( continues...) Value: 16
6-Cost Developments: 7
Goals: 3

Laga
Layout
Ancient Race (Non-Military Green Windfall World) + good
Expedition Force (Development)
Export Duties (Development)
New Vinland (Non-Military Blue Production World)
Investment Credits (Development)
Public Works (Development)
Artist Colony (Non-Military Blue Production World)
Galactic Salon (Development)
Smuggling World (Non-Military Blue Production World) + good
New Economy (6-Cost Development)

Cards in Hand: 10
Military Strength: 1
Victory Points: 6
Layout Value: 10
6-Cost Developments: 7
Goals: 11

VP Pool: 49

RftG

It's time for everyone to choose their action cards. Everyone, please send me your choice. A couple of things to note:

Ryan is 2 cards over his hand limit. He'll be discarding shortly.

omnis, chrismg and -t all have 11 cards in their layout, and Laga has 10. If any of them reach 12 cards, the game ends this round.

There is one goal still unclaimed, Research Leader. This goes to the player with the most Explore powers, as long as they have at least 3. At present, chrismg, Ryan, -t and Laga all have 2 Explore powers.

RftG

Orders are in, and this will be the final round! Here's the action:

omnis: Phase II - Develop
chrismg: Phase III - Settle
Connie Neil: Phase II - Develop
Ryan: Phase II - Develop
-t: Phase I (+1/+1) - Explore (draw +1 card, keep +1 card)
Laga: Phase III - Settle

We have three phases this round, Phase I (Explore), Phase II (Develop) and Phase III (Settle). Phase I is first, so cards are going out. Everyone, please let me know what you keep, and let me know if it changes your orders for Phases II and III.

RftG

Everyone's orders are in, and we are ready to wrap this game up. We start with Phase II (Develop).

Laga passes. chrismg draws 1 card and then also passes. Fear not, they have plans for Phase III.

omnis also draws 1 card, plays Galactic Survey: SETI for 5 discards, and then draws 1 more card. Galactic Survey: SETI lets him draw +2 cards when exploring. Its value is 1 point for each world in his layout plus 1 point for each Explore power in his layout. At this moment it's worth 8 VPs.

Connie draws 1 card and plays Imperium Cloaking Technology. She can discard this card from her layout to play a non-military world as if it were military, as long as its usual cost is no more than 2 over her military strength. Her strength is 2, so she can play a world of up to 4 cost with it.

Ryan plays Rebel Pact. This lets him take his card draw into his hand when he eplores, and choose discards from his entire hand. While it doesn't give him the power to settle military worlds as non-military, if he already has this power, it gives him -2 cost when using it. (He doesn't have this power.)

-t plays Research Labs for 4 discards. This lets her keep 1 extra card when Exploring; in Phase IV, she can consume a Green good for 1 VP; and in Phase V, she draws 1 card for every Yellow good she produces.

That's all the developing, but there's some more to say. First, both Ryan and -t added an Explore power to their layout, bringing their total to 3 powers. They jointly claim the Research Leader goal, for 3 VPs each! In addition, omnis has caught up to Laga in the number of developments in his layout (6 apiece). Laga claimed the Greatest Infrastructure goal first, so she keeps her 5 VPs, but omnis now gets a part share on 3 VPs.

We may also note that omnis and -t have both hit 12 cards in their layout. The game will conclude at the end of this round.

RftG

Final phase, Phase III (Settle), and everyone has a plan.

omnis plays Deserted Alien Outpost for 4 discards. This is a Yellow windfall world, which means omnis now has every production colour represented in his layout. This boosts the value of Galactic Exchange by 4 points; it also adds 1 to the value of Galactic Survey: SETI.

chrismg plays Rebel Homeworld for 5 discards. He uses the power on Rebel Cantina to play it as non-military, and gets -2 cost from Replicant Robots. Nothing else to the story, the card's jsut worth a lot of points. He then draws 2 cards - 1 for choosing this Phase, and 1 from Terraforming Robots.

Connie discards Imperium Cloaking Technology from her layout to play Old Earth. This gives her +1 card when trading, and can consume up to 2 goods for 1 VP each.

Ryan plays Distant World for 4 discards. This is a Green production world. It also gives +3 cards when trading a Blue good.

-t has Improved Logistics, which means she can play 2 worlds if she can afford them. And she can, with 7 strength. She plays Rebel Outpost (5 defence) and Rebel Underground (3 defence). The Outpost adds +1 strength, while the Underground gives 1 card draw in Phase V. She then draws 2 cards from Terraforming Robots, 1 per world.

Laga plays Alien Data Repository for 7 discards. This is a Yellow production world. It also has an Explore power that lets her take her draw into her hand before discarding. She already had that power, from Smuggling World; but the important point is that this gives her 3 Explore powers, equal with Ryan and -t. She also grabs 3 VPs from the Research Leader goal. Finally, she draws 1 card for choosing this phase.

And with that, the game ends! Who has taken bragging rights? The final summary and wrap-up to follow.

RftG

Let's break this out into the points categories.

Consumption VPs
omnis: 9
chrismg: 2
Connie Neil: 9
Ryan: 3
-t: 0
Laga: 6

omnis took an early lead on this, enough to claim a goal. But Connie and Laga both double-consumed to get in the running. -t has 0 consumption points, not uncommon for an Evil Empire strategy.

Layout Value
omnis: 19
chrismg: 24
Connie Neil: 17
Ryan: 12
-t: 27
Laga: 16

Evil Empires typically make up for the lack of consumption by playing valuable worlds, and so we see here. -t leads on 27. chrismg, who also got into the military worlds via his starting world of Rebel Cantina, was close behind on 24. Ryan struggled to find the good stuff; none of his cards was worth more than 2 points. Well, except for his status development, as we see in the next category.

Status Developments
omnis: 19
chrismg: 0
Connie Neil: 0
Ryan: 6
-t: 8
Laga: 7

These are the variable-value developments. chrismg and Connie were let down by this category, finding no such cards worth playing. Ryan, -t and Laga each played one. Ryan got Trade League, which rewards you for Trade powers (of which he had quite a few). -t pulled New Galactic Order, which is worth your military strength. Her strength topped out at 8, so that's a nice haul. Laga had New Economy, which rewards Consume powers.

But the runaway leader in this category was omnis, who played two such cards: Galactic Exchange and Galactic Survey: SETI. He managed to hit every production colour, which lifted Galactic Exchange to 10 points, while the SETI gie him 9 points, mostly from the number of worlds he had. (In his hand, by the way, was Galactic Federation, which gives you points for developments. If he could've played it, that would've added another 10 points to his score.)

Goals
omnis: 6
chrismg: 3
Connie Neil: 0
Ryan: 3
-t: 6
Laga: 14

Finally we hit the goals, and no one came close to touching Laga here. She won two of the "first" goals and shared in both of the "most" goals. This is largely because she developed her early layout much faster than the others. Of her first 6 plays, only one of them cost her more than 1 discard.

That's the breakdown. Will first place go to -t's layout, omnis' status plays or Laga's goal haul? Next post has the answer.

RftG

Closing Summary

omnis
Victory Points: 9
Layout Value: 19
6-Cost Developments: 19
Goals: 6
Total: 53

chrismg
Victory Points: 2
Layout Value: 24
6-Cost Developments: 0
Goals: 3
Total: 29

Connie Neil
Victory Points: 9
Layout Value: 17
6-Cost Developments: 0
Goals: 0
Total: 26

Ryan
Victory Points: 3
Layout Value: 12
6-Cost Developments: 6
Goals: 3
Total: 24

-t
Victory Points: 0
Layout Value: 27
6-Cost Developments: 8
Goals: 6
Total: 41

Laga
Victory Points: 6
Layout Value: 16
6-Cost Developments: 7
Goals: 14
Total: 43

VP Pool: 43

omnis wins!

In the final round, omnis added a whopping 16 points to his score to take a comfortable lead. Laga had led for most of the game thanks to the goals she claimed, and held on to second against a late surge by -t. Last place, alas, was taken by Ryan, who struggled all game to get decent card flow. My son!

Woohoo! I still have no idea what I was doing (other than Evil Empiring in a general way) but that was fun!

Yay! A very good game.

Wow what a surge at the end. Good game everyone. Thanks for a good, final game!

Thanks,as always, to BT for running a great game, and invaluable advice.