boardgaming in photos: Star Realms, Through the Ages, Race for the Galaxy

5 Dec 2020. I have bought most of the expansions of Star Realms on iOS. It has been my fragmented time game, together with Ascension, and I have been playing it for years. Recently I started playing the challenges again. I had played it before but it did not sustain my interest for long then. This time I surprised myself a little by completing all challenges I have bought. This streak didn't start well because I started from the beginning, and soon got bored because those early challenges only had the old, basic cards. I jumped to the latest challenge, so that I could play with the new-to-me cards and new mechanisms. That turned out to be much more interesting. When I completed one campaign, I moved backwards to the one before it. Eventually I reached the previously half-completed Chapter 3, and finished it. 

The fun thing about playing against the AI is the game moves quickly and you get immediate feedback. Instant gratification. The challenges are not easy to beat, and they come with interesting twists, like different starting decks and rules variants. 

This screenshot above is from Chapter 7. This was the boss. It only had 1 life point (technically that's called Authority), and it could not ever increase its life points. However it had three outposts protecting it, and each outpost had 20 life points. To destroy one outpost, I needed to accumulate 20 points of damage within the same turn. That was a challenge. I started with 50 life points, but most of the time I couldn't deal any damage. I could only take hits. At first I tried to focus on Trade Federation (blue) cards, which would give me life points. I had hoped that they would help me last longer. That didn't work out for me. What eventually worked was focusing on increasing my firepower as quickly as possible. Once I built a deck that could generate 20 damage within one turn, it wasn't hard to do it a second and a third time. This boss was one tough and interesting boss. 

This was the boss from Chapter 4. Every two turns it gained one Gambit (those purple cards). Gambits are small advantages which you can decide when to activate. Individually they don't look like much, but when the boss is getting one every two turns and amassing a lot of them, these small advantages add up to create quite a formidable opponent. It took me many attempts to beat this boss. This screenshot above was from when I finally managed to defeat it. I forced it to discard 5 cards, i.e. its whole hand. After being bullied by it so many times, this was sweet revenge. 

When I was finally able to defeat it, I needed this many bases in my deck. 

12 Dec 2020. I have been playing some Race for the Galaxy on the iPad recently, against AI's. They provide decent challenge. They certainly do better than me in fighting for the objectives. Or maybe the problem is with me - I don't prioritise the objectives enough. I tend to place more importance in making my cards jive, and I am less willing to tweak my play towards the objectives. The AI's are good. Once one of them did a takeover of my planet. I should have paid more attention. 

I ran into some crashes when I played Through the Ages on the iPad. After I restarted the app, it crashed again when I tried to load my game. That was a bummer. I was halfway through a game and could not continue. Is my iPad too old for this? I don't remember this crashing problem the last time I played. Later on I discovered a workaround. I had to play some other game for a while before it would work again. I experienced two crashes, and in both cases by playing some other game then returning, I was able to resume. 

I find that the AI's place high priority in governments. They are willing to grab government techs which are still far on the card row, i.e. they are more expensive to claim. The AI's are also willing to take the revolution path. If you don't have enough science points to change government peacefully, you can pay a discounted price but sacrifice all civil actions for one turn. This is called a revolution. It is understandable that the AI's find this worthwhile. Better forms of government do make a huge difference. You can increase both your civil actions and military actions. You will be doing more stuff than before. 

In this game I emphasised military, because I knew it was my weakness. Although I have played many games of Through the Ages against my wife Michelle, using a physical copy, we did not use the military aspect much, other than for colonisation and some events. I'm sure you understand why. So I was never good in handling military. In this game I remained one of the strongest civilisations most of the time, and even attacked others sometimes (unsuccessfully, unfortunately). My colonisation went well enough. I had three colonies, one of which was a gift from Columbus. Other than Columbus, all my other leaders were science leaders. My technology remained in the forefront most of the time. 

The yellow and red players started points (a.k.a. culture) generation early, and were leading in points most of the time. I was furthest behind all the while and only started catching up in Age III. However by game end I had the highest per turn points being generated. Sid Meier and movie theatres contributed the most to this. 

When the game ended, there were 6 event cards to be resolved, and they were all scoring cards. At this point after scoring the first card, I (green) was the leading player. 

However when we got to the 5th event card, Yellow overtook me! For this particular event card, you look at how much science, food, stone or culture you produce. You score points based on what you produce the least of. Near game end, I had intentionally dismantled a farm, because I felt I didn't need to produce more food. My food production was low, and this hurt me. The version of Through the Ages I am familiar with doesn't have this event card. The iPad version is based on the newer board game. So I was not prepared for this event. 

When we got to the 6th and last event, I was overjoyed to have reclaimed the throne! 

Then I suddenly saw Yellow being awarded 6 more points, just enough to overtake me again. What is going on? Is the AI cheating or what? I audited what was going on, and realised it was all the fault of Bill Gates. Yeah yeah, I know I know. It's all his fault. One of his abilities is to score points upon retirement or at game end based on the player's labs. Yellow's final 6 points came from him. Bill Gates  too is in the newer version of the game, and not the version I own. That's was why I was initially confused. 

Mr Bill Gates.