RftG
Congratulations Laga! A fine victory. This was a victory of focus, with the 14 points she claimed from goals more than accounting for her lead over Connie and chrismg (both of whom racked up impressive scores of their own).
I have two observations about the flow of the game this time around. First is the prevalence of military strategies this game. At game start, all players had a choice between a military-themed starting world and a non-military one. Four out of the five chose the military world. The one exception, Laga, still played six military worlds, equal with the 10-strength chrismg. (Everyone managed at least two.) With that said, there's more than one way to use the military, as we saw in this game.
- chrismg took the obvious route of building enough strength to take on anything.
- Connie never built more than a few points of military strength, even including specialist strength (she got +2 against Green worlds). But that let her play three cheap windfall worlds for good card flow. (And she converted it to points too, courtesy of a couple of well-fitting 6-cost developments.) Even 2 or 3 strength can pay dividends.
- Then there's Ryan and especially Laga. Laga had -1 strength, but no one played more military worlds than she did. (Ryan played a respectable four worlds too.) Their avenue was a power that let them play military as non-military, and in both cases, at a discount. Laga didn't play expensive stuff - aside from her 6-cost developments, she never paid more than 2 discards for anything. (Ryan, on the other hand, played the biggest world in the game, Rebel Stronghold, for 7 discards.) You don't see this power worked into a strategy so often, but it can be effective. The second expansion helps here, with rebel Cantina, Rebel Pact and Rebel Alliance, all of which either provide the ability or make it cheaper (or both).
(I left out omnis. He started with New Sparta for +2 strength, but struggled to increase it. Ultimately he turned instead to Blue world consumption. Worth noting that while starting worlds provide a bonus for one direction or another, they don't close off other avenues, if that's what the cards support.)
In summary, you can make military strength a dominant strategy; or build just enough for cheaper worlds and windfall card flow; or you can even run a low-intensity or high-intensity campaign of conquest with a military-to-non-military power and a source of card flow.
The other comment concerns the name of the game, i.e. Race for the Galaxy. The biggest difference between Laga's game and the others, or at the other end, Explore Bros omnis and Ryan, was their tempo out of the gate. Recall that Laga favoured cheap cards. By Round 3, she'd played two more cards than anyone else, a clear lead. Meanwhile, there's a reason Ryan and omnis kept exploring. They both had some nice cards at game start - too nice. What they didn't have were cheap cards that could get them started. By Round 7, they each had only five cards in their respective layouts, at least three fewer than anyone else.
You don't have to gun it at the start to win. It worked for Laga, but both Connie and chrismg found a middle ground that still let them pile on points in the later game. And Laga's strategy saw her load up on low-value cards. At game end, she was at the low end on consumption points and layout value. Why did her strategy work here?
That brings us back to goals. The "First" goals all rely on beating the other players to fulfilling some criterion. Laga's plays were cheap but not haphazard. The goals were the bonus points that made the cheap plays worthwhile.
How about at the other end - what could Ryan and omnis have done differently? Unfortunately, sometimes the cards just be that way. There may not be much to be done about it but continue to explore and hope you get the first stepping stone. (Cheap windfall worlds often make a good starting point, thanks to the card flow from trading. But you still need to pick one up first.)
The third expansion actually has a mechanism (continued...)