Race for the Galaxy

[Asmor]

Finally got to play Race for the Galaxy yesterday. Very fond of it! I also played San Juan for the first time last week, which was good but I wasn't especially taken with. The similarities between the two games really are quite striking (if you didn't know, Race for the Galaxy was sort of a proto-San Juan, they held a contest for San Juan and RftG was one of the entries which didn't win).

I've really only got two gripes with it.

1. It seems kind of inelegant to me that it's almost a pure card game, except for the victory tokens. They play such a relatively minor role in the game that I would have liked it if they could have just designed the game to use nothing but cards.

2. The box is hueg liek Xbox. Most over-packaged game I've seen since Poison.

Other than those two issues, though, it was really cool. I was worried about the theme a bit, which is odd since I vastly prefer sci-fi to historical. I think I'm just too much in the anti-Sci-Fi mindset which pervades Eurogames. But the theme works really well, and it was awesome in the first game when my home planet was New Sparta. You can be sure lots of jokes were made about the game being madness.

 

[MerricB]

I've played lots and lots and lots of San Juan. It is an excellent game, and one that I appreciate greatly. There are a lot of subtleties in how it plays.

Race was designed as an alternative San Juan (it is actually a branch from when they were designing SJ). It does a lot of cool things, but is less interactive than SJ. I haven't played it that much yet, so there's still a *lot* to explore in it. Military has dominated in the games I've played, although I know there are other good strategies.

Cheers!

 

[Asmor]

We only played it twice. In the first game, as New Sparta I won with a military- and development-heavy strategy with 35 points (second place was two people tied with 29).

The second game, coincidentally the person who got New Sparta won, but didn't do much militarily at all. He won largely because of an impressive production strategy and a bunch of VP chips. He got 45, and I came in second with 26.

 

[scitadel]

I actually prefer San Juan because of the higher interactivity between players in comparison to Race. I can see how Race plays well and I do enjoy it, but I do prefer having more interaction between the players. Probably why half the games we end up liking as a gaming group are Ameritrash.

Race is lots of fun - the strategies you take end up being very luck driven at least, I know my second game I ended up with New Sparta too but went the production-development route (unsucessfully sadly) because I kept drawing everything but military cards.

Race is still probably one of the best games that came out in 2008 though. Hmm, I wonder if we should start a thread to see what the votes are for best games in 2008?

 

[MerricB]

Race is still probably one of the best games that came out in 2008 though. Hmm, I wonder if we should start a thread to see what the votes are for best games in 2008?

Well, perhaps in 2009?

And Agricola should win. Unless Battlestar Galactica does. Boy, I want that game to come out!

Cheers!

 

[Wycen]

I've played both just a few times. My preference would thematically be Race for the Galaxy, however, that games seems far more complex. Both times I've played RftG I tried the simplest strategy, military. Got close to winning once, except after some thought I came to the conclusion I or we weren't doing one of the actions correctly. Still don't know since we haven't played for several months.

 

[Fast Learner]

I prefer Race to San Juan, mostly because San Juan is... well, sort-of solved. I don't recall the card combo offhand, but it's basically focused on the one that gives you extra VP for plantations, and then building a crapload of plantations really quickly. Most of our games of it have ended that way for the last half-dozen plays or so, so I've pretty-much lost interest.

Race is still lots of fun, and I quite look forward to the expansion!

 

[MerricB]

I prefer Race to San Juan, mostly because San Juan is... well, sort-of solved. I don't recall the card combo offhand, but it's basically focused on the one that gives you extra VP for plantations, and then building a crapload of plantations really quickly. Most of our games of it have ended that way for the last half-dozen plays or so, so I've pretty-much lost interest.

How many players? The card you're thinking of is Guild Hall.

It certainly doesn't win every game I play; City Hall is more common the winning card with me, but I have to vary my strategy every game.

Cheers!

 

[Asmor]

Granted, I only played it once, but it seemed to me like that building which let you store cards underneath it as VP was pretty broken... Not just for the points, but alsfor the fact that you can take a card out of the game permanently (e.g. the other copy of that same card!).

 

[MerricB]

Granted, I only played it once, but it seemed to me like that building which let you store cards underneath it as VP was pretty broken... Not just for the points, but alsfor the fact that you can take a card out of the game permanently (e.g. the other copy of that same card!).

The Chapel is good... but it is a long way from being broken. You need to be really good at the game to not lose when playing it against another skilled player. It generally only works when they're playing pretty slowly, or you've built up an incredible production strategy. Card Advantage is so important in this game, and losing cards isn't good.

Incidentally, I've played 99 games of San Juan on www.brettspielwelt.de; plus a few more with my friends, so I've played the game over one-hundred times. It is still one of my favourite games.

Cheers!