The first session of 2008 and three of us got to try out Race For The Galaxy, at last. This was designed by Tom Lehmann and published by Rio Grande and can be succinctly described as San Juan in space.
Each player simultaneously chooses a role for the round and then those roles picked are carried out by everyone, with the player(s) who picked the role getting a bonus privilege. The roles range from Explore (gain cards), build Worlds / Developments, each of which gives both VPs and usually advantages in later rounds when certain roles are carried out, Produce a good on your built Worlds, and finally Consume goods for VPs or additional cards. The game ends when someone has built 12 Worlds / Developments or when a predetermined number of VP chips have been taken. Bonus VPs are awarded to players who have built certain 6-cost Developments and then most VPs wins.
This game has a much steeper learning curve than San Juan because there is a much greater variety of cards with lots more interactions between combinations of cards and also because the iconography used on the cards is not immediately obvious in many cases. Knowledge of which cards work well together is a big advantage and this only comes with familiarity of the game play and the cards. I don’t think you will get anywhere approaching optimum scores until you’ve played a number of times. That said, it does play very well and, after 3 or 4 rounds, we all had a good idea of what we were trying to achieve.
My initial world suggested I go down a military strategy which worked well for a while but ran out of steam towards the end. Nige went hell for leather down an alien technology route which towards the end saw him get lots of VPs through his Consume x 2 role. This made it critical that we end the game quickly and we did so that he only got to benefit twice. Mark K on the other hand managed to build two 6-cost developments and these worked well for him at the end giving him 18 bonus VPs and just enough to beat Nige by a single point. I knew I was lagging behind but wasn’t as far adrift as I thought when the final scores were revealed. We all rated the game highly and these ratings could improve as we try out different strategies. An excellent first game for 2008.
After outer space, we decided to help build the Hindenburg in Giganten der Lufte (Airships), designed by Andreas Seyfarth and published by Queen Games.
This is a similar game to To Court the King in that it involves rolling combinations of dice to gain cards that add or modify dice to your subsequent turns. Also, you can roll combinations to build an airship and later in the game part of the Hindenburg. These airships and the Hindenburg give the player the critical VPs needed to win the game. There is a balance, therefore, in concentrating on cards to improve your prospects in future turns while also grabbing airships for VPs. The game ends either when there are only a certain number of airships left to be built or when the four parts of the Hindenburg have been completed. The player with the most VPs wins.
If you like To Court The King, this is more of the same and you are likely to enjoy this as well. However, you are at the mercy of the dice and this can make or break your chances. Unfortunately, in our game, both Nige and I started out with two or three turns where we failed to achieve fairly modest die roll combinations whereas Mark K couldn’t fail for the first half of the game. This meant he always had better dice to roll than Nige and me and could get at the more lucrative cards / airships without challenge from either of us. I didn’t help my chances by accidentally upgrading one coloured card with 3 VPs attached to it to something else without VPs. Although it probably helped me in later turns a bit, I hadn’t intended to sacrifice the VPs (much to the amusement of Mark K and Nige).
It was obvious very early on that Mark was going to win and so we were glad eventually to see the game end with Mark completing the final part of the Hindenburg (his third section – I built the other one). The final scores were embarrassing and Nige’s rating clearly reflected how much he disliked this playing. Mark K and I thought it just ok and were surprised that the game came from a designer who had previously had an excellent record with us. I doubt we will be playing this again.
(Note: I added my score up incorrectly on Friday night – I’d omitted my points from the Hindenburg so I actually got 14 rather than just 8 points. No matter how hard I tried, though, I still couldn’t find more than 2 points for Nige!)
Steve Perkins has written a