Board Game Arena

Trying to figure out what the winning approach is. Obviously it is somewhat dictated by what is available in terms of techs and company goals, but is going with smaller ships and running a bunch of quick cruises generally good? Is it getting holistic logistics early and then riding the bonuses from that as much as possible? Just played a game where I lost by over 100 points, so I'm clearly missing some things lol.

There is no approach that works best in the game. You can launch six times with small ships or two times with a big one and score the same amount of points for each. Certain upgrades like Holistic logistics might seem OP one game, but the next time you struggle to get reputation and it does nothing.

Also, do not focus on point totals, as they will be wildly different depending on the game lenght and skill of the players.

The key about GC is that you have to adapt every game to what your opponents are doing and do something at least equally as good.

If there is a clear strategy that works every time, then the game is boring (and poorly designed). I currently love Galactic Cruise, but when I stop playing it, it will probably because I have "figured it out," meaning that when X happens I do A and when Y happens I do B. "Figuring it out" will certainly mean that my win percentage goes up, but that is not the goal of playing (for me).

So hopefully there is no good answer to your question.

I just finished a game. The entire first half I was behind and was almost certain I would lose. I won at the last minute by doing a very inefficient single passenger launch on a 3 segment ship (since that's all the resources I could afford, burning reputation down to zero), but because of that, it made it impossible for my opponent for getting the launch company goal before the end of the game (because the next launch triggered would trigger end game before hitting 4 launches from either of us).

I give that as an example to reinforce adaptability as Boza said.

I'll also mention that whatever plan you do, expected the game to go to about 17 rounds. If you plan on big ships doing few launches, make sure you get enough launches by turn 17.