How does this game even work?

[Cirdanthecirdan]

Hi, I'm probably a below average player of Rallyman GT. But I'm terrrrrible at Rallyman Dirt

In GT you just have to finish before your opponents, simple. In Dirt, there were a few games in which I started in 2nd or 3rd place and finished right on the leader's heels, so obviously I finished the race in fewer turns. But I didn't ever win; the player with the lowest time won. So after the last race like that, I replayed the race from the winner's POV and saw that they were using very high value dice, even when it wasn't 'efficient' or required more dice to take the outside corners. So I've tried that and I'm still at 0 wins in 11 games. The last one was 615580985. It's not like I need someone to tell me how to play, I'm decent at figuring it out. I just don't know what the goal is. How the heck is the time calculated?? What's the formula? I don't know how to do the risk vs reward if I can only estimate the risk and have no clue on the reward.

Thanks anyone

[ODaly]

Time is added to your score according to the speed of your car at the end of each of your turns:

1st = 0:50s
2nd = 0:40s
3rd = 0:30s
4th = 0:20s
5th = 0:15s
6th = 0:10s

Rolling Flat Out in DIRT generates seconds which act like focus in GT, but they also subtract one second off your total time for every unused token at the end of the stage.

[MrVx]

TBH this is all explained in the "how to play" link under the game board. Although admittedly the exact time card values are towards the end of the long text.

The main difference between DIRT and GT is that while in GT you should optimize for distance travelled (to be the first to cross the line), in DIRT you should instead optimize for the speed (gear) in which you end your turn. But, as you point out, if a lower speed means you can take a couple less turns overall, then that might be a better choice in such cases.

Overall DIRT is a much more nuanced game than GT, as it's not important to necessarily be fast through the track - just faster than the other players by the end of the last stage. Being in 2nd place for most of the game is typically better, as the leader dice for the one in the lead are a major disadvantage.