Isel

I’ve only played this strategy with RFtG and RFtG: The Gathering Storm, and am not sure how well this would work with any of the other expansions.

The Strategy

This strategy is broken up into three main phases. At the beginning of the game, build up a strong military force. I generally do this using 1-4 cost developments to start and then whatever powers I can get from the planets I settle. After a military power of 5-6 is reached, start settling alien planets. Try to go for production or windfall, as you will want the goods for their trade value. Here is where the risk in the game comes. You want to try and find some certain cards. It’s nearly impossible to find and play all of these cards, so I’ve listed them in order of importance:

Imperium Lords
Alien Tech Institute
Galactic Imperium
and Lost Alien Battle Fleet

The high cost to develop Imperium Lords and Alien Tech Institute may require you to accumulate some cards from the consume or trade phases before playing them, however, once these cards are added to your tableau, you’re pretty much finished building . Obviously, the more alien cards you have in your tableau at the end of the game, the more points you will score.

Notes

Some good starting worlds for this strategy:

Epsilon Eridani
New Sparta
Damaged Alien Factory
and Doomed World

(Doomed World is a good starting card here because it can allow you to settle a more expensive alien world early in the game. Just make sure that you get rid of it before the game’s end.)

I’ve found this strategy to work very well as a lot of the alien planets require military power to settle them.

Don’t worry about not having many victory points while playing, you will make these up at the end of the game.

I generally go for cards at the beginning of the game such as:

Expedition Force
Drop Ships
Deserted Alien World
and Alien Rosetta Stone World

Also, I’ve found it to be very beneficial if you can have either Public Works or Interstellar Bank in your tableau as well, as this will aid in playing 6-cost development cards later in the game.

Alien tech resources have the highest trade value in the game, so the consume phase is a great time to pick up extra cards and allows you somewhat of an opportunity to “search the deck” for key cards.

Sometimes in the game, if I am playing against a produce/consume strategy, I’ll try to add a card like Alien Toy Shop or Deficit Spending to my tableau as soon as possible, as it gives me an opportunity to earn a few victory points on the side during consume phases. However, remember that the goal of this strategy is to use the produced goods to get more cards and doesn’t focus on earning victory points in-game. This is also a good addition late in the game, if you already have all the cards you need in your tableau and want to earn some extra points before ending the game.

There’s also a link here that talks about some other uses for Alien Toy Shop and Imperium Lords it also is a good source for learning how the cards work together (in the first two expansions) and for putting together your own game strategy.

I listed this as a strategy, because I don’t really feel it’s a house rule, just a method to make learning the game and the rules more enjoyable.

The first set of learning scenarios has a wonderful storyline and really adds to the theme and depth of the game. However, I’ve found that in terms of gameplay, it’s a dull and tedious way to start the game.

When we first started playing, there were games where we didn’t even use the rules that were supposed to be demonstrated in the scenario (for instance, when dueling is introduced). The maps take a long time to set up – sometimes even longer than the gameplay, and the scenarios didn’t seem all that fulfilling.

After going through about 3 scenarios in order, we decided to simply sit down and read the rest of the rules for the game before playing another round. It took a little while to get through everything (about an hour per person), but afterwards we were able to skip to the final scenario and practice most of what we had learned. Using the scenario generator we then played 2 practice rounds to make sure we got everything down.

I personally went back and read the storyline from the first set of scenarios, because I felt that it connected me more to the game, and added more to the depth and theme of what is already such a rich game. We’ve since shared this learning strategy with a number of other players and it make the learning curve seem less daunting for them as well.

This idea might not be the best for everyone, but for us, it saved a game that we probably wouldn’t have come back to otherwise.

Some of the games I have played (especially with new players) tend to take upwards of 4 hours, as the game is taught while through individual turns. A shorter version of the game was come up with where you race to the first 6 glory points, and are only allow to count 3 points from stashed gold. This makes the game shorter and perhaps a bit more accessible to new board gaming players or people just learning the rules of the game.

Note: this strategy has only been applied to 2 player games

I have often found that choosing races that start with many chits (such as the Ratmen) have contributed to a more successful game. Start with smaller races and finish with races that have a bunch of race tokens available at the beginning of that race.

A preferred preferred progression would be Amazons > Halflings > Ratmen.

Note: These tips are more for having fun and interesting games, not so much for having a “winning strategy.”

It’s easy to sit and try to play “smart strategies” but more often than not, you can easily win your objective by just going all out. Also, be careful not to spend all your time fighting everyone you come across, especially if you’re playing the NORAD faction. In most scenarios, the Salemite players will have more available characters than you, so it’s important to keep your guys safe from unnecessary damage in the early stages of the game.

I have tried this only on a 2 player game, don’t know how it will work in 3-4 player games.

I tried out this theory last night and it served me very well. My first objective was to build farms and raise my food production to 8. At this point I only went after wood and food resources. If a green civ card came out for 1 or 2 resource, I took it (careful to avoid duplicates).

After reaching my food production goal, I started to add people to my tribe, continued to go after wood and instead of food, went after brick. I started collecting other civ cards at this point that cost 1-2 resource.

After obtaining 8 meeples, I alternated food production and “baby making” until I had reached the max 10 of each. During this time I continued to go after brick, and went after stone. I also would buy building, as long as they were cheap (2 brick/1 stone, etc) making sure not to buy building with the resource multiplier effect. I also began to add tools if possible.

At this point, my meeples and food production were maxed out, and I longer had to worry about hunting. I went after stone and gold for 2 rounds, then back to wood (which I use to buy the civ cards I want). I suck as much gold as possible into buildings with the resource multiplier, and went after the rest of the civ cards, going after unique green civ cards first. I continued to add tools (a good place for me is around 7 tools).

I was careful about how many buildings I bought, because in a 2 player game, there are only 14 buildings available before the game ends. When I was happy with the number of points I had, I went after the rest of the buildings in a single pile, in an attempt to end the game.

This strategy resulted with a score of 379 in a 2 player game vs. a score of 184.