Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Wednesday night came and we four played another game of Race for the Galaxy. At mnemex's suggestion we used the goals from the expansion set this time, ending up with the 'first to a power in each phase', 'first to 5 VP', 'first to each type of production/windfall' and 'first to three alien' from the 3 VP goals, and the 'most developments' and 'largest industry' from the 5 VP goals.

I had a very jerky session, with an early attempted naked trade falling through which left me hurting for the rest of the game. My real problem was the presence of the Merchant Guild and the Trade League (or is that the Merchant League and the Trade Guild?) in my hand from the deal. I couldn't bring myself to discard either and I screwed myself with deadwood in my hand for too long. Sigh.

The goals let alaimacerc walk away with the game, turning a fairly weak 19 VP tableau and chips into a game winning 29 VP once he picked up the two 5 VPs goals without much competition.

Final scores: alaimacerc 29 (10 points in goals!), sammywol 28 (6 in goals), irishkate Kate 25 (3 in goals) and Myles 22.

I remain to be convinced about the value of the goals as an addition to the game. It certainly changed the outcome of the game, and probably push Alai to steam ahead even faster than he would have otherwise, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. RftG is already pretty much of a rush to 12 cards, and turning up the pressure even more only frustrates me when the cards don't come together. I only had 9 cards down in the end for example.