Race for the Galaxy

Ed and I went to the club game night at Ray's place last Saturday night. Our first contest of the evening was Race for the Galaxy. Ed had read a lot about it on board game geek and wanted to try it out. Dee agreed to teach it to us, and Josh, who had played before, joined us as well.

It took a turn or two to figure out what was happening with the different phases, but, by the end of the game, I felt like I was an old pro. The path to victory became pretty clear: get a lot of cards and then play the ones that get you points and more cards. I apparently got a pretty good starting hand and lucky early draws because I was able to play a lot of cards that produced goods.

My early strategy was to produce and then consume/trade, giving me a few points and tons of cards. A couple of the other players made the mistake of producing on turns when I had picked consume, which helped me out tons. With a good engine going, I switched to consume/2x VP, and ended up winning with 43. Dee was a close second with 41.

After playing Agricola, Ed wanted to play Race again. Dustin and Kwan joined us for their first time to play the game.

This game was much slower for me than the last time. I had a hard time getting my engine going, and, since that's the only strategy I knew at the time, it hampered me quite a bit. It was also slow because all of us were inexperienced players. For example, in the first round, every single one of us picked explore.

Being as it was their first time to play, Dustin and Kwan seemed to focus on playing as many cards as possible, regardless of value, making the game end sooner than I think it would have normally. I was never able to get my produce/consume engine going and ended the game with only two VP chips. I thought that my, at that point, four-game win streak was in jeopardy.

In the end, though, the two first time players hadn't collected any VP chips and had played a lot of cards that didn't have a lot of value. Ed had 6 VP chips but had screwed himself early in the game by misreading a card that he spent his whole hand to play. Thus, he ended up playing only 6 or 7 cards the entire game. I had only played 9 cards, but most of them were at least worth 2 VP each. I won again with only 21 points.

I was unsure whether I liked the game or not after the first play. I grew on me the second time, as I had a bit more understanding of the game mechanics. I like that it plays fast - 30 to 45 minutes seems to be a max for this game so far - making it perfect for the start of game night or a nice distraction while waiting for someone to finish up at another table.

I haven't come up with any in depth strategies yet - I'll need to play a lot more for that - but I do have a few tips:

• In my limited playing experience, it seems that the winner will finish with somewhere between 20 and 50 total VPs. This total is relatively low, so every point counts. Make sure that every card you play has value, ie has a way to get you either cards, goods, VPs, or a combination of all three. Don't discount the value of playing a world that gives you 4 or 5 VPs even if it doesn't do much for you otherwise; those extra points may just win you the game.


• Keep a constant eye on how many cards your opponents have played. When they get close to ending the game, maximize the points that you can get in your final turns.


• Set up a produce/consume engine. Cards that give you a card and a victory point for consumed goods in phase IV are extremely valuable. Combine these cards with cards that produce a good of the same type. Use the 5 extra card explore to get the right cards in your hand.

That's all I have for now. I need to play it a lot more! Hopefully, after Christmas, I'll add it to my collections.

Stone Age

Prior to Saturday night, I had played Stone Age a total of three times and had not won once. Despite this losing streak, and I must admit that winning a game and enjoying a game are often much too synonymous for me, I found that it was rapidly rising up the list of my favorite games.

I'm trying to figure it out why it is so much fun for me. Perhaps it is partly due to Ed's insistance on shouting out "they're entering the mating hut" whenever he creates a new meeple. I like the game play. It seems fast and doesn't drag. I like the tool mechanism for smoothing out luck in rolls, and I like the fact that you can completely screw your opponent by filling up a resource that is desperately needed. Overall, it's just fun.

With Dee, Josh, and Matt as my adversaries, I was finally able to win my fourth time playing the game. My major mistakes in during my losing streak were:

• Liking tools too much. It's great to get 3-5 of them, but I was ending up with 10. Making them less of a priority helped a lot.


• I have a tendency in resource games to try to spend the first part of the game establishing my engine and the last part of the game acquiring points. This doesn't seem to work in Stone Age. You need to be converting resources into points as early as possible.


• Under-emphasizing or over-emphasizing the cards. My first time to play, I pretty much ignored the cards. After losing badly, I routinely bought cards for 3 and 4 resources for the next couple of games. I learned to take what was given to you. If a good card is there for limited resources or a great card is there that is worth more resources, I take it. If not, I let it go and spend my resources elsewhere.


• Way overvaluing the card that gives all players bonus resources based on your die roll. I love these cards. During my losing streak, I'd go out of my way to get one of these. I finally figured out that, even though rolling a 5 or 6 worked great for me, it was also helping out all my opponents. I stopped overpaying for these and instead rejoiced when the player to my right chose to take one.
• Taking what was given to me instead of forcing a specific strategy. In the game that I won, Dee was obviously pursueing a card strategy, and he ended up with over 100 points in bonuses at the end. However, by taking cards above all else, he allowed me to increase my farming and my tribe really easily. I ended up taking the best of what he was allowing to slip to me.