[Brian,
Tuesday February 26, 2008 at 4:56pm]
Race Master Solvers Club #2
You are New Sparta in a four player game (everyone but Epsilon Eridani, if you care). Your opening hand is:
- New Vinland (2 Cost Novelty Production, Consume a good for 2 cards).
- Radioactive World (2 Cost Rare Windfall).
- Spice World (2 Cost Novelty Production, Trade a novelty for $2 extra)
- Rebel Miners (2 Military Rare Production)
- Free Trade Association (The 6-dev for novelties)
- Mining League (The 6-dev for rares).
What do you discard and what do you play on your first turn?
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You therefore keep Mining League, as it goes well with Rebel Miners.
I think you discard Radioactive World, because people with military shouldnt pay for windfall worlds, especially crappy ones. Drawing a military brown world later would be way better, as would some other windfall. You have other good options, so Radioactive World isnt worth keeping.
New Vinland is strong, its a 2 card income in produce/consume, and its cheap.
Spice World isnt great when you have the rebel miners, they are free and make a good you can sell for 3, almost as much as Spiec World's 4. If you have a Novelty military windfall world like Pirate World in your hand, you'd keep it, but you dont.
You thus keep:
Rebel Miners
Mining League
New Vinland
Free Trade Association
This hand has a free play, another good early world, and versatility to build a 6 building based on what you draw next.
I think you should explore +1/+1 on the first turn, hoping for a good military windfall world to get you going, or more production worlds, or a cheap development that might be helpful, in case people develop.
Settling could open up others to trade, while you only get a production world that does nothing else. You want to drop Rebel miners on an opponent's settle, for no card cost. You need to get more options right now, and money to afford your builds, and something that you can develop early in case an opponent develops.
The explore then determines what you do, of course. Certainly none of the main strategies are looking very good, but at least you got the one rebel planet.
But I can sort of understand the argument to keep the blues and try to ride the blue production into the FTA. But are you going to be able to get enough cards to develop the FTA? I don't think so.
I could also see the argument for keeping Mining League and the 2 Rare worlds, but I feel like keeping FTA and 2 blues (each of which helps you with card generation, often a problem for a novelty strategy) is a windfall you can't refuse. It doesn't take many turns to get enough cards for FTA, and once you have it you only need one more blue world to have a 3 VP engine.
Rebel Miners
Radioactive World
New Vinland
Mining League
The aim is to get Radioactive World and Rebel Miners down for the 3-point consume from Mining League.
I'd call Settle on the first turn. I'd be hoping to take advantage of a Produce from ELC, in which case I'd settle Rebel Miners. If Produce doesn't turn up, and Explore does, then settle Radioactive World instead (throwing New Vinland + your Explore card); either way results in a rare good at the end of the turn, which you trade on turn two. If neither Produce nor Explore turn up, then settle the cheaper Rebel Miners - Radioactive World is a poor choice if you lose the chance of the synergy with the other two cards - and call Settle again on turn two, settling either New Vinland or Radioactive World depending on whether Produce was called. (Only AC will probably be able to take advantage of both your settle phases given there was no Explore on turn one, so this is reasonably safe).
I think, in the end, I hold New Vinland, Spice World, Rebel Miners, and Free Trade Association, and Explore +1/+1. I'm really hoping Earth's Lost Colony calls Produce and Old Earth calls Settle, in which case I settle Rebel Miners in preparation for a consume/trade in turn two.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/295891
Therefore I keep Rebel Miners, New Vinland and my sixes. I call Explore +5 (1/1 is for card payment. Again, I am military). I hope Old Earth calls Settle (to the Produce/Consume likely to be called by the others).
I hold the sixes as long as I can to keep them out of the deck, but its really just picking nits over the other cards.
Except - they can't. A novelty strategy without FTA isn't going to be as good as one with, even with an extra novelty world, and a rare strategy without Mining League will often falter on consumption - not to mention the fact that it's more competitive, and Alpha Centauri has an advantage.
I think it's a bigger mistake to ignore one's initial cards than it is to underutilize one's initial powers. Sure, if Galactic Imperium is in my initial draw, I'll reconsider, but as long as I hold on to Rebel Miners, I haven't hurt my ability to do so.
I'd keep:
New Vinland
Radioactive World
Rebel Miners
Mining League
First turn, Settle Rebel Miners. If ELC produces I Consume/Trade T2. Otherwise I Settle again on T2, probably New Vinland but drawn cards could shift my direction.
New Vinland
Free Trade Association
Rebel Miners
Mining League
Basically, I see no reason to pick Rare or Novelty yet, in both cases production worlds aren't hard to come by so keeping the inferior planet isn't really worth it. This way I get to choose based on the first turn actions and the explore. If I get Consumer Markets in my Explore +5 then Novelty it is. If Runaway Robots, then rare. If neither, but NGO I take that. I don't really need the extra card from +1/+1 as I can settle with either strategy without more cards and I'm kind of screwed if all the other players open with develop anyway.
I'm not sure if I hope AC will go rare with me or ELC will go novelty with me. On the upside, our actions will tend to synergize; on the downside, deck two will be empty. Since I have the big card for each approach, I ought to be able to beat them; in a sense, they are dominated.
On the other hand, the advantage of a military strategy is that without EE in the game, deck two will rate to be a gold mine for me. Given my start, however, I expect that someone is going to go with a superfast strategy, making deck two be relatively short, so direct competition with someone I can beat looks like a better shot than enjoying a great second deck. I'll be more prone to considering military if no one builds development boosters early. Or Drop Ships. If someone does that, it's a good bet he has NGO and/or the Imperium 6, which means I'll not be getting at least one of them, and I'll want out of the arms race.
learly Rebel Miners is better than any of the other worlds, so that's a keeper, and therefore Mining League is a keeper. For the other three worlds, Radioactive World becomes a keeper (because it does synergize with ML, and it is my only windfall world. So, now that I'm definitely discarding a Novelty Production, probably FTA isn't worth keeping. So that goes. Then, among Spice World and New Vinland, the issue is that Spice World gets me four cards on a cycle, but I have to be the one choosing Consume, whereas New Vinland gets me two cards on a cycle, but I get those regardless. Since without Episilon Eridani in the game I'm less likely to have a comrade to push the tableau with, I'm going to need all the tempo I can get ... so New Vinland is preferable. (I'd much rather have Smuggling World, but oh well.)
Reasons to choose Settle are that there's a modicum of flexibility and I do have a viable world. If there's a first-turn Produce, great; out comes Mining Robots. (The reason I bias away from Settle against experts is because experts are less likely to do first-turn Produce.) If I don't choose Settle, it's not that likely that someone else will choose it, so I'll be behind a good if Produce does get chosen. Even if Produce doesn't get chosen, if there's an Explore I'm happy to put down Radioactive World if I don't see anything good in my two Explore cards. Worst-case scenario is when I choose Settle, no one chooses Explore, and no one chooses Produce. (That pretty much means that all other players are choosing Consume: Trade or Develop).
Because of that worst-case scenario, I have a non-zero probability of choosing Explore. I might very well get a cheap development (e.g., Investment Credits) to put out when others choose Develop, and I have some good plays if others choose Settle. My cards aren't *that* great for my start world, so Explore +5 is also reasonable in the hopes I can find a direction with more military -- Runaway Robots or Rebel Fuel Cache would be excellent finds.
Turn 1: Settle. If there was an explore done, and the card you got was crap (i.e., non-military), and nobody selected Produce (as is likely), put down New Vinland. If no explore was done, drop Rebel Miners for free. Either way, take the kickback from Settle. The logic here being that you want to get down New Vinland and Rebel Miners, and you really, really want someone to do Produce on turn 2. New Vinland is likely to look somewhat less threatening, so maybe you can sucker New Earth or Earth's Lost Colony into doing it for you.
Turn 2: Settle, unless you got a cheap military development from somewhere (other players' Explores, Settle kickbacks). Drop the card you didn't play last turn (even if you played Rebel Miners last turn and got something like an Uplift world this turn).
You now have an awesome produce leech. If anyone plays Produce, you either can play Consume to draw 5 cards, or draw 4 cards over two other players' Consume phases. You can leech one consume for two cards and still have a consume for another 3 if you're short. You can get cards from your conquered Windfall worlds without having to waste time playing Consume. If on turn 2 nobody else has developed a production engine yet, you can produce/consume right away to kick-start your hand if it's not going to benefit anyone else very much, then alternate between Explore +5, Settle, and Develop as appropriate, riding on someone else's Produce when you need an injection of cards.
Just use the cards this leeching provides to boost your pursuit of the usual New Sparta thing - hunt for military developments and worlds by doing Explore +5. Other players will tend to be much more compelled to produce/consume than you are, so you should be able to turbo-charge your military game.
It was fine. I agree with most of it. Alexfrog has an article out too, and it was similar. I suspect anyeone who plays 100+ games and pays attention will agree most of the time on each card's utility.
Wei-Hwa wrote:
This is why I keep losing. I don't give 110% at Race.