Roll for the Galaxy
| File:Roll For The Galaxy.jpg Cover Art - BoardGameGeek | |
| Designers | Wei-Hwa Huang & Thomas Lehmann |
|---|---|
| Illustrators | Claus Stephan Martin Hoffmann Mirko Suzuki |
| Publishers | Rio Grande Games |
| Players | 2 to 5 |
| Setup time | 2 minutes |
| Playing time | 30–60 minutes |
| Chance | Medium |
| Skills | Economic Management, Strategic Thought |
Roll for the Galaxy is a dice game of building space empires for 2–5 players. Your dice represent your populace, whom you direct to develop new technologies, settle worlds, and ship goods. The player who best manages his workers and builds the most prosperous empire wins. The game was designed and developed by Wei-Hwa Huang and Thomas Lehmann.
Overview
In Roll for the Galaxy, each player creates a galactic civilization by recruiting workers (represented by custom dice) to settle worlds and build developments (represented by game tiles), over several game rounds. Players start each round by secretly rolling their workers to see what their workers wish to do this round. Each player uses one worker to select one of the five possible phases, and then all players reveal their workers. All player‑selected phases occur in numerical order. Workers that complete tasks go to their player’s Citizenry. After the phases, players manage their empires, spending Galactic Credits to recruit workers from their Citizenries back to their cups, to be rolled next round. The player who best manages his workers to create the greatest space empire of worlds, developments, and victory point chips, wins.
Game Contents
- Dice cup * 5
- Credit marker * 5
- Player mats * 5
- Player Screens * 5
- Phase Strips * 5
- Nine Faction Tiles (wide, numbered 1-9, with dark grey corners)
- Nine Home world Tiles (with dark grey corners)
- 111 Custom Dice (see chart at right)
- 55 game Tiles (double-sided)
- One cloth bag (to hold game tiles)
- Small 1 VP chip * 20
- Medium 5 VP chip * 8
- Large 10 VP chip * 5
- Phase Tiles (with large phase symbols) * 5
- A rulebook
Rounds
Roll for the Galaxy is played in rounds (usually 11-14). Each round consists of 5 steps:
- Roll
- Assign
- Reveal
- Do Phases — resolve the selected phases in order
- Manage Empire
Each step is done simultaneously by all players. Repeat rounds until one or both game end conditions are met: all initial VP chips have been earned, or at least one player has 12 or more tile squares in his tableau. Finish that round and then total each player’s VPs.
Winning
Total each player’s score:
- VP chips.
- VPs equal to the costs of all developments and worlds (the numbers in (Diamond)
and (Circle)). Do include both numbers from a faction tile. Do not include any tiles in the construction zone.
- Bonus VPs for 6-cost developments (beyond the 6 VPs for the development itself), as indicated on those tiles. When figuring these
bonuses, round any fraction up to the next whole number.
The player with the most VPs wins. In case of a tie, each tied player adds:
- The number of dice in his cup.
- Player's Galactic Credits.
The player with the highest total among the tied players wins. If there is still a tie, all the tied players win.
Game Credits
- Game design, development, and rules: Wei-Hwa Huang & Tom Lehmann
- Original Graphics: Wei-Hwa Huang
- Tile Illustrations: Martin Hoffmann, Claus Stephan
- Graphics: Mirko Suzuki
- Playtesting and advice: Corin Anderson, William Attia, Joe Black, Paul Blake, Dan Blum, Eric Burgess, Joe Casadonte, Ken Chaney, Bay Chang, Dave Cortwright, David desJardins, Sandra Emerson, Jeff Goldsmith, Ted Griggs, Dave Helmbold, Heydon Hensley, Jay Heyman, Trisha Huang, Rich Irving, Ron Krantz, Mike Linsc, Chris Lopez, Terry Lyzen, Paul Makarian, Alex Power, Bahman Rabii, Dan Rosart, Larry Rosenberg, Anthony Rubbo, Ron Sapolsky, Craig Silverstein, Greg Snyder, Jeffrey Stern, Mik Svellov, Steve Thomas, Andreas Walsh, Dayton Williams, Don Woods, Maciej Zenczykowski, Doug Zongker
- Galactic Credit: Jesse McGatha