’t as important as getting cards into your hand. Aside from a good leech, Interstellar Bank and Public Works are the obvious way to do this.

Imperium Lords

Imperium Lords is a 6-development that can score large numbers of points that also has a phase power that is scary and useful to a wide range of strategies.

Against a Consume-based strategy, Imperium Lords lets a military strategy churn through cards to find large military worlds, increases in military power and useful 6-developments without wasting tempo on Explore or Consume/Trade. The cards you don’t want serve as cash to play the developments you need.

Against another build strategy, set up a couple Consume powers, preferably with some card drawing, and leech your opponent’s build calls using the cards you draw while gaining on him with a Consume/Produce cycle.

Don’t overlook Imperium Lords‘ usefulness to Contact Specialist strategies, either. If anything, they need that card drawing power of this card more than standard military does.

Combinations

As mentioned, Contact Specialist can get the cards it needs to function from Imperium Lords just as easily as a standard military strategy can.

Imperium Lords can give a Settle strategy the cards it needs to go full tilt with Improved Logistics.

Galactic Imperium scores two points for Imperium Lords as a card with the Imperium keyword, and they both score bonus points for the same military worlds. Rebel worlds are especially useful in this setup.

Improved Logistics

The power of playing two worlds every round (or four each round in two-player advanced) is fairly self-evident, but it is difficult to sustain. Even a military strategy can only hold so many useful worlds at once comfortably. The real power of Improved Logistics is that you can build fast enough to keep up with strong Consume strategies even when you need to take a tempo here or there for an Explore or Trade here and there.

It also lets you overshoot the normal limit of 12 builds at the end of the game, if things go well. With help from your opponents you can reach 14 cards in your tableau, more in two-player. Setting such a large finish up may take an extra round or two of preparation, though, so weigh carefully whether it is worthwhile to give your opponents the extra time.

It’s easy to trap yourself into thinking Improved Logistics is only for military strategies, but any Settle-based strategy should give it careful consideration if it appears in your hand. Even a gain of one or two builds can make an enormous difference in the final result.

Combinations

Replicant Robots makes non-military applications more efficient.

Contact Specialist opens up the number of cheap builds that are available for a blitz Settle strategy.

When playing military or Contact Specialist, Imperium Lords is an excellent way of searching for more builds without using time if your opponent is playing a Consume strategy. Black Market Trading World and Trade League can also fill this role if you have a means of producing.

Terraforming Robots and Terraforming Guild also let you draw precious cards without taking time away from building. The latter also makes windfall worlds, which tend to be easier to play, more valuable.

Improved Logistics can give any strategy a shot in the arm if it is centered on 6-developments that score for planets in your tableau.

Terraforming Guild

If I were to point to one card in Race for the Galaxy as broken, it would be Terraforming Guild. The mere fact that it would still see frequent play if you cut the 6-development points for windfall worlds in half is one sign of its strength. How easy it is to score 10-14 points with this card is another. Add in a pair of solid phase abilities and the fact that it turns a previously dubious set of strategies (those based on playing windfall worlds) into powerhouses and you can see why I look askance at it.

Normally I would not call a card that is mostly useful because it lets you score a pile of points a game changer, and Terraforming Guild’s powers are solid but not game changing. I get the same feeling in the pit of my stomach when an opponent plays Terraforming Guild that I do when I see other game changers played, though, so I have made an exception here.

Combinations

Terraforming Robots scores bonus points for Terraforming Guild, and combining their Settle-phase draw powers makes settling windfall worlds a nearly self-sustaining activity.

Contact Specialist lets you Settle every small windfall world except Alien Robot Sentry for minimal investment. Space Marines isn’t as versatile, but you exchange Rebel Warrior Race for Alien Robot Sentry and all the military windfalls you can play are free, not just the one-defense ones. If you get Former Penal Colony you have a small chance of building significant military power without playing other developments. Drop Ships, on the other hand, doesn’t gain enough over Contact Specialist or Space Marines in this role to justify the extra cost if those cards are available. Exploration Force alone is worth considering as a play on another player’s Develop call if nothing better is available. Space Mercenaries isn’t worth giving up the space in your tableau in this role; the 0 VP factor is huge when playing build strategies.

Galactic Engineers lets you Produce on a second windfall world, making a significant Consume/Produce leech feasible. The Trade bonus can come in handy as well.

Tourist World

On the surface, Tourist World and Galactic Trendsetters serve a similar purpose of making your Consume engine more efficient than 2 points per good consumed. The reason why Tourist World is a game changer and Galactic Trendsetters is a near miss is that Tourist World saves a tempo by consuming two goods instead of just one. A Consume player needs to be consuming as many goods for points as possible, and often has more production than consumption. The ability to address this problem more quickly with Tourist World while also consuming more efficiently points-wise is an enormous gain from one card. Tourist World is very nearly a competitive Consume strategy by itself. Galactic Trendsetters needs other Consume powers along with it to fully shine.

(Alien Toy Shop is stronger than Galactic Trendsetters for a similar reason: it saves a tempo by coming with its own production capacity if you are the one calling Produce)

Mining League and Galactic Genome Project can fill a similar role, but they are more expensive, and serve a narrower niche of Consume strategies.

Combinations

Tourist World is one third of a notorious three-card opening combination, with Alpha Centauri as your start world and Artist Colony. This is a tempo slower than the Earth’s Lost Colony/Alien Toy Shop combo, and I’m not sure how strong it actually is in multiplayer, where you need some help from the other players to get up and running quickly.

Just a heads up that, going forward, I’ll be using a bit of Race for the Galaxy jargon that I’ve invented for the sake of brevity.

In my strategy articles, I’ll be using “commodity worlds” to refer to worlds that let you draw a card when you produce a good on them. This includes bot production and windfall worlds. It’s not perfect, thematically, but it’ll do.

So

• Comet Zone
• Galactic Studios
• Gem World
• Lost Species Ark World
• Mining World

are production commodity worlds and

• Replicant Runaway Robots
• Rebel Sympathizers
  

are commodty windfall worlds (or windfall commodity worlds).

Expect the first post discussing Game Changers tomorrow or Monday.

There is a natural arc to a game of Race for the Galaxy that can be broken down into stages of the game. This article gives an overview of the different stages of a game, what you should be aiming to do during each stage, and how to recognize the transition from one stage to the next. Understanding what you need to focus on in each phase of the game, and knowing when that has changed, will help you to make more efficient plays than your opponents, and help you sift through the array of options that you always have available throughout the game.

Opening

In the opening, players are cycling cards, trying to turn up small builds that will let them develop the infrastructure needed to make larger builds without crippling themselves. Typically this means discounts; draw-powers like Public Works, Mining World or Smuggling Lair; cards featuring military bonuses; small production worlds; windfall worlds (intending to trade the good immediately for more cards) and accompanying trade bonuses. It’s not unusual for a lot of exploring to happen during this phase of the game because it is as strong as or stronger than the players’ other card drawing options.

This does not mean that one small play is the same as every other, though. You want to build cards that work together so that you have one or two phases that you can exploit without letting your opponent draft off you consistently, much as you do when building your main strategy. The main difference is that how you will generate points is a secondary concern after building a way of cycling cards consistently.

You do still need to keep an eye out for cards that could turn into your main strategy. You need to figure out which of the power cards that you draw fit with your current position, discarding those that do not work with what you have, since a strategy that builds on your opening will be stronger and easier to implement than one that has to start over again from scratch. This is how you turn these early, small plays, into a real point engine.

You typically move from the opening to building up when you can make large, strategic plays without leaving yourself helpless during your opponent’s chosen phases.

Buildup

In the buildup, players get the cards that form the core of their strategy into play. Exactly how they go about this varies depending on the strategy.

• A plurality of strategies focus on getting big engine cards like Galactic Federation, Diversified Economy, or Improved Logistics into play; cards that change the tempo of the game and let the player crank out points in a hurry
• Strategies like junkball consume and some build blitzes focus on getting the final pieces of their engine in play quickly, eschewing the knockout blow for advantage in tempo (from not needing to pause for cards as much) so they can start up their point engine sooner
• Power building strategies will dig through the deck with Explore +5, trades and leeches, looking for big builds, drafting their opponents’ Develops and Settles to get the last pieces of their strategy (usually card drawing, discounts and/or military bonuses) in place

The buildup ends and the drive begins when you can focus on scoring moves (generally, 6+ points per round with no help from your opponent) for several rounds in a row.

Drive

Once the drive begins, a player is focused on nothing but generating points and trying to force the end of the game on their terms as soon as possible. This means calling nothing but the phase(es) that let his engine score points as much as possible – Settle for a military player, Consume ×2 and Produce for a player that has a strong Consume engine, Develop for a Galactic Federation strategy, etc. Generally, Consume players will not deviate at all until the very end of the game, while the other players will hope to keep going until the end of the game, but may have to pause to refuel if they are unlucky.

While the primary focus is on scoring points, players will still try to sneak in builds that improve their position when they can, especially as a draft/leech on another player’s phase choice.

EDIT: To clarify this last point, development of your position continues through the drive phase, but it is a secondary consideration. It mostly happens when:

• the build phase(s) you are not primarily focused on gets called and a strategic play is as strong a build as anything else in your hand.
• when enhancing your position is also a strong scoring play and does not cost tempo
• the rare occasions when your hand demands a change in direction

END EDIT

Trying to end the game on your terms means depleting the VP chip pool or building 12 cards before your opponent can reach their game-ending condition. When you can force this, your opponent is leaving chances to score more on the table, which is not a guarantee of success, but it helps.

The drive turns into the close when the end of the game can be foreseen clearly. Normally, this is when a player is one or two builds from having 12 cards in their tableau or when the Consume players have their production worlds stocked and there are fewer VP chips left than the Consume player(s) claim in a single Consume ×2 phase.

Close

In the final round or two of the game, player’s will try to combine the final push to the finish line with the special builds that they’ve been saving because they do absolutely nothing but score extra points. There is no time left for a return on investment, so there is no point in investing in anything but points. This is the time to throw down Rebel Homeworld and New Galactic Order.

Card flow is purely a means to an end. Emptying your hand in order to maximize your score is perfectly legitimate at this point. Likewise, if you are behind and have nothing strong to build in your hand, you can try one last gamble, hoping to pull something better to build from an Explore +5 than your opponents do.

It’s quite common to spend a minute or more analyzing your hand, trying to figure out which phases you need, who is likely to call which phases, and then, once phase selections have been revealed, what plays will, in fact, score you as many points as possible, taking every phase into account.

Cards in hand are the lifeblood of any RftG strategy. They serve not only as the developments and worlds that you put into play, they also serve as the primary currency of the game. Typically, the more cards you draw during a game, the better, and failing to establish a steady flow of cards to your hand throughout the game will force a long, uphill battle on you. Of course you can also attack the problem from the other end by reducing how many cards you need in order to pay for your worlds and developments. Price discounts and military strength will not free you from the need to draw new cards, but they will decrease it.

In this article, I want to discuss the advantages and weaknesses of the different card drawing strategies and of price discounts. Although military strength is similar to having a discount, it is a major topic unto itself which I will save it for later posts.

Drawing Cards vs. Discounts When Building

At a glance, drawing more cards and getting discounts on your builds seem to be equivalent, especially when card drawing is tied to a build phase, as is the case with the card drawing powers of Terraforming Robots and Public Works. After all, they both reduce the pain of paying for your builds. There are some subtle, but very important, differences to bear in mind, though.

A discount will never give you another card that you want to build. Part of the advantage of drawing cards is that you are cycling through the deck, increasing your chances of finding useful cards to build, and discounts cannot help with this. The dark side of this advantage is the perverse pain of drawing a card that you need for your strategy when you need more cash.

Any card you draw can be used to build any other card except for military worlds (and sometimes cards in hand can contribute to building them as well; see Contact Specialist and Space Mercenaries). Discounts are always targeted at a certain segment of the deck; there are no universal build discounts.

One advantage of discounts is that, with the exception of Interstellar Bank, card draws do not come before associated builds, so they cannot help you when your don’t have many cards in hand. Discounts can let build that last, small, inexpensive card that you have in your hand, catching your opponent off guard.

Both discounts and build-related card drawing are nice to have in play of course. If you have to choose among them, though, I would probably rank the different forms (all else being equal, which it so rarely is):

1. Draw before building (e.g. Interstellar Bank)
2. Discounts (e.g. Replicant Robots, Investment Credits, the Develop phase selection bonus)
3. Draw after building (e.g. Public Works, the Settle phase selection bonus)

Drawing Cards

When you flip through the deck, it looks like there are a dozen or more ways of getting cards into your hand. Each phase has at least one or two associated powers that allow you to draw, and two of the phases – Explore and Consume/Trade – are primarily dedicated to drawing. I think it is safe, though, to consider these options as falling into four categories:

• Exploring
• Trading
• Strategic (drawing cards as a consequence of pursuing your main strategy)
• Leeching (drawing cards as a result of your opponent pursuing his main strategy)

Over the course of any given game, you may draw upon any and all of these methods. The borders are fuzzy, too. There may be such a thing as strategic exploring, for example, and most card-drawing abilities can serve as strategic or leeching abilities under the right circumstances. Nevertheless, I believe that thinking about card drawing in these categories can help you sort out how you want to address the problem of getting more cards more easily.

Exploring

It’s easy to see exploring as the proverbial red-headed stepchild of card drawing. It only gives you one or two cards; gives each opponent one card and doesn’t let you do anything else productive. Compared to Consume/Trade, especially, it can seem a little anæmic. It has its place in most strategies, though, and using Explore effectively is an important part of any player’s game.

The greatest advantage of exploring is that it does depend on having anything in play. Any other method of card drawing requires having a card (in some cases with a good on it) in play. This means that Explore is the only card drawing option that you always have available. Yes, this is damning with faint praise, but it is important to keep in mind. Often it is the only way of turning around a weak opening hand, and sometimes it is the only way you can pull yourself out of a hole when you make a mistake that leaves you with nothing in hand.

Explore +5 also has the virtue of letting you look at a large number of cards without putting together some sort of power combo. When you have a full hand but little worth spending it on, this is a huge benefit. The same is true when you need a card of a particular large category – a card to boost your military or a card with a Consume power are common examples. If you have draw bonuses for exploring of +2 or greater you can choose between Explore +1/+1, keeping an extra card for your trouble, or sticking with Explore +5, further improving your chances of finding what you want.

Finally, Explore is the first thing that happens in any round that it is called. In fact, Interstellar Bank is the only other draw ability that occurs before the building phases. The other build-related powers are all triggered after you have built. This means that, if you need to find something to build, Explore is probably your only option.

Use Explore to draw cards when:

• You don’t have any other methods of drawing available
• You have a full hand, but nothing useful to build with them (especially if your strategy revolves around strong builds)
• You need to find something to build before the build phases (Develop and Settle) take place.
• You have cards in hand but need an instance of a category of card, such as a military bonus or a blue production world

Trades

The power of Consume/Trade is so obvious – you get several cards at once while you opponent does not get any – that beginners will quickly grab onto it as their primary means of card production. Things are not that cut and dried once you get into it, though.

Getting the requisite good into play may not be as simple as it sounds, for instance. If an opponent calls Consume in the round you try to Settle, the new good could get siphoned off by one of your Consume powers, leaving you with a lot less for your effort. Even that assumes you can get a good into play at all.

Perhaps the only kind of good you can get into play is blue. Without a trade bonus, the two cards it generates are marginally weaker than calling Explore +1/+1. Your opponents get a chance to consume any goods they have, too, leeching a couple points or cards off your action. A canny opponent might come out ahead of you on your Consume/Trade call.

Once you have your strategy up and running, taking time out for a trade wastes a valuable tempo on the drive to the end of the game. Your opponents get to drive their own engines at full speed and leech off your Consume, while you only get to leech. If it has to be done, sobeit, but be aware of the cost involved.

The relatively large infusion of cards will usually do a lot to help you build momentum, though, especially in the first half of the game. You normally gain enough options and cash to make one or more builds. It is rare to go an entire game without at least one trade because it is the easiest way to generate a large influx of cards to your hand.

Do not underestimate the power of a cycle of Consume/Trade and Produce calls early in the game when your opponent cannot leech off it. If you do not have any strong builds in your hand, you can cycle cards without helping a luckier opponent build his strategy. Eventually you should find the pieces of a strategy, or at least some nice big builds to close out the game with, without giving your opponent several extra tempi to speed up the end of the game.

While they can be hard to pull together, there are entire strategies built around the concept of a strong trade engine. They will be discussed in a later article, but deserve mention in passing here as another advantage of trading for cards.

Use Trades to gain cards when:

• You have a strong trade good in play early in the game
• You need to cycle cards and your opponent will not gain very much from your calls
• Your builds outstrip your strategic and leech card drawing
• Your strategy revolves around trades

Strategic Card Drawing

It is a rare strategy that can succeed without drawing cards as it goes. Even with deep discounts, your hand will eventually empty or exhaust your worthwhile builds. If your main strategy is consuming you still need to build a little to keep pace with a build strategy that is in full bloom. If you can generate enough cards without having to step out of your normal flow to trade or Explore you will save several tempi. In a game where the difference between victory and defeat is often smaller than the points you generate in one round, this can make all the difference.

Every strategy has ways to draw more cards while it drives for the finish line. Typically, these break down according to the phases you will call consistently in the last half of the game:

• Explore – Research Labs, Galactic Renaissance
• Develop – Interstellar Bank, Public Works
• Settle – Terraforming Robots, Terraforming Guild
• Consume – various consume powers that grant a point and a card for consuming (e.g. Galactic Resort, Terraforming Robots or Galactic Studios)
• Produce – Worlds that produce cards when they produce a good (e.g. Lost Species Ark World and Rebel Sympathizers)

Cards that only generate cards during the Consume and Produce phases (such as New Economy, Trade League, Rebel Underground or Imperium Lords) are also useful forms of strategic card generation for a Consume-oriented strategy, but they are a luxury. They do not contribute to your primary point generation engine you save time if you lean toward playing card generators that also help you develop your main strategy. Pure card-drawing powers in the Produce and Consume phases are much better as leech cards for build strategies. This does not apply as strongly to building strategies playing powers that draw cards from their primary actions since cards drive their primary strategy.

Use strategic card drawing when:

• Your strategic engine is in place and you are ready to focus on point generation until the end of the game

Leeching

Just as you can cadge a few tempi and points off an opponent’s strategy – say by getting small developments and worlds into play or setting up a couple of Consume powers – you can leech cards off your opponent’s strategy. As I mentioned in the section on strategic card drawing, powers that generate cards any time a certain phase is selected really shine in this role. The cards that Public Works, Terraforming Robots, Mining World and the like generate are valuable too, of course. Their conditional nature makes them more dependent on circumstances that you cannot spare time to manage, though. You shouldn’t spurn them outright, but unconditional card draws should be your first choice for leeching. The contrast between how useful Interstellar Bank is as a leech when compared to Public Works is especially illustrative.

On the rare occasions when both players are focused on the same phases, leeching largely goes out the window, or rather blends completely into strategic card drawing. The rest of the time, the player with the stronger card leech has a large advantage over his opponent.

Gain cards through leeching:

• Whenever possible, especially once your opponent’s strategy is set and he cannot easily avoid your leech

The act of phase selection (or role selection, a legacy from its Puerto Rico heritage) lies at the heart of Race for the Galaxy, so it should surprise no one that improving your play in this aspect of the game is an important part of winning. Unfortunately, genuine mastery is not possible: there is a healthy dose of art amidst the science. Nevertheless, there are several rules of thumb that can help you find your way.

Play for Marginal Advantage, Not Absolute Gain

When choosing a phase, look for the one that will give you the greatest marginal advantage over you opponents. That is, you want to choose the phase that will let you gain the most on your opposition, not the one that does the most to build your position. No matter how much you get out of a phase, it does you no good if the other players gain more from it.

It’s not as simple as saying, “Develop will gain me five points, and it’ll let Mary gain three points and Joe can get three, but Produce will net me four points while Mary and Joe only get one each,” though. You don’t know what cards your opponents have in hand, nor do you know which opportunities are waiting just around the corner to reveal themselves.

There is information available that can help you decide what play is in your best interest, though. You know what you have in your hand and your tableau, what your opponents have in their tableau, and how many cards they have in hand. Although this is not the same level of information you have in, say, Caylus, it does give you an indication of which directions your opponents are going in, and what strong plays you have available. If Heather has Interstellar Bank and Investment Credits in play and eight cards in hand, you don’t want to choose Develop unless you have an extremely important development to play. Somethin on the level of Consumer Markets when you already have Artist Colony, Spice World and New Vinland in play, for example.

Sometimes the best marginal play is a relatively small play. Calling Produce is the right move when you have a rare elements world in play, but your opponents don’t have any production worlds at all and you don’t have any strong cards in your hand. It sets you up to make a small Consume/Trade the following round and does not hand your opponents a chance to play a strong card while you play something pedestrian. If you know that you can play another production world  – especially a genes world or a world that generates cards when you Produce on it – if Settle is called, there is little to lose from this play and a lot to gain.

When all else fails, Explore as a delaying tactic can work, especially in the early stages of the game. You take a shot at getting a card that can help you build momentum, and you don’t risk giving your opponents more opportunities to out build you, out produce you, or outscore you (although you do risk an opponent drawing something useful). You want to avoid doing this as much as possible unless you have cards that make exploring very strong. When the alternatives guarantee that your opponents gain ground on you, though, it is the lesser evil.

Drafting

Although leeching is a useful trick, it is not the only way of benefiting from your opponents’ phase choices. Much like a bicyclist following in the draft of a pack leader, you can also following in the draft of another player’s role choices, using your opponents’ energy to make your own task easier. Taking full advantage of your opponents’ phase selections more often that they take full advantage of yours will give you a large lead in development, especially in the early stages, when every action has a disproportionate effect on the course of the game. Drafting lets you take more turns than your opponents, so you build faster than they do, and this advantage multiplies over time.

Even when you have a very strong play for a particular phase, it may be worthwhile to leave that role for your opponent to choose if it is a phase she is well positioned to take advantage of. If you choose another role that also helps you, you may be able to get even further ahead; not just drafting, but slingshotting ahead. When you try this it is important, unless you are desperate, that the role you choose is good for you even if the first role is not chosen. At the very least, it should be unlikely to hurt you if the first role is not chosen.

The classic example of this sort of play is selecting Consume/Trade early in the game with no goods in play. You gamble on another player choosing Settle for you, letting you play a windfall world, gaining a good that you can then trade.

For a less generic example, consider the position from the last section where you have Artist Colony, Spice World and New Vinland in play, and Consumer Markets (plus a bunch of minor cards) in your hand. Heather, your opponent, has Interstellar Bank, Investor Credits in play, and we’ll also give her a couple windfall worlds in play and, thanks to a trade last round, eight cards in her hand. While the conservative play is to call Develop so you are sure to get Consumer Markets in play, Produce is stronger.

Heather, with her large hand and relevant cards is well positioned to go on a run of Develop calls, which suits your needs nearly as well as choosing Develop yourself does. If she does select Develop, you will get Consumer Markets anyway and, further, you will have several goods to consume with it, and a partially restocked hand, hopefully with a useful development that you can build next round.

You should only try this sort of gamble when no other players can take advantage of it, or when your situation is so dire that it won’t matter if your plan blows up in your face. If, in the last example, Heather catches you off guard and does not select Develop, her windfall worlds will not be restocked (or, at most, one will be if she settles something like Galactic Engineers, or she might get a production world into play, but you can probably get another production world down, too) by your Produce call, while you will have three goods that you can Consume/Trade to fill your hand. While it’s not as breathtaking as the ideal situation, you still gain more than Heather does from producing.

If Heather or another player has an engine that is a little stronger than yours (but not so strong that Produce is worth their time) or a strong trade good like an alien production world or a small good with several trade bonuses, choose a more conservative path, unless you are lagging behind. The risk of helping another player more than you help yourself if Develop is not chosen is too painful.

When you try to draft aggressively, don’t cling to the idea. If your opponent does not choose the role you want the first time, it’s usually better to choose it yourself next round rather than leaving yourself in a holding pattern. Maybe you can hang on one extra round by playing a Consume/Trade or Consume ×2 if you can put it to good use.

Don’t be Predictable; Don’t Fear the Obvious

The corollary to the last section is that it is important to keep your opponents from guessing what role you are going to choose when they are in a position to take advantage of that knowledge. Any time an opponent accurately predicts which role you are going to choose he has a real information advantage over you, and every time he successfully drafts your role choice makes your goal of winning harder to attain.

Typically, your position will force you into making certain role selections, but a few times every game your hand will let you make a less obvious choice with little or no harm. You need to take every opportunity you get to throw your opponents off the scent without hurting yourself. Fooling your opponent will cause him to make suboptimal choices, both at that time and later. You can deal your opponent a blow if you catch him taking a gamble on your role selection by forcing him to pay the cost for taking that risk. Better yet, the memory of this failed gamble will lead him to be more conservative about trying to draft your role selections in the future, lest the same thing happen again.

As nice as it is to throw your opponents off the scent, though, you still need to move your position forward. If the obvious role choice is the only way to do so, don’t be afraid to choose it. It’s easy to be too clever by half and tie yourself in knots while trying to avoid the obvious play. Being predictable is better than sitting in a holding pattern.

Role Streaks

Although predictability is often bad, calling the same role several times in a row and gaining from it each time is a powerful play. Generally, your opponents will not be in a position to exploit the role you choose every time you call it.

The most common application of this idea is when playing a typical military strategy. The military player will Explore multiple times in a row to find military developments and large military worlds, using his opponents’ Develop and Settle calls to get his military machine set up. Then, once he has a hand full of large military worlds, he calls Settle over and over (and over), hopefully closing out the game that way. Often, opponents will exhaust their useful planets within two or three Settles. At that point, they have a choice between taking an action to resupply, or letting the military player Settle solo for large point gains.

A rarer play is stringing together two, three or even four consecutive small but productive Develops at the start of the game. If you can play Interstellar Bank, Investment Credits, Space Marines and Terraforming Robots as your first four roles of the game (possibly with a small military windfall world or two played courtesy of an opponent’s role choices), you’ll have a strong opening position. Meanwhile, your opponents will be left in the dust, scrambling to get a strategy rolling before you close out the game.

A series of Consume/Trades can also be quite powerful. You have the freedom to play powerful cards on your opponents’ Develops and Settles, restocking your hand afterward. The other players have to be careful not to empty their hands, leaving you free to build alone from your well-stocked hand.

If your hand is weak at the start of the game, you can Explore over and over, looking for direction. While this is far from ideal, it at least has the benefit of denying your opponents chances at additional builds that are likely to be as strong as or stronger than anything in your hand. Once you come find something worthwhile you can kick your game into gear, possibly drafting an opponent’s build to regain a bit of ground.

Kick ‘Em While They’re Down

Sometimes you will unexpectedly catch an opponent unable to make much of your Develop or Settle call. When this happens, take advantage of it if you can by continuing to call the same role over and over. Even if you only make small plays, you deny your opponent any build at all, so there is a strong net gain. This is especially true if you already have discounts or card drawing powers that trigger off that role, so you continue to refresh your hand.

Even if your opponent Explores or Consume/Trades, it may be worth continuing with your streak. Just because your opponent drew a bunch of cards, there is no guarantee that he drew anything useful. Make your opponent prove that he can gain from your plays.

If your opponent’s hand is empty at the start of the round while you are flush with cards, call your best build. Even if you play something small, this is a great way of gaining on your helpless opponent. The only dark side to avoid is emptying your hand for little gain, risking the possibility that your opponent will do the same to you the following round with interest.

If you can start a Consume/Trade/Produce or small Consume ×2/Produce cycle with some card production while you opponent can produce nothing, do so until your opponent proves he can adapt or that he can afford to ignore you.

Whenever an opponent shows weakness, exploit it to the best of your abilities.