by kvenosdel
sed_lon wrote:
FunkCracker wrote:
If it wasn't clear, this was in reference to how a player would be forced to start the game. Not once in that example is Warfare used as an action to collect fighters. Yet it is more efficient than going the Colonize route.
Just wanted to point out that it's also notable that Warfare gives you more options than Colonize even if the two WERE equal in terms of productivity over several turns. For example, whereas an early Colonize commits your Colonize cards to (usually) your starting planet, you can save your ships in case a particularly sweet planet pops up in an early Survey (even as a first or second turn Survey follow). Although this is certainly not guaranteed, it illustrates the flexibility of Warfare that I think the 1-Warfare-Card starting deck balances out (not to mention the generally higher cost of conquering a planet). The ability to save up the ships produced by your Warfare cards while recycling them into your deck can make them very powerful compared to the Colonize cards, which get removed from your deck until you resolve them by settling.
This is a powerful part of warfare but at the same time the ability to quickly remove colonize cards can also be very helpful. For example, if you have 3 planets surveyed and 2 flipped, you can tuck planets under the third and then forego flipping it until you nab up a few level 2 tech cards or do some deeper surveys, etc. It helps to be able to get the colonize cards out of the way.
I'll often do that with my 4th or 5th planet and then leave them under it until the last turn or so. This helps my deck switch quickly. From a pure planet flipping engine it's not so good; but a planet then research (or produce) engine can benefit from this quite a bit.