| Race For The Galaxy: The Gathering Storm |  | Brand: Rio Grande Games
Category: Toy
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $16.99
as of 7/30/2010 12:12 MDT details
You Save: $8.00 (32%)
In Stock
New (22) from $16.99
Seller: Best Dang Games
Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 4,303
Age: 12 - 100 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 2 x 10 x 14
MPN: RGG363
Model: 5511247
UPC: 655132003636
EAN: 0655132003636
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
 | This is an expansion to Race for the Galaxy | | | Takes about 60 minutes to play | | | Contents include 4 new start worlds, 9 action cards for a 5th player, 18 game cards, 17 blank cards, 10 goal tiles, and 17 victory chips | | | This first expansion allows for a fifth player to play | | | Adds depth and complexity |
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Product Description
As knowledge of JumpDrive spreads, an ancient race stirs, while another flees a world doomed by a dying sun. The Imperium grows in strength, provoking further resistance and the hiring of mercenaries. Can you build the most prosperous and powerful space empire in a galaxy on the brink of war?
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| Customer Reviews:
 Race for the Galaxy's 1st Expansion: adds some nice mechanics October 9, 2009
Christopher K. Halbower (Muskegon, MI)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The Gathering Storm" is Rio Grande's first expansion for Race for the Galaxy a card game where players eke out a space civilization by exploring, conquering, settling and developing technologies.
Players simultaneously select a role card. The roles are respectively: Explore, Develop, Settle, Consume and Produce. The role cards are revealed and resolved in role card order. If you play a role card, you get the bonus for playing it. If you didn't play a role card (i.e. your opponent played it), you get to use the role's general effect. For example: if you play "Explore", you draw 3 cards and may keep 2; otherwise you draw 2 cards and may keep 1.
Players play planet cards during the Settle phase and technologies during the Develop phase. Once a player has played 12 cards (called a tableux) the game will end. Players score points for their planets, developments and for consuming goods. The player with the highest score wins.
With experienced players, this game can play quickly (around 30 minutes or less). However, the iconography of the cards is counterintuitve and thus the learning curve is surprisingly steep. This is a minor consideration if you are a hardcore gamer. But it should be noted: Race for the Galaxy makes a poor gateway game for your non-gaming friends and family.
This expansion adds more cards and a couple of new mechanics. The new cards are merely new planets/developments. The new mechanics include a solo version of the game. A player may play against a "robot". I find this to be quite silly. Race for the galaxy is already a game of solitaire even when you have 4 people playing. The clunky robot mechanic is something that only the most diehard Race fans will ever use.
The expansion also includes objective tiles. Players can score bonus points for completing these. This is a nice addition. You can plan your long term strategy around scoring these objectives. Also, the expansion includes enough pieces to play up to 5 people.
My biggest gripe with Race for the Galaxy is that there is virtually no player interaction. There is no conflict. No auctions, no bidding mechanics, no way to screw over your opponents who have a lead. This is effectively a four player solitaire game with interstellar chrome.
Race for the Galaxy hits our gaming table with some regularity. It's a quick game and thus is a decent filler. But if you want an interstellar game with player interaction you will need to look elsewhere.
 Loved this game. April 28, 2009
Lee Habig
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This expansion allows an additional player to play Race for the Galaxy. The new cards and worlds added to the game by this expansion make new strategies viable. While the expansion is not required to play the base Race for the Galaxy game, once you have the expansion you will always be using it for your games.
A nice add-on February 17, 2009
Christian Hardin (Fort Collins, CO USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this expansion about 3 weeks ago. I have played a few games with it. Overall, I think it's a nice addition to the core game. It seems like they focused to much on the AI "robot" player for a solitaire game, which sadly I haven't even tried. I guess I'd rather just play a game with REAL people! It adds some new cards and some special objectives which are a unique change. It's nothing spectacular, but still a nice addition to lovers of the original Race for the Galaxy.
Fun Expansion for a Great Game December 16, 2008
Christopher H. Svara (Oly, WA USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I am a huge fan of Race for the Galaxy and have played the basic game to death. The addition of new start worlds and new cards is great and adds to the playability of the overall game.
I am not sure that the solitair addition is great, the rules were difficult to understand and the 'robotic' opponent has crushed me every time, but still fun.
The cost for what you get in materials is a tough call, but overall I was too happy with the purchase to mind much.
Fun, but single-player rules need work November 19, 2008
A. Kennedy (Urbana, IL USA)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I enjoyed the core game of Race for the Galaxy and was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the first expansion. I admit that it does add a few interesting worlds and development cards, but I felt that there needed to be a larger amount of cards than the 22 that came with it. The Gambling World reprint is pointless, in my mind. What they need to do is just print the odds chart in the rulebook instead of creating a new Gambling World card with each expansion, thus making it necessary to hunt down and discard the original card.
The single-player rules leave much to be desired, never mind the fact that it takes a while to get used to the symbols on the robot's action sheet. The robot player gains victory point chips far too fast for most people to keep up with, and it almost always gets worlds and developments (and the corresponding VP's) for free if the right card is revealed from its draw stack during a Develop or Settle phase, no matter the value of the card. The card powers in the robot's tableau make absolutely no difference in the game. Only the VP's matter.
I never make it to 12 cards in my tableau before all of the VP chips are gone, so I hardly ever have a chance to implement any strategies other than to settle a bunch of Novelty Worlds and then find cards with high VP consume powers which I can then use to rake in as many VP chips as I can before the robot does. Its VP chips are based on economy size, which increases whenever it produces or performs a x2 consume. Since the robot's economy never decreases like a human player's will whenever a consume is performed, it's almost impossible to catch up to the robot, especially when he pays peanuts for a 6-cost development card or one of the 6-point VP chips (or 9-point VP chips if you feel like being smacked into next Tuesday in VP's). You have to be either extremely lucky or having nothing better to do with your time if you are able to beat the robot player. However, with some minor adjustments to the rules, I think it would be much more enjoyable.
There also needs to be something on the cards other than a tiny little notch printed at the bottom-left corner of a card's gray border to differentiate the new cards from the old ones.
I still rank the expansion as being OK (3 out of 5), because having a fifth player and the "first" and "most" goal tiles is what makes it worth it to me, but I would never pay more than 15 to 20 bucks for the expansion (including shipping), especially when there are almost as many blank cards in the box as there are new ones because the designers are apparently running out of ideas and need our help to come up with new cards for them (and if you send them your best idea by 12/1/08, you might get a whopping attaboy in the credits for the next expansion! Woo Hoo! How 'bout a cash prize or maybe a job as head designer instead, since no one else seems to be able to come up with anything? Sounds to me like the next expansion is going to be nothing but a compilation of submissions from players.)
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