Race for the Galaxy Strategy – Game Changers

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.

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A New Piece of Race for the Galaxy Terminology

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.

Race for the Galaxy Strategy – Stages of a Game

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.