Für Experten

 

Conflict among the stars

 

RACE FOR THE GALAXY 

 

On the Brink of War

 

Kid                       

Family                  

Friends                 

Expert          ein    

 

Alter                    

Spezial         1 2    

 

This is the third expansion for Race for the Galaxy, called On the Brink of War, introducing a very well functioning novelty: Prestige points, which bring advantages, especially if you have the majority of prestige points.

 

A short summary of the basic game:

Players are charged with developing the biggest and most powerful Star Empire and thus win victory points. Again and again you must decide whether you want to explore, develop, settle, trade, consume or produce. All players choose simultaneously which phases should be played and lay out the corresponding action card. Phases not chosen are simply skipped, and there is a bonus for phase chosen by a player. Cards represent developments, but are also used for money and laid out as goods produced.

 

You try to collect useful cards, which can be deployed for developments or planets and pays for this by discarding less interesting or valuable cards. If you need new cards you must either play a corresponding action card or produce goods. These goods can then be used to sell them for cards or to score victory points.

 

And now back to On the Brink of War:

This expansion introduces an 8th action card, which he can use once in the game. This card you can use as a “Search Card” to turn up cards from the draw pile one by one until a card in the category stated beforehand appears. Now you decide if you want this card or not. If not you keep turning up cards until another one of the named category appears. This one you must take. The second possibility to use the 8th action card is to pay a prestige point und use the card as a one-time enhancement for one of the other seven action cards.

 

Another new feature of this expansion are four new starting planets, so now you can play the „construction“ variant also with six players: You simple separate the starting planets into war planets and trade planets, shuffle them and deal one card to each player. Then each player chooses his hand – each player is dealt a pres-set number of cards, chooses one and hands the rest of the card on to his neighbour, and so until all these cards are distributed. Then play goes on absolutely regularly, but each player has his own draw pile and discard pile.

Danach wird ganz normal gespielt, nur hat jeder Spieler seinen eigenen Nachzieh- und Abwurfstapel.

 

Of course, also five new target tiles have been added, and also of course modification markers for the solo game are included. Furthermore, there are now indication markers for “different military abilities” and “temporary military power”.

 

Finally, we have reached my favorite novelty, the prestige points:

These prestige points are available from certain special cards. They are scored either directly when the card is marked with a dark pink dot diagonally from the victory points, or with certain actions if you have the corresponding card laid out. If at the beginning of a round several players are tied in the majority of victory points, each of them receives a victory point. if one player alone has the majority he lays out the indicator tile „Majority of Prestige“ and places the prestige markers earned in this round on it. From now on only this player scores a victory point at the end of each round and he receives a card from the draw pile when he has prestige markers on the indicator tile, and then the prestige goes into his personal stock. Of course, you could spend your prestige to acquire advantages, but at the end of the game each prestige marker is worth one victory point.

 

The target tiles still do not really agree with me even if I manage by now to use them rather well in my game. Another feature that I have not really fathomed is the military takeover of opposing planets. But I am really enthusiastic about the prestige points even if they do not influence the game as intensely as I thought at the beginning … because if my opponent manages to get his really expensive cards into play, even the prestige is no cure for that … but with the new action card “Search” you can look for specific cards and thus have a bigger chance to see through your strategy.

 

Have fun and many hours of ingenious play with Race for the Galaxy and On the Brink of War.

 

Christoph Vavru

 

Spieler: 1 - 6

Alter   : ages 12 and up

Dauer : 30 – 60 Minuten

 

Autor           : Tom Lehmann

Grafik          : Mirko Suzuki

Vertrieb A    : Piatnik

Preis            : ca. 23,00 Euro

Verlag          : Abacusspiele 2010

                     www.abacusspiele.de   

 

Genre                    : Developmeng

Zielgruppe             : For experts

Mechanismen         : Collect and apply cards

 

Zufall                     : 5              

Wissen                  : 4

Planung                 : 5

Kreativität              :

Kommunikation       : 6

Geschicklichkeit        :

Action                    :

 

Kommentar:

3rd expansion for Race for the Galaxy

Several choices

Additional action card

High standard of former games kept up

 

Vergleichbar:

San Juan, Race for the Galaxy Basic Game

 

Atmosphäre: 7

 

Christoph Vavru:

Race for the Galaxy with all three expansions remains an ingenious card game with a high luck percentage and lots of excellent choices for a strategy.