can we ban the development start worlds

[ksasaki]

I thought I was already sick of galactic developers, but my impression after playing this expansion for a bit are that developments are super crucial and if you start with one of the dev worlds you are basically guaranteed a victory.

I don't know how others' experiences have been or if someone has compiled start world winrates, but it feels like easily 80% - 90% winrate if you start with one.

Just get rid of them all, galactic developers, the new expansion one, and the alien artifacts one.

[ColShaw]

Industrial Robots is one of the best start worlds in any set, and in AA it's particularly strong, I agree. Combine it with, say, Galactic Investors and it gets very silly, very fast. I can see ksasaki's point on this.

[lundeeng]

I haven't played enough Alien Artifacts yet, but in the first expansion arc, Galactic Developers definitely creates some very unbalanced runaway leader games in 2 player advanced. It's too easy to stack other development effects and do nothing but call double develop. The other development based start worlds are still very good, but don't feel *quite* as OP, and other strong start worlds like Rebel Freedom Fighters can also cause balance issues, so I would like to see some solid statistics on win rates. OTOH, when playing with the first full arc, I think Pan Galactic Affluence might be the most unbalanced card regardless of start world.

[ksasaki]

I used to think PGA was broken, but I've found it beatable (unless paired with the aforementioned developers). The most broken cards are the cheap ones (i.e. pan galactic mediator paired with one of the contact specialist like start worlds, black hole miners and pan galactic research for crazy card draw on develop + 12 hand limit), and the pan galactic security council, the 1 cost that you can discard two cards on consume for one prestige. Also the green ones that give prestige on produce (uplift researchers + ravaged uplift world) are pretty busted as well. All in all, prestige is pretty busted.

[f0rmula409]

AA as a whole isn't exactly balanced. There are some very strong situational cards, the aforementioned Galactic Investors being one (and bordering on universally good, but, it does little if you place it late game). Power level far beyond base game cards. Think one almost has to accept the inherent degree of luck in RftG as a whole. Sometimes you'll get a busted start, sometimes you won't!

That said Industrial Robots, being a starting world and therefore often having access to it early is pretty strong. Has a card been banned like that before?

[hiei]

I think BGA doesnt use house rules unless the house rule is way too popular in a game that it becomes mostly standard. Thus, banning cards is probably out of the question.

I think tho that Public works is way to broken in AA. Alien artifacts seems to be balanced around the Orb, as it slows the game down and you can score 30 or 40 points with good plays in explore so you cant just ignore it (im not a orb expert btw).

In other expansions, outside XI, dev worlds are top tier still. And they are very reliant on luck. While base GTE, BOW terraforming colonist and Uplift Mercenary Force (+ search action if needed) are arguably more consistant than dev worlds, dev worlds can be more broken with the right cards. This also applies to Rebel freedom fighters in BOW, where even the seaech action is a big coinflip for extra prestige.

XI doesnt have this issue due to the lack of development with discounts. Only one discount was added, and while a pretty good card its not broken if you draw it.

So in my opinion we should stop picking this expandion with this setting. I dont like base, but i think it ends more climatically at least and its arguably more skill based. I think BOW is fine the way it is due to the Search action and the big amount of ways to break the game, tho some of them are way too broken (imo the big 3 is IL, PGSC and Galactic Markets which is never mentioned as a good card lol). XI is more balanced and maybe we should give a try to AA witb the orb. Its time for once to learn that mechanic.

[obsidian octagon]

I think BGA doesnt use house rules unless the house rule is way too popular in a game that it becomes mostly standard. Thus, banning cards is probably out of the question.

I agree with hiei. To ban any cards on BGA I expect galehar (the current RFTG developer/maintainer on BGA) would have to get approval from Tom Lehmann (the game designer) and/or Rio Grande Games (the publisher). I suspect the likelihood of cards getting banned on BGA is low. Some cards in the base game did get adjusted in the second edition (current version). But as that was not too many years ago, and Rio Grande just released the combined version of all of the first arc expansions together in one box (called Expansion and Brinkmanship) without any card removals or adjustments, I highly doubt there will be any official card changes or removals in the near future.

There is a luck element to RFTG, and I love it. I personally enjoy the complete card set the way it is. I wouldn't change a thing. To each their own though.