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Last night we gave another one of the pre-Christmas gaming purchases a try. Race for the Galaxy is a bit San Juan, a bit Puerto Rico, and a lot of fun. We settled down around 9.30 last night to give it a go, and went through the rules as a group before kicking off the game. We decided to stick with the pre-set hands recommended for first time players and I ended up as Epsilon Eridani. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sammywol was New Sparta, irishkate Alpha Centauri and alaimacerc Earth's Lost Colony.
I must say it played slow, but I think that can be blamed mostly on our lack of familiarity with the icons and card text as we fumbled through the first few rounds. Earth's Lost Colony also suffered from a lot of committees, judging by the speed of the play from that quarter.
It was just after midnight when we finished the game. I think that 2 and half hours was long even by our standards, particularly as all other reports suggest the game usually takes about 45 minutes. Despite this I enjoyed it and can see the replay value - assuming that play speeds up with familiarity. I like the varied paths to victory and I liked the Edel Stein und Reich style simultaneous reveal of the actions chosen each round and the doublethink it encouraged. One I'll definitely play again.
Final scores weremylescorcoran 37, alaimacerc 33, sammywol 27, irishkate 26, I think. Yay me!
I'd be curious to see how it plays with less than 4 players too. Anyone out in LJ-land have any experiences to share?
sammywol was New Sparta, irishkate Alpha Centauri and alaimacerc Earth's Lost Colony. I must say it played slow, but I think that can be blamed mostly on our lack of familiarity with the icons and card text as we fumbled through the first few rounds. Earth's Lost Colony also suffered from a lot of committees, judging by the speed of the play from that quarter.
It was just after midnight when we finished the game. I think that 2 and half hours was long even by our standards, particularly as all other reports suggest the game usually takes about 45 minutes. Despite this I enjoyed it and can see the replay value - assuming that play speeds up with familiarity. I like the varied paths to victory and I liked the Edel Stein und Reich style simultaneous reveal of the actions chosen each round and the doublethink it encouraged. One I'll definitely play again.
Final scores were
mylescorcoran 37, alaimacerc 33, sammywol 27, irishkate 26, I think. Yay me!I'd be curious to see how it plays with less than 4 players too. Anyone out in LJ-land have any experiences to share?
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And yes- it was fun - would happily play again.
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I think it's fairly clear it would speed up a lot -- even given my often turbid thought processes -- on replays. Other reports do also mention having a bit of a struggle with the Mysterious Icons. Earth's Lost Colony also suffered from a multiply-nested confusion in places, due to getting a fistful of unfamiliar (to three of us, anyhow) cards to decide what to do with, which in turn bear icons with no known interpretation, which lastly turn out to depend on some part of the turn sequence we hadn't really quite worked out in the first place. (Lots of confusion over the 'compulsory shipping' nature of the 'consume' action, in particular.)
After a replay or two, I don't think it'd inherently be significantly longer or more complex than San Juan -- to make the obvious comparison. And I thought it was quite a lot of fun as well, and well worth putting on the "to be played again, on a timescale consistent with some recollection of what we did wrong (and intermittently right) the first time" stack.
In some ways it seems a little like a couple of the purported "Puerto Rico killers" (I think I'm thinking of Cuba and Agricola here), in that it doesn't necessarily add much in the way "depth", but it does add lots of extra "width". Presumably on the basis of trading off some extra learning curve for addition replay value.
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Bwahahaha!
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I had a quick look at some of the comments on the 'Geek on the expansion, and it does look quite interesting. Some alarming comments about how they plan on filling -- and indeed overfilling -- the 'outsize' box with various expansions...
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I actually had the thought that bits of it reminded me of Netrunner, but for the moment I quite forget which bits...
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It works entirely fine with 3. It looks to me like 2 works fine as well, though I've only played 2 against the "robot" (who comes with the expansion). Just make sure you use the special "2" rules where each player plays two cards. When you play with fewer players, also make sure you reduce the number of VPs available, since it differs and that controls game end.
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I hope we can play it a few more times and get our times down. It feels like it could be a play twice in a night game (in our generally 2 hour slots) and that would help everyone get a chance to try each of the homeworlds and strategies.
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It plays well with fewer players, too. For the two-player game, each player gets to pick two action cards, and you get extra Develop and Settle cards. If one player plays both Develops (or Settles), then there are two Develop (or Settle) phases that round.
The first expansion set provides pieces for a fifth players, as well as other stuff.
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