by Jimmer
A friend rented a 'private room' for his birthday at a local game store. (If we ate enough, the room was free.)The table was just about the right size for the 6 of us, and the occasional onlooker. There were 2 new players, 1 novice player, an unknown, the birthday boy (5-6 games?) and me. We skipped developments and alliances.
The tutorial took a little longer as I didn't know the game-savvy of the new players...turns out they were naturals. Each player took a random starting hex to determine which races they could choose from.
The two new players and the unknown drew the three expansion races - I suggested that they play the Magellan side...they're easier to pick up and pretty flexible. The birthday boy and I each took humans (I had Eridani) and the 6th took the Orion Hegemony.
The unknown player passed early, quite often. Which generally meant that technologies were taken up by that half of the table before it got to me. Extra discs and Advanced Economy were scarce and mostly late-game.
Ambassadors were exchanged - everyone had at least one, and folks avoided the traitor card the entire game. Thankfully, the Orion to my right traded one with me and didn't have time to wipe me out. (Orion went for the center, and tussled with the other 4 races throughout.)
Magellan #1 (new player): mostly wiped me out, didn't fight anyone else until Orion in the final round.
Magellan #2 (new player): Amazing economy, took center on turn 5.
Magellan #3 (unknown): Turtled, struck at Orion on turn 9, but had to battle #1 first. Didn't find any alien battles, played conservatively.
Yellow (birthday) Humans: Took interceptor bay for his cruiser, found the 11 energy source, had 4 bays. Turn 7, picked up his cruiser and 7 interceptors...dropped off 4 in the center, and then sprinkled them through the Orion home systems, while the Orion fleet was pinned in the center. Funny.
Orion (novice): took center turn 6, lost home systems to yellow humans on turn 7, reclaimed it all on turn 8, defended center on turn 9.
Red Humans: Me. Struggle detailed below.
Magellan #1 to my left had a good set of planets, and mounted a strong attack, wiping out 2 of my 5 planets in round 5. I managed to hold my third planet with 3 plasma-cannoned/improved hulled interceptors vs. a cruiser and a dreadnought - each with yellow lasers, computers, and 3 hull...if I had lost it, I think I could have been wiped (I ended with one interceptor that had 2 damage). He came back again on turn 7, but I was able to field a couple of star bases with a big red gun against his big red guns...fortunately, I hit with both in the opening salvo due to the speed of the star bases, taking out the two cruisers.
Throughout the whole game, I had poor money - I didn't get beyond 4 income on the money track, and frequently spent my science wealth at 2-for-1 for money or twice for material. I needed advanced economy or more discs, but they were picked up as first & second picks.
On the final turn, I managed to cloak my way through to two of Magellan #1's systems, after he had committed most of his rebuilt fleet to the center, but could only settle one.
Key (good) decisions:
I picked up 3 discovery tiles - each were kept for VP.
Key (bad) decisions:
I think a more balanced economy would have been better - I made a gamble early to take a white population as a science...science guy, except I didn't - I wanted science for an Advanced Economy (I had 2 in my systems).
I should have gone for upgraded star bases, instead of interceptors.
I ended up winning with 32 points. 6 from discovery, 3 from technology, 13 from reputation (4/4/3/2 - the second 4-pt, round 6!), 1 from ambassador, 9 from planets. The rest of the players ranged from 24-28 - keeping ambassadors, especially for the Magellans, means you only have space for 2-3 reputation tiles.
Everyone had a good time, and the birthday cake was great!