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Phase IV (Consume) - everyone's final play.

Connie has the most trade goods, with Runaway Robots taking her total to 5. But she lags the others in Consume powers. Only three cards let her consume for VPs - Public Works, Epsilon Eridani and Terraforming Robots. She consumes her 5 goods for 3 VPs and 6 cards.

omnis has 4 goods. He's the only player whose VP haul can outstrip the number of trade goods - Galactic Trendsetters gives 2 VPs for 1 good. He consumes his 4 goods for 5 VPs and 1 card.

Laga is last. She could consume up to 6 goods for 1 VP apiece. She has 4 goods, giving 4 VPs. However, she chose this phase, and opted to double her points. She nets 8 VPs. And she's not quite finished. Using the power from the newly placed Merchant World, she discards 2 cards from her hand for another 2 VPs. (this is not doubled.) She takes 10 VPs.

Connie now has 13 cards in her layout, and the total consumption has now overshot the VP reserve by 8 points. These both are sufficient to trigger the end of the game. All that remains is the wrap-up.

Unfortunately, it's just gone midnight here, and it's a work day. I'm afraid you may have to wait until tomorrow to learn the outcome.

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I suspect someone enjoys suspense.

...sounds of nailbiting from Bethlehem....

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Bite no longer! The fix is in. As usual, I'll break down the scoring into the three categories.

Consumption VPs
Connie Neil: 12
omnis: 14
Laga: 18

This game saw pretty much everyone run a consumption strategy. Everyone had four production worlds at game end, and a selection of Consume powers. Laga takes the honours overall, almost entirely on the strength of the last few rounds. Coming into Round 12, she had amassed only 2 VPs; but her choice of Phase IV (x2) in Rounds 12 and 14 added a total of 16 points in the two rounds. As you can see, if you have the production and consumption to support it, consuming for double points can generate a decent haul.

Layout Value
Connie Neil: 14
omnis: 16
Laga: 15

There wasn't much separating the players on layout value, with omnis just in front. The cards that are worth big points in one's layout are high-defence military worlds and expensive Alien worlds. No one pursued much of a military strategy (though Connie ended the game with 3 strength) and the only Alien card in anyone's layout was a starting world. Not much to choose from here.

6-Cost Developments
Connie Neil: 20
omnis: 5
Laga: 7

But here there's a strong difference. omnis and Laga both had just the one 6-cost development (Trade League and Galactic Survey: SETI respectively). In both cases, they never used the power granted by said card, it was purely a scoring entity. (And in both cases, it wound up being the most valuable card in their layout.)

Compare Connie. She played no less than three of these developments. She was able to do so because the first one down was Galactic Federation. The strength of this card is its synergy between its power and its scoring structure. It gives points for developments, especially 6-cost developments. It also knocks 2 off the cost of any development. If you're able to play this card early enough, it can pay for itself in spades.

Everyone led in one category. Connie's lead in the last category was impressive indeed, but she finished last in the first two. Who did best overall?

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The totals are:

Connie Neil
Victory Points: 12
Layout Value: 14
6-Cost Developments: 20
Total: 46

omnis
Victory Points: 14
Layout Value: 16
6-Cost Developments: 5
Total: 35

Laga
Victory Points: 18
Layout Value: 15
6-Cost Developments: 7
Total: 40

VP Pool: -8

Connie wins! Laga's haul of VPs from her double Consume saw her hold off omnis for second place.

Congratulations to all players; even the lowest score in this game would've been enough to win either of the last two games. Everyone did a fine job of building their point-scoring capacity as the game went on. In the last round alone, every single player added at least 12 points to their score, the payoff to groundwork in earlier rounds. For each player, Round 14's points account for 30-40% of their total score.

Woot! I kept staring at Galactic Federation and my other cards that gave minuses for Developments and going "Does that really mean a 6-Cost only costs 2?" I kept waiting for billy to say "Um, no, you're counting that wrong."

For each player, Round 14's points account for 30-40% of their total score.

I forgot about the 2x consume. Good job Laga! That definitely kept me out of second. Good game everyone!

And of course, thanks to our amazing GM.

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I had two thoughts in particular concerning this game. Thought the first was on the importance of building up a good value-generating engine. Scoring in Race for the Galaxy tends to be back-loaded; in this game, for instance, every player in the game scored more ponts in the last three rounds than they did in the first eleven. Value-generating engines come in more than one flavour. Production and consumption capacity is one. So is high military strength. Connie effectively built one around Galactic Federation. (Typically, even before the value-generating, one needs a card-generating engine. The easiest, but not necessarily the fastest, way to generate cards early on is by trading.) The faster you can turn card flow into point flow, the better off you'll be.

Thought the second occurred to me when I saw that for the final round, we were going to run through all the phases that give scoring opportunities - Phases II (Develop), III (Settle) and IV (Consume). Each of these phases got picked by one player, but got used profitably by everybody. For instance, Connie chose Phase III (Settle). Her play improved her score by 3 VPs. But Laga got to piggy-back off it, and her play raised her score by 5 VPs.

One of the key design features of Race for the Galaxy is that the phase you choose may be exploited by every player. Oftentimes you don't necessarily want to choose the phase that's best for you; instead you may want the phase that's best for you, relative to other players. Consuming for 8 VPs is a worthwhile idea; but if it lets your competition consume for 10 VPs, it may not be your best choice.

Of course, you can't necessarily tell what someone else will do with your choice of phase. But you can often get some idea. If they have lots of powers affecting a given phase, they're more likely to benefit. (For instance, omnis chose Phase II in the last round. Connie's powers gave her -3 cost, bonus points for any development and a card draw after playing one. She added 10 points to her score by piggy-backing off omnis' choice.)

(Conversely, you can also try to take more advantage of others' choices, by spreading powers around a number of phases. For instance, after playing Interstellar bank, Laga got a card draw from it four turns in a row, without ever choosing Phase II herself.)

So in summary: it's ok not to be earning too much early on, if you're building something that will earn good points later on. When choosing your phase, consider how easily the other players can piggy-back off your choice. Will it help them more than you? And finally, if you get some powers spread over multiple phases, you can get more benefit from the phases chosen by other players.

Thanks again billytea for being an excellent GM. Maybe next time I will need even less coaching!

This senile old lady has finally figured out that what she has is called Tabletop Simulator and if you had it too we could play boardgames in real time through our computers.

here's Tabletop Simulator.