Tournament Info:

Explore, Settle, Develop, Trade, Consume, or Produce?  Which do you need the most?  Which of Earth's former colonies will be most successful at settling the galaxy, now that JumpDrive Exists?  Who will discover the secrets of the mysteriously vanished Alien Overlords?  Your goal: to build the most prosperous and powerful space empire!

In Race for the Galaxy, players build galactic civilizations by game cards that represent worlds or technical and social developments.  Each round consists of one or more of five possible phases.  In each round, each player secretly and simultaneously chooses one of seven different action cards and then reveals it.  Only the selected phases occur.  For these phases, every player performs the phase's action, while the selecting players also get a bonus privilege for the action chosen.

The development of this game came from efforts to turn Puerto Rico into a card game.  So, if you are familiar with San Juan, the card game that did develop from Puerto Rico you'll already know how Race for the Galaxy works.  And if you are not familiar with San Juan attend the demo to see how easy this game is to play, and then dive in to join the likes of players who have logged literally hundreds of plays.

Race for the Galaxy is a quick game.  For this reason we have made a schedule to accommodate more efficient use of your game time. There will be two heats, but those will be in a three-hour time block in which players can play, at their option, up to two preliminary qualifying games.A win in either will qualify a player for single elimination play in the advanced rounds. Players will be randomly assigned to tables for a second game option. In essence, each heat is the equivalent of two separate heats for WBC purposes. Therefore, players can join the heat already in progress to be assigned a game in the second round of the heat after missing the first game.

In each heat players may opt to play the Basic Game or play with: the Gathering Storm and Rebel vs. Imperium expansions. The semi-final and Final will use both Expansions. No Takeovers will be allowed in Heats of the semi and Final.

Starting hands will be dealt randomly for the Basic Game and the set up rules introduced in Rebel vs Imperium will be used for the Expansion games and in the semi and Final.

As per 'Timing' issues in rules most play can and should be performed simultaneously to expedite the game. However, actions will be performed in order of starting home planets when the remaining card supply will require a reshuffle, when VP chips could potentially run out in a 'Consume' phase (trigger game end), or when a settle/develop could trigger game end.

Everyone who won one of the four preliminary games may advance to the semi-final round which, depending on participation, may well be a quarter-final. At that point single elimination will be in effect to reduce the field to a 4-player final.