Wow! It was close a round ago. That's quite a last round.

Good game everyone! Congratulations to Ryan!!

And special thanks to our Game Master extraordinaire, BillyTea!

RftG

This time I had military strength but no military assets.

RftG

thanks again, billytea!

I never did figure out a plan for this game. Well played, everyone else!

It did feel like it zoomed by a lot faster. Not sure if that was us all responding in a timely manner. Just felt like less rounds. I know I didn't develop fast enough. I was feeling the pressure that the end was near, so I was going to focus more on phase IV & V for the rest of the game. And just as I formulated that adjustment, it was the end of the game.

RftG

it zoomed by for me too.

I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, RED BARON-

Er, I mean, good game Ryan! We took it right down to the wire. Thanks again bt.

RftG

As always, it is my pleasure to run the game. Ryan is feeling pretty chuffed, although, as I pointed out to him, he was very lucky to make it. Ultimately he hit first place on the strength of just one card, Galactic Exchange; there was no other card in the deck that was particularly close in value for him. (He could've turned his layout into a decent Consumption engine with more Consume powers, but time had run out to crank it up.)

Commendations go to chrismg and omnis, who managed to get the elements in place for a strong military and a Consumption strategy respectively.

Race is, of course, a card game. Luck of the draw is a Thing. And that's my lead-in to start to talk about the third expansion, Brink of War. I'm not proposing to introduce it for a while yet. The third expansion introduces prestige points, which I think are pretty awesome but definitely make things more complicated. This is a good point to settle for a bit. However, there is a mechanism from the third expansion that I might suggest we introduce a couple of games down the road. It's one part of a bigger, more complicated mechanism. But this simpler bit can (I think - haven't really tested it) be broken out and used on its own.

What happens: each player, once during the game, can forego choosing a phase for the current round. Instead they choose Search (Phase 0, effectively). When a player chooses Search, they choose from a list of eight criteria. They then flip through the deck, one by one, until they find a card that matches their chosen criterion. The first time they find one, they have the option to accept or reject that card. If they reject it, they keep flipping, and must accept the second card.

Why introduce this? Because it's a way that players can try to turn things around when you just can't find the card you need. Essentially, the kinds of card you can look for are either cards that you need just to get started, or cards that are good value in the end game. For instance: want to go military, but can't find any actual military? Search for a development that gives +1 or +2 strength. Don't see a way to get your card flow going? You can look for a cheap windfall world (1 or 2 cost, or for military, 1 or 2 defence). If you've held off till later in the game, you could looks for a high-defence military world or a status development, among others.

Anyway, I'm not planning to introduce it in the next game, but let's put it under consideration.

sounds interesting. I'm afraid I'll have to bow out of play for a few weeks. Work will be crazy through second week of June. I encourage any lurkers to step up and play. it's fun! And BT will be there to help you, no problem.

RftG

To be honest, I tend to ignore rules that require me to juggle lots of variables in a game. I don't mind losing if winning requires me to do a lot of "If I do this but he does that, I won't be able to that other thing unless I do this as well." I generally play thieves and fighters in D&D, where I can just hit things or sneak around instead of trying to manage spells.

I was the despair of the family holiday board games with my lack of competitive spirit--though it was lack of killer instinct in my In-Laws case. Choosing to win a game instead of taking an opportunity to sabotage a fellow player was considered wussy.

edit: I'm not very good at chess, either.

Well, we've managed to drive off one player, let's see who's left. I'm starting the planning for the next game. Ryan's already signed up. Who else would like another go round?