Race for the Galaxy Gameplay Runthrough

hey everybody today righto runs through race for the galaxy which is an excellent excellent excellent card game all about interstellar empire building and it's also a game that's fairly well known for being really simple and streamlined and elegant to play but very hard to get your head around because it seems at first glance to be very daunting with all kinds of icons and and complicated structures that once you get to know the game it plays super silky smooth but it there's a big learning curve and so I'm going to do a run-through today trying to one show you if this would be an interesting game you might want to pick up and two if you already have picked it up give you a kind of a primer for how it plays so that hopefully you can digest the rules a little bit easier okay okay and with that in mind actually normally I don't do this but before I start playing I am going to do just a couple of high-level concepts you can bear in mind while you're playing first concept most important concepts there are two types of cards in this game so here's one and here's one now the cards that you all kinds of things got different colors different icons etc etc but there are two types of cards there are planet cards which have this round circle and there are development cards which have this diamond and that's hugely important because these are the cards you're trying to play into your play area to score points like if I ever play the Space Marines it's worth a point at the end of the game new Sparta which is a planet is worth a point at the end of the game and all the cards in addition to whatever points they're worth of the in the game also give you new powers and abilities that let you earn points over the course of the game as well so what you're trying to do is you are trying to build developments diamonds or settle planets circles to score to get powers that will help you along the way and also to score the most points at the end of the game that's the core of the games let's see and I get one other core element of the game the way every term works this is a really nice play rate that comes with a game that everybody starts with and you just look and say oh my god look at all this stuff this is a player right now it's a manual now it's it's if you know how to read it it's very simple every turn is a round summary what's going to happen is there are going to be five phases 1 2 3 4 5 explore develop settle consume and produce now there's a little bit more complexity to that but basically what that means is returned there's a chance we'll explore which means we get more cards because we need more cards because that's where we find new planets and developments we will develop that means we actually play the cards like Space Marines or here's another development deficit spending or colony ship we play them from our hands to our areas we have to paid to do them to pay like this deficit spending cost me two it has has a cost of two to develop has constitute it's worth wonder three point it cost to the way I pay for that is I discard two cards from my hand I lose two cards to get this and that's the core engine of the game your constant you have a hand of card you want to play them all but you have to choose which cards do i discard so that I can play the card I really want so first maybe we'll explore and get more cards then we'll develop maybe which means we'll get to build our diamond cards you can see a little diamond then we'll settle if we if this happens and it doesn't always happen we get to settle planets which other round circles and again you settle plants to score points and get powers and there's two ways you can sell plants you can colonize them or you know which is the black or take them over by military forces the red I'll talk about that later there's two ways planets like this is a red planet it needs military you take it over where is this one is not red it doesn't have the red on it so this means you just colonize it like normal okay so maybe we'll explore maybe we'll develop maybe we'll settle then consume a lot of the planets can actually generate goods and if you have goods that have enjoyed you can consume them a planet can consume those goods to make points I'll demonstrate that as we go and then finally produce a lot of planets produce stuff that in future turns can be consumed now that's we're going to do every turn we're trying to you know colonize planets we're trying to build developments so that we score points doing these five steps over the course the game now that's the basics there's a little bit more going on before we start at the beginning of the game everybody starts with a hand of six cards and they're going to have to discard two of them so I got to choose which of these six cards do I want to keep and I choose based on my starting planet I got in this game randomly starting planet number three new Sparta which is a military planet all this planet does see here's those five phases explore develop settle zooom and there's two by cons for consume but it's consumed and then produce so um news Faridah doesn't help me explore doesn't help me develop anything doesn't consume anything and doesn't produce anything but on the settlement phase it gives me plus two in military strength red is the color of military so I've got a warlike planet and so I want to choose cards that benefit that like for instance this rebel outpost this guy is worth five points that's huge that's a gigantic but I need to have a military strength of five to take it over it's a red planet which means only military can take it and I have to have a military strength of five at the beginning the game on I have a military strength of two so I might want to hold on to this and start building up so I could get it has it's worth five points and it will increase my military even further so I might want to hold on to this now empath world is worth a point and stuff like that but look it actually reduces my military strength negative on a military so the heck with that that is definitely not a card I'm keeping I don't want that in my forget get that peacenik card out of my mind but Space Marines that's plus two on military this is definitely what I'm going to keep so I think I'm going to keep these two I'm going to hope to get to the rebel outpost and score my five points the Space Marines will help me because it gives me two more military now I got to pick two more cards what else why belong I think I'm gonna take this new survivalist this is another planet that I need military to take over because again it's red a red planet needs military to take over but it's a really weak line it only takes one military and remember I three in a game I start with two so this would be really easy planet for me to grab and it'll start producing goods for me I need one more deficit spending or colony ship I see colony ship lets me colonize planets on the cheap that's nice deficit spending basically gives me more control over you know how I can discard produced goods I don't think I care about either these neither these really fit into my military strategy them and shrine build so I guess I'll retire I'll just keep the colony ship and I'll discard this one okay so that's my starting hand to four cards now Jen she started with Earth's lost colony which is worth one point in the game it's a nice little planet and this planet doesn't help me explore doesn't help me develop doesn't help me settle but it does consume no surprise Earth's Lost Colony can consume stuff because we are things we like to consume we are Zoomers it this lets me to trade one Goods card into a victory point and the earth loss colony also produces stuff last step is product production blue produces blue car blue which is novelty so Earth's lost colony produces junk which it will then consume so that's what Jin's starting strategy really wants to be all about so let's look at her cards so she's got Jam world this is another card that produces blue novelty she definitely wants this because they can work well together let's see dropships is a development it's not a planet it's very expensive for cards just you have to discard four cards to get this that would be hard to do it'd be painful plus all it does is increased military so Jin doesn't want that she's not going to push military like I am let's see now this is interesting this Imperium or this armaments world produces remember step number five is produced it produces brown goods those are super rare in fact you can see brown means rare so it produces rare goods also increases in military a little bit and then this terraforming robot can consume rare goods to produce points and cards so these two cards work really well together but they're very expensive I have to discard four parts to get this and three cards to get that so while this is a perfect combo this is better for later in the game when I've got a bunch of excess cards and I can afford to do them early in the game I'm not gonna be able to do either of these they're too expensive so I don't think as great as they are I don't think they're gonna be good for me however this one is not too expensive only two cards and it lets me consume more goods so this is definitely going to do because this fits into the into the plant so I've got to I need to take two more well I guess I'll take I guess I'll take this because it's maybe I'll be able to use because it's a little bit less expensive this is just going to be too expensive I'm gonna dump that which means I've also got a reptilian planet which interestingly the main thing it does it's worth two points but oh wait wait I need military to take this planet over I'm not going to have much military so I don't know I mean so I'm not really decks it will actually tackle that I'll take this other card then because maybe as expensive as it is maybe I'll be able use but if I'm not going to go hard into war like stuff I'm probably not to be able to take over this planet so that is I'm sorry when I say I imagine that is gen starting hand to four cards they're really for the most part is focusing on she really wants to get these cards out early because they'll help her her what he called production and consumption strategy and these are just extra cards me I'm going to go heavy into military and we'll see how well that works okay so we are now set up we can start playing the game now what happens is every turn everybody has in addition to their you know we don't see what everybody else has in terms of cards but we also have a bunch of order cards and these these orders are cards for explore develop settle consuming try and what everybody does is in secret they choose one order and then everybody reveals at the same time that I choose explore and somebody else chooses settle and then we do those actions so that's why I mean not explore will only happen if somebody chooses the explore card and then whoever chooses that gets to explore and gets a nice exploration bonus and everybody else gets to explore even though they didn't choose the card but doesn't get the bonus so and now but now what I've done is rather than keep all these going to be way too hard with one hand for me to like dig out all those cards so I've just laid out all the orders these are all mine on the green player these are all Jen's and I'm going to use these meeples I grabbed from tois to indicate what at what orders I'm going to give and it's another thing in a two-player game there's additional order cards there's more order college than normal that's what this symbol means to player there's more constant normal and you get to place two orders normally it is a three or four player game you only get to place one order per turn but when it you play give me its place - so now the beginning of the game I'm going to secretly choose what orders do I want to do and remember the orders are explored develop settle consume and produce now remember I've got military I want to really push my military hard so remember I got this new this planet that requires one military to overtake so I can overtake this planet so I might want to choose settle so I'll take over this planet and then you know get its ability so I might want to choose one of my to settle actions I could actually settle twice if I wanted whoops those are a my mom lets you sell maybe and that means I'd be able to settle this planet because my military will let me take it over and then maybe well I probably want to do development as well because if I do development I'll get my Space Marines into effect then I'll have four military which means I'm very very close to being able to get this rebel outpost but I won't have enough and now here's the thing if I choose to develop I'll have to discard two cards and I don't want to discard this now I don't mind discarding this this is fine this is this is kind of SH left to me I don't really care about a colony ship but I don't want to discard any of these other cards that would be terrible - I'd have to discard two and I'd have to lose more cards I really really want so I don't think I'm gonna do development right away because I don't want to discard cards instead I'm going to explore and what that means is remember the Explorer means I get to get additional cards and hopefully I'll even get a card I really like or I'll get a card I don't mind discarding so on a following turn I'll be able to develop so those are going to be is that what I'm going to do or those are two things I'm gonna do yes I think I am this turn going to settle and I'm going to explore and I'm going to settle right I've chosen now that's a secret Jen has no idea what I'm choosing but remember this will benefit her because I've chosen to explore she will get to explore even if she doesn't choose to explore and because I've chosen to settle she'll get to settle even if she chooses something else now let's think about what she's gonna do she's got choose two things as well and now she would like to get she would like to get Epsilon Eridani out she's have to give up two cards I remember she doesn't care about either of these cards because they are too expensive they're great cards but they're very expensive she's gonna she looked at these cards as ways to get these cards out quick so I think she's gonna want to settle as well and so she will choose settle now here's the thing she didn't need to because I've chosen settle she'd be able to settle for free so she could do something else if she wants but she doesn't know I've doing that in fact although maybe she would guess I would hmm does she get I guess now she doesn't want take a chance she definitely wants to settle and now the other thing she can do is remember is she's all about production she wants to produce goods in actually I should say if she settles gem world which again meets yes to discard two cards if she settles this she'll have two cards that can produce so I think the other thing she's going to want to do this turn is she's going to want to produce okay so now what that means is again we didn't use the meatballs we just secretly chose what cars were going to do and then we reveal them at the same time and I reveal that I'm exploring and settling and Jen reveals that she wanted to settle and she wants to produce okay and then all the other actions aren't going to happen nobody's going to do nobody's going to develop nobody's going to consume but let's start going through the actions now remember I chose explore now the explore action means draw two cards and keep one of them and everybody gets to do that I get to do that and Jen gets to do that even though she didn't get to explore and that's why she thinks well she figured I was going to explore and so she figured you know what she's gonna do other stuff because she knows she'll get an explorer for free let's do her first cuz it'll be simple so she draws two and see what she got and she keeps one of these new earth a very expensive card it takes you she have to discard five cards to get this but it generates rare Brown goods that's awesome and it consumes stuff so she'd really like this but it's going to be hard to do but what else did she get a deserted alien colony this is also very expensive to get those are hugely expensive so she's probably able to go all she's going to hold on to this because maybe she'll be able to do it but really she's looking at this as another way to get cards in play early because this is too expensive to build up towards so Jen got to explore because I did it but so do I now here's the thing because I'm the one who chose the Explorer action I get to do the Explorer of draw too and keep one but if you choose the action you get a bonus action as well Jen didn't get a bonus cuz she didn't use Explorer I did so Wiker I will get to draw two and keep one of them but you look at my Explorer I have a bonus as well draw oops draw one additional and keep one additional so Jen draw draw it jutsu and keep kept one I draw three and keep two because I get the exploration bonus because I chose it so let's see what I got I got a contact specialist research labs and another military planet that I can take over the military time military the last of the Norrish now this planet does nothing arm it literally it scores me no points it's easy for me to take over because it only takes one but you can see it provides no benefits none of the phases producing thing however it has this glow around it if you look on the play rate actually if you look on the back there's a debt there's a there's a handy dandy guide for what all the different things mean you know so it reminds you that circles are worlds and that red circles are war our military world ships takeover military it also tells you that this glow is a windfall world you know the halo and what that means is when you when you first colonize that place you develop a good for free but it doesn't produce stuff normally so oops and I just dropped my play right oh dear let's even go without it now I better get it back Oh butterfingers come back here you okey doke so I draw I drew three and I kept two and I see now contact specialists contact vessels is interesting this is a card it's a development it costs you have to discard one card to get it's worth a point and from now on once you have this development you can take over military planets without using military force which is very cool but that's not good for me because I'm all about the military force so this is not a particular interesting card for me research labs this is a very expensive development costs for but it does a lot of stuff when you explore you get to keep an extra card that's a permanent bonus the rest of the game that's great also it produces stuff it produces yellow goods which are what are they alien technology produces alien technology and there's a little description draw one card for each alien good you produce so whenever you produce stuff you also get to draw card so it's a very good production plus it consumes genes and produces a point so this is a really great card it does a bunch of stuff but again it's expensive this card is dirt cheap I'll be able to get it out but it will only ever produce anything once and it doesn't even give me any victory points now I'm not going to take contact wrestlers so I don't care about that so these are the two cards I'm keeping and we are done we have finished the explore action because I chose explore gen got to do the basic explore she drew two and kept one I got to do the bonus which meant I drew two i drew three and kept two and that's it so now I could have a member I could have done a second explore right now if I want more but I didn't do that so we continue on nobody's exploring nobody is developing there are two chances nobody took it so we're skipping the development pace now we want to settle and both of us chose to settle and what that means is we will both get the settlement bonus if you look what the settlements bonus is it basically it means you after you after you've settled which is phase three you get to draw one card after placing a world so we will get to draw an extra card after we successfully settle something so that's pretty nice okay and now the interesting thing is if say I hadn't gone here Jen would get to settle and she to get the bonus but I would still get to settle but as it is we both get to settle and we both get the bonus because we both chose okay let's do me first I want to settle these are as these are my developments and these are my worlds right you don't settle the developments you don't so the diamond you settle a world because it's a circle so I could and I can't settle the rebel outpost because I need five military I'm a ways off for that so I'm not going to settle this I could either settle this guy which I could do easy because I got two military I only need one but all this is going to do is give me one good I'm not really that worried about it so I'm not going to sell this right now I'm gonna settle this starting card I had the new survivalist so comes over here into my space I have settled it I didn't remember Jen she's going to have to pay cards to settle but me I'm using military which means I just take the planet I want I took this military this military planet I had two military it only cost me one and so I have settled and remember I get a bonus I get to draw one card after successful settlement and I got a rebel underground which is another military planet very nice for me four points I need three military whew and this thing starts producing goods oh and it doesn't produce it lets me draw cards on the production phase that's very cool that's an awesome draw for me perfect for my military strategy okay so that was my self now let's go over to Jim she's gonna settle as well but she's not going to use military she is going to do it the old-fashioned way now she has these three worlds oops we're not we skip developments right we're not doing developments oops sorry no she only has one development deterrence she's not going to do that she has to discard two cards or two cards or four cards or five cards she's not she can't afford you of these so she's not gonna do them so she could either develop the Jim were this car - or ellipse on Aranda and develop - so you wants to general because this will start this will mean she will produce more so that's actually pretty cool for her and so assuming she has to discard two cards to get this and what's you gonna discard huh let's see I think she's going to discard this because it's expensive and it's really all about military etc etc and now the other one stuff these are all good cards Newerth is awesome but generates rare goods and it consumes stuff and plus the terraforming robots means she could consume those rare goods but they're expensive but maybe she wants hold on to this and she'll be able to do it later in which case she could discard this but this is a this is a cheap card she'd be able to get this card out and it will help her in the short term so does she want to discard a long term card or a short term card that's tough hmm well I think it's kinda nice for her to have a goal she's going to hold on to this as a goal of trying to build it so she'll have new earth and if she do so she's going to discard terraforming robots she's going to hold on to these two now so she has settled a planet as well any as you can see it was worth one additional bonus point and it's an additional production and now because she chose as well she gets a bonus a selma bonus which means she gets to draw another card and she got the black market trading world which is a medium cost it cost you chef to discard three to get it's worth two points and it means when you're producing you can discard one good to draw cards equal to the listed trade value of that good so if she discards a brown card that means it's worth it has a value of three and if she discards it she would be able to draw three cards that's awesome that's very powerful so this might be a good card for her hold on to it fits her strategy pretty nicely too anyway we've now finished the settlement phase nobody chose a second settlement nobody has chosen to consume anything and that's not surprising because nobody's generating any Goods yet there would be no goods to consume so that would have been silly if somebody chose to do that and now we want to produce I did introduce but Jin did now that means I get to benefit from James production and what that means is the production is must place a good on world or each production role without a good and I have a production world the new survivalist planet produces stuff so I'm going to produce something even though I didn't choose to produce Jen did and I benefit from it so I'm going to produce one blue good what that means is I just draw a card from the deck I don't know what it is we'll never know what this is it's been removed from the game we have no idea what it is and I put it here and now my new survivalist planet has produced one blue good then in a future turn can be consumed alright that was my production Jen she gets to produce as well she's got to production planets so she gets to produce a good here so we're just drawn and we don't know what it is doesn't matter it's just a blue good she also this one is special the gem world gets the producer blue and she gets to draw a card as well so she gets to keep a card so this is awesome she gets to produce and she adds another card your hand galactic engineers which is another thing to let you produce oh and it lets you um whoa-ohh lets you produce on windfall planets that's pretty cool okay not that she has any but still that's pretty cool alrighty now she also gets the bonus because she's the one who chose produce the bonus is bonus produce a good on anyone of your windfall worlds that does not already have a good now unfortunately she has no windfall worlds November me I've got a windfall world a wimp bit which is this halo and what that means is when I settled it when I settle settle this place I will put a good on and then it'll never get any more goods on it cuz it doesn't produce but the production bonus means is if I choose a production bonus I'd be able to get this to produce more so that's actually pretty cool but that would be later or about that later if in fact so Jen gets the bonus production but it doesn't help because she has no halo worlds or windfall worlds okay so that we've done our actions and we both gotten two worlds in play now Jenn's produce two goods I produce one good I can guarantee you we're going to want to start consuming those Goods now to convert them into points in the next turn and we also got a bunch more cards because the law or flexibility and that was the first turn of mini of race for the galaxy not just barely the surface next turn I guarantee you somebody is going to consume goods it's probably going to be Jen because she wants to consume all these things and score points and that means I will benefit so I know she's going to consume so I'm not going to bother consume I'm going to try to continue pursuing my military might so I can get my rebel outpost out and score five points Jen she's going to want to consume and maybe she'll try to get one of these cheaper cards out as well or maybe she'll explore so she can start saving up cards to get one of these good cards but if you want know what we're going to do hit the extended play button it's on screen right now and you can learn some more about how the game plays alternatively you can go straight to final thoughts if you think you've got it either way the choice is yours in five four three two one

Channel: Rahdo

Views: 100,168

Rating: 4.8966408 out of 5

Keywords: baordgame, baord games, board games, baord game, boardgame, radho, rhado, game, rahdo, boardgames, board game, baordgames

Id: ziP9liFiKGo

Length: 25min 2sec (1502 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 28 2013