At long last, the Alien Artifacts expansion for Race for the Galaxy has arrived, and Sarah and I have been able to play a few games of it. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a chance to play the new “orb” game, as our schedules have prevented us from having much gaming time together over the last week, but we’ve still had the chance to play a few regular games. I’m by far the most experienced Racer, primarily due to entirely too much time playing Keldon’s RFTG AI, but with this “reboot” expansion, I’d have to learn the new strategies along with Sarah.

This first game (actually the second we’ve played, but I don’t have records of that) saw Sarah begin with the new Alien Artifact Hunters homeworld, and despite having some very good exploration bonuses, she was utterly unable to find an alien production or windfall world until the final turn – something of a drawback when your homeworld allows you to consume an alien good into 2 VPs! She managed to gain quite a few ALIEN keyword worlds and developments, but actual goods? Not so much.

This contributed to this game being a non-production/consume game; not a single VP chit was taken. I began with the new homeworld of Sentient Robots, which gives discounts to placing new worlds, and with a Rebel Uplift World being my first play (+1 military for each Uplift world), I soon found myself in a military strategy. To rub salt into the wounds, in the second half of the game I found and played several Alien good worlds. New Galactic Order was my VP-development of choice, coming out as my sixth card, and Sarah didn’t have anything to properly race me, despite gaining the Alien Tech Institute late in the game.

Merric: 47 (25 cards, 12 New Galactic Order, 10 Galactic Survey: Seti)
Sentient Robots, Rebel Uplift World, Reptilian Uplift Race, Rebel Underground, The Last of the Uplift Gnarssh, New Galactic Order, Lost Alien Warship, Self-Repairing Alien Artillery, Drop Ships, Alien Sentinels, Galactic Survey: SETI, Alien Robot Scout Ship

Sarah: 27 (17, 10 Alien Tech Institute)
Alien Artifact Hunters, Alien Research Ship, Destroyed World, Alien Rosetta Stone World, Space Marines, Arboreal Uplift Race, Radioactive World, Scientific Cruisers, Blaster Gem Mines, Alien Tech Institute, Deserted Alien Colony

Our second game saw Sarah starting with the new homeworld of Rebel Mutineers, whilst I took the Alien Artifact Hunters. Sarah wasn’t that impressed by my presumption of playing the world she’d just lost with, and she was even less impressed when I managed to draw several Alien good worlds. This led this game to being much more of a consume/production cycle on my part, with Sarah trying to place as many worlds as she could to aid in her SETI project. Sarah had one basic problem: a lack of military, which led to most of the worlds she was playing being worth low points.

On the other hand, her explorations were terrifying. I’d be the one to select the Exploration action, and Sarah would still draw about 10 cards! Cards with exploration powers? Sarah was really good at drawing those.

Ultimately, my consumption strategy was hampered by a lack of good consumption worlds, and I only gained 9 points thereby, but a Merchant Guild and Wormhole Prospectors boosted my points somewhat and I ended up with the win.

Merric 57 (23 cards, 16 vp chits, 10 Merchant Guild, 8 Wormhole Prospectors)
Alien Artifact Hunters, Alien Fuel Refinery, Drop Ships, Scientific Cruisers, Self-Repairing Alien Artillery, Space Marines, Lost Alien Battle Fleet, Alien Sentinels, Merchant Guild, Wormhole Prospectors, Spice World, Artist Colony

Sarah 32 (14 cards, 3 vp chits, 15 Galactic Survey: SETI)
Rebel Mutineers, Gem World, Star Nomad Lair, Alien Research Ship, Galactic Survey Headquarters, Galactic Survey: SETI, New Survivalists, Expanding Colony, Expedition Force, Contact Specialists, Malevolent Lifeforms, Avian Uplift Race, Former Penal Colony

Our third game saw Ian joining us, and Sarah and I found going back to the “choose only one action” after the “chose two actions” of the 2-player game to be quite tricky. Our first few turns were particularly slow; I had some really good Terraforming cards, but I wasn’t generating the resources to play them. Eventually things stabilized and Sarah and I went into consume/produce strategies (with me often duplicating Sarah’s produce action because I didn’t trust her to use it herself). Ian was purely on the military path, but by the end of the game the Consume (x2) action was giving me and Sarah 10 VPs apiece! Sarah was just one turn behind me, though, and the extra time she required was enough for me to win.

Unfortunately, my friends packed up the game before I could record the specifics of our tableaus, but the scoring was as follows:

Merric 57 (22 cards, 26 vp chits, 9 bonus)
Sarah 45 (21 cards, 24 vp chits)
Ian 40 (25 cards, 4 vp chits, 11 bonus)

Alien Artifacts is a lot of fun to play with, and I’m really looking forward to trying out the Orb game in the near future.