Hi! It's Ryan from Nights Around a Table, and
this is Race for the Galaxy, a tableau-building role-taking sci fi game with a neat twist. Let me show you how to play! Race for the Galaxy is notoriously difficult
to learn. You've got all these cards with all these
confusing symbols, and an instruction booklet that's written like a dishwasher manual. I'm going to teach you how to play the game
the way i wish somebody had taught me. In Race for the Galaxy, you're trying to build
the most powerful space empire. There's a tidy draw pile on the table, and
a messy discard pile. You have a hand full of cards, and you pay
to build these cards out in front of you, in a tableau. The only rule is that you can't build two
of the same building. Many of the cards you build are worth victory
points. Some cards produce resources for you, which
you can sell for more cards, or for victory points. A few cards are meta-cards, that earn you
points for having certain cards in your tableau. When a player builds a 12th card, or takes
the last Victory point chip, that triggers the end of the game and you count up all the
points and see who's won. Now here's the fun twist that the game throws
at you: there's no money in the game. You buy the cards in you tableau... with...
your other cards. That means you have to make some tough decisions. Which cards are you going to hang on to because
you want to build them, and which cards are you going to use as money? This hook presents a really fun and unique
challenge. Now down to the nitty gritty of what the most
basic symbols on the cards mean: THE SYMBOLS There are only two things you can build: worlds,
and developments. Worlds are like planets. They're represented by a circle. Developments give you a competitive edge. They're represented by a diamond. And victory points are what you need to win
the game. They're represented by hexagons. The cost of a world or a development card
is the big number inside the circle or diamond. You'll have to pay three cards to settle this
world. You'll have to pay one card to build this
development. The number of points these cards are worth
once you build them is inside the little hexagon. Three points! One point! You know - you get it. GOODS Many of the worlds you settle will produce
goods. When a world produces a good (and we'll see
how it does that shortly), you draw a card and place it face-down on the world. You never look at the other side of that good
card. It just represents a generic, valuable thing
that your world has produced. So the cards in the game stand in for so many
things: they are worlds you settle, and developments you build, they're money you spend, AND they
stand in for the gross domestic product of your planets! You can consume these goods later in the game. Consuming goods can net you victory points,
and/or more cards - cards which you can either try to build, or use as money. And on it goes until you conquer the galaxy! Well that's one big chunk of the game explained. The other big chunk is how you actually settle
worlds and build developments. PHASES INTRO There are five phases in the game, each one
marked by a Roman Numeral. Phase 1: Explore. That's the easiest way to get new cards. Phase 2: Build a development. Phase 3: Settle a world. Phase 4: Consume the goods on your worlds
for cash and prizes. Phase 5: Produce new goods on your worlds. Each player gets an identical deck of phase
cards. These are separate from the cards you're trying
to build out in front of you in your tableau. Your phase deck contains one card for each
of the five phases, plus a couple of extras that i'll cover off a little bit later. At the beginning of a round, everybody secretly
chooses one of these five phases, and when you're all ready, everyone slaps their chosen
phase down at the same time. So if one or more players choose Phase 1:
Explore, all players get to explore. But the players who CHOSE the Explore phase
get a bonus perk for picking it. Likewise for any other phase that was chosen:
everyone gets to perform the action, but the picker gets a perk! Multiple players can choose the same phase. They all get the perk for picking it. In Race for the Galaxy, it usually doesn't
matter who takes their cards or goes about their space business first... everything just
kind of happens simultaneously, but the instruction manual has a note about timing in the rare
cases where it does matter. PHASES DETAIL Here's what the phases do in more detail. Phase 1: Explore. You draw 2 cards, keep one, and discard the
other. Now if you're the picker, you had two different
Explore cards to choose from. Your perk is that you either get to draw five
extra cards, or draw one extra card and keep one extra card. So the perk for picking this card means you
draw 2 cards as usual, plus another five, then keep one card and discard the rest. The perk for picking this card is that you
draw 2 cards as usual, plus an extra one, then keep TWO cards and discard the rest. You might pick this option if you just want
more cards in your hand, while you might pick this option if you're fishing through the
deck, looking for a certain TYPE of card. Phase 2: Develop In this phase, every player can build one
development - those are the diamond cards. The perk for picking gives you a one-card
discount. So as the picker, this development will cost
you 2 cards instead of 3 cards. Phase 3: Settle In this phase, every player can settle one
world - those are the circle symbol cards. The perk for picking is that if you DO settle
a world, you get to draw a card. So you'd pay 2 cards to settle this world,
and then draw a card as your perk. Now watch closely. Here's where it gets a tiny bit tricky: Some worlds are grey. This means they are boring, and they won't
produce any goods for you later on. Some worlds are colourful on the inside of
the circle. This means they have the potential to produce
goods for you later in the Produce phase. Some worlds have a halo of colour outside
the circle. These are called Windfall Worlds. The moment you pay to settle them, you place
a good on them from the draw pile. It's like a little advance bonus. But there's a drawback to settling Windfall
Worlds, as we'll see in the Produce phase. Some worlds have a red outline around them. You can't settle these worlds by paying cards
- you have to conquer them with your military strength. Everyone starts the game with an implied zero
military strength. Certain cards give you more points of military
strength in the Settle phase, and some cards take your military strength away. It's a number you sort of have to keep in
your head. You can buy an expansion later on that helps
you keep track of it using cubes and cardboard, but for the base game, you just have to know
that if your military score is as much or more than the number inside a conquerable
world, you can conquer it. You don't even have to pay for it - you just
put it out in front of you. Phase 4: Consume Phase 4 lets you turn these goods on your
worlds into cards and/or points. Just like the Explore phase, you have two
different card options for Phase 4. One is better for getting you cards, and one
is better for getting you points. If any player chooses the Consume phase, then
every player has to look at all of the phase 4 sections of their cards for "consume powers." These are the abilities that turn your goods
into cards and points. If you have any consume powers, and you have
goods that can be consumed, you HAVE to use your powers to juice those goods. You can't just leave goods lying around on
your worlds until it's more profitable for you later. So you might have a card with a good on it,
and another card with a consume power on it. Consume powers can and do affect goods on
other cards. So if this was your empire, the consume power
on this card would force you to burn the good on this card. Generally speaking, consume powers only affect
one good at a time. If you have more consume powers than you have
goods in your tableau, you can choose which consume power affects which good. And if you don't have enough consume powers,
you CAN leave the goods on your tableau at the end of the phase. And you can choose to use your consume powers
in any order that you like. The perk for choosing the Consume: Double
VPs phase card is that any victory point chips you earn for consuming your goods in this
phase are doubled. The perk for choosing the Consume: Trade phase
card is that before using all of your consume powers, you have to cash in one of your goods
for cards instead of points. This is where the colours of your worlds come
into play. Goods that come from your blue Novelty worlds
earn you 2 cards. You get 3 cards for a Rare Elements good from
a brown world, 4 cards for a good from a green world, or FIVE cards for an Alien technology
good from a yellow world. After you trade in one of your goods in for
cards, you have to use any and all of your consume powers where possible to burn the
rest of your goods, just like all the other players. The fifth and final phase is Produce. Every solidly-coloured production world that
doesn't already have a good on it gets a good on it. A world can have a maximum of one good on
it at a time. If you picked the Produce phase, your perk
is that you get to produce a good on one of your Windfall Worlds - remember, those are
the worlds with coloured halos around them. Ordinarily, you can't produce goods on these
worlds during the Produce phase, but the perk enables you to. The phases are called in order, but not all
phases may happen in a single round. You could have a phase where every player
chooses Phase I:Explore, and no other phase happens. Now that's part of the tactical fun of Race
for the Galaxy: secretly choosing the phase you really want, and then betting on the phases
that each of the other players are going to choose, because you really wanna do that stuff
too. ROUND END When all of the chosen phases are finished,
the round is over. Every player has to discard down to 10 cards,
and then you all take your phase cards back. Everyone secretly choses a new phase, puts
it out in front, and the next round begins. But let's rewind back to the beginning. SETUP Setting up the game is simple: you shuffle
these five special start worlds, and deal one to face-up each player. The rest go back into the draw deck. These start worlds might give you an idea
of what sort of strategy to pursue. For example, this start world gives you a
head start on military, while this one gives you a few bonuses in the Consume phase. Everyone's tableau starts with a start world. Then, you deal 6 cards to each player. Everyone discards 2 of those cards into the
messy discard pile, for a starting hand of 4 cards. The first time you play, it's difficult to
know which cards to hang onto and which ones to discard, so the manual has a few suggested
starting hands for your the first couple of times you play. In later expansions, the manual even suggests
some drafting rules for the start worlds and starting hands, so if you're picky about luck,
you may want to adapt those drafting rules into the base game. RYAN'S TIPS Here are my three best pieces of advice for
playing Race for the Galaxy and not getting overwhelmed: Tip #1: When you build your tableau, keep
your circle cards - your worlds - in one row, and your diamond cards - your developments
- in another. That'll help to keep things straight in your
mind. i spoke to one player who likes everybody
to keep the tableaux in rows of 6, so that it's very clear at a glance who's about to
reach that 12th card and trigger the end of the game. Tip #2: On each phase that's called, look
at that phase across all of the cards in your tableau to see if your cards let you do anything
special. They may give you special discounts, or provide
other phase-related perks that you might easily forget about. Tip #3: The face-down goods kind of cover
up your cards. Remember to look underneath your goods on
every phase, or offset them so that you're not missing out on any cool space stuff you
get to do. i have one friend who says he's never played
a game of Race for the Galaxy without the goods being placed underneath the cards, which
- despite what the rules suggest - makes a whole lot of sense! The game ends when a player builds the twelfth
card in his or her tableau, or when all of the victory point chips in the middle of the
table get used up. Finish the rest of the phases in the round,
if there are any. There should be 10 spare victory point chips
off to the side, in case anyone earns any extra points before the round is over. Then, count up all the points in physical
victory point chips, the points your worlds and developments are worth, and any of the
points that these expensive 6-point meta development cards get you. The player with the most points wins the game,
and spaaaaaaace! Race for the Galaxy is a confusing game to
learn, but it's a game worth learning. It's got that gut-churning twist where your
cards are also your money, and so your strategy is constantly changing depending on which
new cards come into your hand throughout the game. It's a great game for players who like to
build their own little house, and they don't want other players to come in and wreck it
- you know, player interaction is pretty low. It's all about figuring out which phase the
other players are going to choose so that you can make the most out of every round. Race for the Galaxy is one of the greats. Give it a shot! Thanks for watching. i'm kind of like Tinkerbell: if you stop paying
attention to me, i die. Click the coat of arms to subscribe, and turn
on notifications to know when i've got something new.
Agreed! I'm a huge fan of Ryan and wish he would gain some popularity so we can get more content. Easily as good as anyone on dice tower right now.
Game is amazing. iOS app for the game is also great
His How To Play Castles of Burgundy video was great when I was learning the game recently. I really like the little bits of humour he tosses in
Goodness gracious! How kind. Yesterday, i was sitting at about 830 subscribers. i thought that maybe, if Santa was kind and Christmas magic really did exist, i could reach 1000 by the end of the year. And you got me there in one night. Thanks so much, everyone! This is very encouraging.
He's good. Subscribed.
This guy is absolutely mad. What a review!
I learned to play Concordia from one of his videos and it remains one of the most comprehensive videos tutorials I've seen.
As much as I like Rodney, I often can't get a feeling for how the flow of the game will be. It's different with Ryan.
Thanks for sharing OP! This video was very well done. Subscribed!
Funny, just discovered this a few days ago.
I think his rules videos are by far the ones with the highest production value AND they are even entertaining.