Race for the Galaxy - The Rules and Gameplay Tutorial

get ready to put your thinking caps on as today I'm going to give you a little bit more of a brain burner we're going to cover the rules and gameplay of a game designed by Tom layman as we race for the galaxy race for the galaxy is a game where each player competes to build the most valuable Galactic Empire each player acts like a galactic businessman where they get to go out explore new worlds new civilizations and developments and boldly add them to their strategy they get points from the value that they have on the worlds and their varying values on worlds varying values on developments they also gain points as the worlds that they conquer or they settle produce goods that they can trade to other worlds or the same world and they get those in the form of victory chips at the end of the game you add up the points on your cards the value of your planets and developments and add up your total victory chips and whoever has the most points is the winner beginning your setup you want to count out 12 victory chips for each player who's playing the game if you play a game with two players 24 three players 36 four players 48 victory chips then also count out a pile of ten victory chips and set these aside these get used in the last round of play sort out your action cards you'll see that the face of these cards is different and comes in yellow green red and blue after you have these sorted pull out the two-player specific cards these cards only get used for the two-player advanced rules have each player select a color and just put it in front of them go through the rest of the cards and pull out your five start worlds these are labeled 0 1 2 3 & 4 and they have either a red or blue square in the upper left-hand corner with the number and in the lower right-hand corner with the number you're going to shuffle these start worlds and have each player select one of them that card just gets flipped up face-up in front of each player if a player draws Alpha Centauri Azure start world they're going to take one card off the top of the deck and place it facedown on Alpha Centauri this place it so you can still see the value of the card and also the bonus bar if this is your first game and you're playing a two-player game just use start worlds 1 & 2 if it's a three player game start worlds 1 2 & 3 and then a 4 player 1 2 3 & 4 deal out six cards to each player then each player would examine those cards and discard two of them they'll have four cards in their starting hand if it's your very first game might not be a bad idea to use the preset hands these cards have these small numbered one two three and four in the upper left hand corner and lower right hand corner match the starting cards up with the number on your start world race for the galaxy takes place over a series of rounds within each round or several actions that the players get to perform for the most part simultaneously the neat thing about the actions that take place in each round is they're going to vary turn by turn and this depends on at the beginning of the round what each player selects from his or her action cards the way this works is at the beginning of the round each player is going to go through their action cards which they'll have seven and pick one they take that card and lay it down face down in front and then once all the players have made their selection the players flip those action cards over simultaneously then you look at the action card and in the upper left hand corner you're going to see a Roman numeral the action that takes place first is the lowest Roman numeral and then you go into sending order there are five possible actions that players can choose from at the beginning of each round however they have seven cards two of the cards are the same action they just give a different bonus the two actions that are doubled are explore and consume after all the actions are complete for the round players are then going to discard their hand down to ten cards if they had more than ten cards and then they're going to begin the next round by selecting a new action rounds are going to continue in this fashion until the end of the round we're enduring the round a player picks up the last victory chip or a player places their 12th World or development card out in front in their play area cards come in two basic types there's a development card which has a diamond in the upper left hand corner the other type of card is the world card you're going to notice all the worlds are going to have a circle in the upper left hand corner think of it this way the Diamond D development the number inside the diamond is the cost you're going to notice all the worlds are going to have a circle in the upper left hand corner that one should be easy to remember too because planets for the most part around the cost of the world is also in the circle you're going to see a lot of different colors in those circles and different rings around the circles and some of the circles have halos when we get to the settle phase we're going to explain that in more detail on the left hand side of the card of each card you're going to notice what I like to call the bonus bar this is a bar numbered one two three four five and in the fourth phase it also has a dollar sign this signifies what bonus this card adds while it's in play to that current phase or to the current action any time an action begins you can always scan over your cards and look at that bonus bar to see if during that action let's say the explore phase number one if during that action there's any bonuses awarded by any of your cards the dark raid means it's a standard bonus and the silver would mean that it's like a special bonus and if it is silver usually on the card you're going to see in the lower right hand corner or somewhere on that card there's going to be an explanation of that special bonus it's going to explain it in more detail if you have a card that produces something in the upper right hand corner there's always a reminder of what that card produces when an action takes place during around all players get to perform that action only the player who selected the action card gets the bonus from the action card if one or more player selects the same action card that action doesn't take place twice it only takes place once but both of the players who selected the action card would now get the bonus picture yourself going through space seeking out new life and new civilizations well rather than going into space when you explore in this game you get to go into the deck when the explore phase starts where the explore action starts every player gets to draw two cards and they get to look at them and then select one of them so it's like going through space and seeing what you find in deciding which way you want to go that card gets added to your hand now I told you that there's two action cards for explore and each of them would give a different bonus so let's cover the bonuses for the players who played the explore card the icon on the top of the card shows how the card works it shows that each player would draw two cards and keep one this is the bonus that gives you additional draw of five you're going to shows you the eye which means you get to explore five additional cards plus the two normal cards so you draw seven cards and get to keep one it works great when you're trying to search for just the right card to add your hand the other Explorer bonus lets you draw one additional card so you get to draw the standard two plus one additional card but instead of just keeping one card you get to keep two cards the other thing that you want to do any time you play a phase and I'll keep reminding you is look over the worlds and development cards that you already have in play and see if any of them have any bonus for the number one phase which is explore developments can be things like machine robots or technology that would help speed up production and give you bonuses or help other planets produce more during the development phase each player may play one development card it's optional if they do or don't what you're going to notice on the development card is that in the upper left hand corner like we showed before is the cost of that development card it's in the diamond the way you pay this cost for development card is by discarding cards what players do is they select the development card they want to play they put it facedown and once all players have made that selection they flip them over simultaneously they play it in the card group in front of them and then they pay the cost if you're the player who played the development card at the beginning of the round you get minus 1/2 the cost of the development also remember to look over all the cards that you have out in front of you and see if there's any with number 2 on that card giving any bonuses now it's time to make friends with planets invade planets with your military might and finally settle some of those fine worlds that you hold in your hand this is a settle phase during the settle phase each player gets to play one settlement card real similar to how the development phase works players select the world that they want to play they put it facedown and then all the players reveal those cards simultaneously after the players reveal the cards and put them face up in front of them then they need to pay the cost for the world I'm going to explain paying the cost for these worlds by breaking them down into two types peaceful worlds and hostile worlds peaceful worlds are the cards that have a black ring around the circle they may have a color around it like a halo or they may have color inside the circle but as long as that black ring circles the number that means it's a peaceful world hostile worlds on the other hand our worlds that have a red ring around the circle easeful world's you pay for just like you paid for development cards you pay form by discarding cards from your hand or applying bonuses from other cards always remember to check the bonus bar look for number 3 on the settle phase and see if you have any bonuses that would apply to that phase hostile worlds on the other hand you can't simply pay for by discarding other cards you have to have military power in order to play those the only way you can get military power is by getting it from your cards again look at your bonus bar look at the step number 3 on the left-hand side of your bonus bar and see if you have any symbols like this some of those symbols may be negative points if it's negative that means it costs you one more to pay for that military world another type of world that really doesn't affect the cost of settling right now is a production world I just want to point these out now and these are the worlds with the different colors in the circle or around the circle the colors are blue brown green and yellow we'll discuss those more during the produce phase the production worlds with the halo of the color either blue brown green or yellow around the number around the circle that means it's a windfall world the only thing to know right now about a windfall world is when you play that world you pay it put it face up pay the cost of that world and then you put a card you don't look really doesn't matter what's on the other side of this card you put that card face down on the world you always want to make sure to expose the bonus bar and then you want to be able to see the top of the card as well when that card is face down I'm gonna skip the number 4 consumed phase and jump right into the number 5 produce phase I think it's going to make the consumed phase make a little bit more sense when we start to talk about it this is a phase where your worlds and developments are going to start working for you you're going to put the people to work or the machines to work and start producing goods this is also a phase where we start looking at the cards in the deck a little differently rather than by examining what's on the card we're just going to use the card as a representation for a good when you have a world produce you look at step number 5 in the bonus bar and if there's a little production symbol that means during the produce phase each player gets to produce you take when you produce in a world you take a card from the draw pile and place it facedown in that world still leaving enough room on the cards you can see the bonus bar and you can see the cost of the world and the title of the card as well at the beginning of the brown the player who chose the action card for produce gets a bonus where if they have a windfall world these are the worlds with a halo around the circle they have a windfall world that does not already have a good on it they can replenish one windfall world by taking a card from the draw pile and placing it face down on their windfall world we talked about production worlds just a little bit during the settle phase what this production world is about is you're going to see in the circle inside that circle we talked about the colors blue brown green and yellow those are listed in order of scarcity or value in the game blue equals novelty goods brown is rare goods green our genes goods and then yellow is alien technology you don't necessarily have to remember the names of each color just remember that if a let's say you have a production on a world I have lost alien battlefleet here this is a alien technology world during the produce phase I'm going to draw a card from the deck pay place at facedown on this world and now this good that's on this world is an alien technology the reason you want to pay attention to that is because during the consume phase you're going to need to match certain technologies with certain consumers and you want to make sure your cards are cohesive and in order to have the best strategy have your cards be cohesive where you produce the right kind of goods on worlds and you consume those same kind of goods on other worlds next we move on to the consume phase and I think it's going to make a lot more sense now that we talked about the produce phase ultimately what makes your worlds and developments happy is when they can consume the consume phase is mandatory for all players this means that if you have a consume power in your bonus bar under number four that you can use meaning that you have a good that meets the icon or meets the requirement for that you must use it if I have let's say a brown good here which is a rare good and I have a power that can consume this good and turn it into victory points that means I must use that the powers on your bonus bar for consumption or the consume phase can be things like trade a card or a production card of brown blue green and yellow for victory points or trade in one of those cards to draw their cards or any combination there above let's take a look at some of the different icons if there's to consume powers let's say they consume a rare Brown good and I only have one good I can choose which of the two consumes that rare good typically I'm going to choose the one that gives you the most victory points or the draws the most cards consumed is one of the action cards that you draw at the beginning of the round where we actually have two action cards for consumed they each give you a different bonus there's one that gives you double victory points the other consume card gives you the trade bonus the trade bonus works a little different because before you consume anything you must trade one card for the values listed on this card watching your bonus bar because there's a special bonus for trading you'll notice that by the dollar sign in the left bonus bar this trade bonus can be things like letting you draw an additional card when you trade a card you you raise for the galaxy typically takes a few plays before the strategy part of it really sinks in you might want to go for a strategy where you're the first player to play 12 worlds and you're just playing really cheap worlds to get them all out there before any players can really build their great strategy or you could be one of the guys who wants to have this intricate inner workings where they have worlds that all work really well together and you choose double victory points I've got beat in both scenarios thanks for watching you can check out our other videos on our YouTube channel and at modern table gamer calm and remember to play games once a week otherwise the planets will not align and we won't achieve world peace the explore phase and now we're going on to develop so I'll do mine face up I'm going to show you typically everyone would choose if they want to settle it or gain and development remember those are the cards with the diamond on but I'm going to do this one it's optional you guys can do it too but I get a bonus of minus one from the cost the way you settle the development or take over or build a development is you take this and you have to decide from your hand on discarding cards to pay for it if this was a 1 and I didn't have a bonus I would just discard one card and now I can play this out here if this was like a 3 I'd have to discard 3 cards from my hand and play it so that's it's real simple how you play these but you got to make decisions about like what cards I get rid of him from my hand kind of makes a little more intense every cards got this bonus bar on the side you know this house Roman numerals just like our phases are Roman numerals that means during this action like develop if you look at your cards you don't have anything next to - this is the bonus that your cards out there give you for each action that you do like if we did a settle phase number 3 you get some bonuses to your military power and you get bonus of a cost reduction to play a rare element world ok got it Luke just flipped his face up hand this goes back in there all right flip them over Wow so ever wants to settle and your bonus if you guys settle a world your bonus means whether it's a military world or peace for full world if you settle a world you get to draw on another card which is cool so I got explore first so that means everyone's going to explore I get to draw three cards and keep to everyone else it's to draw two cards and keep one except we have bonus and now it's a good time to tell you about that there's two rings there's a black ring around the world and then there's a red ring it's got a black ring around it that's a peaceful world and all you have to do just like on developments is you discard a card and play it like this one it's worth one I would just discard a card and I get to play empath world if you have a red ring that means it's hostile in order to play a hostile world you have to look at your number threes here here and here or here here on your worlds that are out there developments and if you have a plus-one you're red that means you have military strength in order to play a military world like if I wanted to play this one I'd have to have plus two which I do from you Sparta this sin he's got space marines out give him a plus two so he can settle alien uplift race and Zack you have if you wanted to play a military world you have this one play it gives you a jet a generic one military this one's a little more refined the world would have to have like a brown it'd have to be a red ring with brown inside of it and so settles done now we go to produce and if you look at number five on all your cards do you have any that produce I do get one down here you produce here so if you since you played production you take one card put it facedown on rebel miners hi this is only for world yeah yep it automatically produces

Channel: Modern Cardboard

Views: 68,310

Rating: 4.882823 out of 5

Keywords: Race for the Galaxy, Instructional, tutorial, Card game, Rio Grande Games, Board game, game, How to, Rules, how to play

Id: um0jIYodqRI

Length: 29min 51sec (1791 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 23 2012