Great preview, Tom!  I can’t wait for this to make it to the market.  I’m especially intrigued by the solitaire version as I’m always on the lookout for a good game when it’s just me at home.

Dale

Fascinating, Tom, thanks much!

My current favorite solitaire version of the base game is by waddball, and is the sixth message here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/246761/page/1

Very simple and direct, but not much interactivity, as there is not really much of a simulated other player.

So, looking forward to the dice used to partially decide AI player(s) actions—a new mechanic, it would seem!

Why does Ancient Race say “3 (not 4)” cards?

“Then thou must discard down to three. Three shall be the number to discard to, and the number of the remaining cards shall be three. Two shalt thou not keep, neither shalt thou keep four, excepting that thou then discardest to three. One is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the remaining cards, be reached, thou shalt stop discarding.”

Wow.... the goal cards, although not a new concept, would work GREAT for RftG.  I might not use them all the time, but they would indeed increase the tension (and feel even more like a race). 

And after seeing how fun solitaire Agricola can be (thanks Dale!), I’m looking forward to trying out the solo game.

Will there be a way to distinguish the expansion cards from the normal ones so we can separate them after play?

Yes, Jim, there is a small “tick” in the lower left-hand corner to allow players to separate expansion cards from base set cards.  This tick is obscured by the BGN symbol in these images.

Nice, Tom. Thanks!

Although, I’m guessing I’ll probably leave the expansion mised in with my game anyways. :)

Looks great.  Love teaching RftG to game newbies as it is short enough to play through in an hour but deep enough to satisfy my gaming preferences…

"Why does Ancient Race say “3 (not 4)” cards?

“Then thou must discard down to three. Three shall be the number to discard to, and the number of the remaining cards shall be three. Two shalt thou not keep, neither shalt thou keep four, excepting that thou then discardest to three. One is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the remaining cards, be reached, thou shalt stop discarding.” “

If Ancient Race is your starting world you’d discard down to 3 from the starting hand of 6.  Normally you start with 4 cards.

Interesting read. I do love how you are very open about the design process and talk about the game so freely (reminds me of Matt Leacock with Pandemic).

I’m curious how you came up with the name for the game and for the expansion. I assume the next expansion will be the full blown out war between the Rebels and the Imperium? I thought you designed the first set with the expansions in mind as they contain a lot of hints and clues about future things (Terraforming, Imperial, Uplift). Do you have the name for the next expansion already? If so share it with us! =)

The next (second) expansion is Rebel vs Imperium, as border clashes heat up.  Still not full blown complete warfare between rival empires, but heading towards it with takeover rules that allow players to conquer military worlds in other players’ tableaus.

Does that mean there will be a third expansion where there is a full blown war? Maybe another game set in the same story universe that continues the fight between the rebels and the imperium?

Any plan on having some story information fleshed out? Like why are the rebels fighting the imperium? Who is doing the uplifting of races? Who are the lost aliens? And so on...!

Rebel vs Imperium....

That sounds great! (specially when I have just finished watching Star Wars Episode 3 for the nth time)

So, until now only 3 expansions are confirmed?

I’m curious as to the design decision behind the fact that there are no worlds (and none of the new ones revealed thus far) with phase II/develop powers.

Also, as you have mentioned.  The Alien and Gene strategies are severely handicapped in the base set.  In all of my plays of Race, I have only successfully executed an Alien strategy once, and I contribute that mostly to lucky draws.  What happens usually is either I get the set up ready and never draw Alien planets to settle with for the rest of the game; or the reverse of that, too many Alien worlds, but due to the prohibitive high costs, I opted to go with a different strategy and use them as currency instead.  I have never actually seen anyone done the Gene strategy at all.  Green worlds are more commonly used to either fuel a card drawing engine, or for diversified economy.  I’m glad to hear that the expansion will make these into more viable paths to take when compared to the others.

In regards to the new goals.  My gut reaction is doesn’t it sort of detract from how the game is to be played?  I guess they do add to the theme of it being a race, but I’ve always seen RftG as a game that encourages a cohesive tableau over a random mixture of worlds and developments.  Anyone can throw a bunch of cheap cards down and hit the limit of 12, but rarely is it a winning strategy.  Now you give people more points by taking the easy way out.  I would be disappointed if these goals result in more games ending prematurely because people choose to race for those points, and it would be especially disheartening if this strategy starts to win more often.

So far I believe only two expansions have been confirmed: The Gathering Storm and the previously unnammed expansion Rebel vs Imperium.

As to what Jason Cheng said, I have to disagree. The Alien strategy is VERY powerful if you get a few of the good starter cards. If you get some early military cards or Rossetta Stone World (or whatever it is called) or the Alien 6-dev you can gather a massive amount of points easily. Since a lot of Alien techs give military you can also go the military path and do extremely well. The only problem people have is that they will often decide to go an Alien path with little to no Alien cards, instead of playing to what they have. I do agree that most Gene cards are just fuel and it is pretty hard to win with just Gene planets unless you get lucky, but from what I’ve seen with the new cards for Gene planets this will be much, much easier.

I think goals are a nice addition, because the rush to end strategy actually works fairly well if you know what you’re doing and can calculate the point totals while playing. I don’t think games will end prematurely because of the goals, just the opposite. Going for a lot of the goals will ensure the game runs longer as people will try to either get the most from someone or get the bonus points for a first. It could end the game faster if one person gets both the first and the most early, but that is unlikely.

I’ve been asked to design a third expansion by RGG, but I haven’t yet been told it is confirmed for publication.  That’s RGG’s decision.

Yes, the third expansion allows me to continue the overall narrative arc’s four main themes: Rebel vs Imperium, the shift from peace to war, Uplift, and Alien discoveries, all of which have been integrated into a new play mechanism.

Yes, some worlds in later expansions have Develop powers.  This is fairly rare, as the overall concept is that developments are investments towards Settling worlds, building more developments, or providing for an empire’s denziens, either directly (by generating VPs via consumption) or indirectly (via other achievements, the status represented by the VPs on 6-developments).

I have certainly seen Alien and Genes strategies work well in the base game, but I agree that they can be tricky to pull off.

Our design objective with the goals was to make them “meaningful” but not “dominating”.  Your mileage may vary as to whether we succeeded.

I played three games with a friend in two player mode using the expansion.  While this isn’t a lot of games, it shows a problem with Improved Logistics.  In a two player game, you get two action cards.  someone getting Improved Logistics can then do two settles and effectively get four planets settled.  I don’t think this would be as big a problem in a slower paced game but with two action cards, the player with Improved Logistics can usually complete in about 1/3 the time of the other averaging at least 10 point or higher.  Secondly, the play with Improved Logistics (3 cost/2 vp) combines with other cards to make it very powerful.  Personally I think its too cheap given its strength and it should cost 5 cards.  This would prevent the card from coming out easily in the beginning hands where its effects can be the most devastating.

BTW: I like the blank cards, but why so few low development blank cards.  There are 3 blank non-6 point development cards and 3 6 point blank development cards.  It would have been nice to have a couple of more to balance them out a bit better.