Tips raceforthegalaxy

Base Game Only, 2 Player only variant.

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The game is won through Victory Points (VP). The 2 possible ways to get VP are: 1. Playing developments & worlds. 2. Consuming goods to gain the additional VP chips.

So strategy tips will be based one or both of these ways of gaining VP.

Broadly speaking, most common strategies go though 3 different phases. 1. Start of the game: Money (cards in hand) is more important than VP at this stage. Gain cards in hand by trading goods, normally from cheap windfall worlds, or exploring. You may also see some small trading improvement cards which aid this strategy like 'export duties' or 'spice world'

2. Middle game. Develop a card drawing engine by playing card cost saving and gaining cards. Examples will be 'Drop Ships', 'Replicant Robots', 'Diverse Economy', 'Consumer Markets'. Not to be overlooked are lots of cards which aid free stuff in the produce phase.

3. End game. Depending upon your strategy goal, the end game will likely involve capitalising on your earlier developments and worlds. So the 'produce and consumeX2' is one popular strategy. Build 6? point developments that gain lots of points in the final count. Build other high scoring worlds like alien worlds and military worlds. Whatever you decide it should be to maximise your potential of hand and cards on the table, and looking to see how your position best plays against your opponents to secure victory. Occasionally you may tell that the only way to victory could be to +5/0 explore to dig for that one final 6 point dev card that will earn you 14 points. Better to go down fighting than to simply concede.

Drafting \ Leeching \ Playing the opponent. Whatever you want to call it, the strategy of your opponent should be considered at all times. This is not just a multiplayer solitaire game. So at the 'choose actions' initial part of the round, consider what phases your opponent is likely to choose. If they are likely to choose 'Produce' then you will know that you don't necessarily need to. If they are going to produce they you can likely choose develop, and play 'Diverse Economy' and create a surprise benefit from their choose of produce. Sometimes there may be no direct benefit but you should still try and see what actions they may take and keep cheap, easy to play filler cards. Occasionally you get the 'zugzwang' feeling, where both players would normally choose produce (or any other action type) but neither do.

So the likelihood and the beauty of the game is that there is no one strategy to beat all others. You must be willing to be flexible at all times to maximise your position.

Some small extra tips: Yes, some games may only last 6 or 7 rounds and you've just been beaten by a very rapid cheap blue or brown consumex2 and produce tactic. Leaving 0 or few cards in the hand after a round can leave you exposed. If you do this then you need to have a plan, like a alien yellow windfall world ready to be traded or something. It's a race; always question your position and the end of the game, try to finish on a high, 6 point development cards are often played in the final round to steal the win. Consumex2 strategies are often used to gain large amount of extra VP chips. A non military strategy can still deploy a 7 point rebel world with the help of the 'Contact Specialist'. Don't blame the card draw, 95% of the time a credible alternative is available. It sucks to lose, play better next time!