Board Game Arena

I've played a few games now.. I've been slow in .. well.. most of them because most of the time I'm still learning a new game. Especially if the game is short like race for the galaxy with convoluted rules it's really hard to learn.Then after a few games no one wants to play with you because apparently you play too slow and now everyone sees that. The rules section really doesn't give you a whole lot to use and theres absolutely no explanation for the cards/card symbols and it's impossible to just watch other people play to learn. Most games I play I'm just wondering what the hell is going on or wondering what the symbols on the cards mean.

If you want to learn how to play Race for the Galaxy see the rules.
Also you can play with quite good AI - http://keldon.net/rftg/ - you will lose many times at first but don't give up.

RftG is not the easiest game to learn but it's much fun when you get the grip.

I've since played my 50th game today and won my 20th.

My issue was more with the fact that the default speed is like 6 minutes and "slow" is 7. That's NOT a reasonable amount of time for anyone that's a beginner.

When you start playing a new game in my opinion you have some chances to practice before beginning "seriously" like

1) Setting the game open only for beginners, so you won't have the problem to play against an experienced player, or try to play against someone who's speaking your language to ask him your doubts
2) Playing the first 5-10 games with no ELO active. Who joins the table won't be anxious to finish a game that doesn't count for the classment.
3) Watch, or even better rewatch, someone other's game. Especially with the rewatch option you can see a game move-by-move so you can learn how does it works.

About Race For the Galaxy you're right, the rules aren't so difficult but the learning curve for understand every card is REALLY not simple. The better solution probably is to watch a good amount of games to learn the cards with multiple effects.

If I recall correctly from my recent play normal speed for RftG was 5 minutes + 1:30 per turn.
So even if the opponent is placing two cards each round you will have 14 minutes for your moves.

Anyway it's not that hard to set game speed or turn off ELO.
Also I'm pretty sure BGA remembers these settings, so when you create game next time you will have same settings as last time.