Race for The Galaxy: Alien Artifacts

Im not impressed with the Alien Maze component but if you ignore that part you can use the additional cards with the base set and any of the other expansions.

I only use the cards from this game, not the orb subgame. I love Race for the Galaxy--perhaps my favorite of the 150+ games in my collection. I wanted something to add to it and these cards are pretty good. They arent overpowered, which is nice, and they blend reasonably well with the base game. They tilt things toward aliens and significantly towards military strategies. Im not sure how frequently I will use these cards...the base game is more balanced in the sense that military is a good but not dominant strategy. Still, these add an interesting little flavor that changes the game a little and gives you some variety if you have played the base game a lot.

We decided to go with this as our first expansion, since I heard you get more cards, and it makes the game more balanced. We havent tried the alien orb game yet, but we have used the new cards quite extensively. They are great! A lot more strategies are now viable, and the game is much more balanced. (Produce/consume is no longer the dominant strategy.) And the new cards arent really more complicated. We didnt need to read any additional rules to be able to play with them right away. (I think the only rule change is now you get two start worlds, and pick one to keep.) Ultimately, the game is more fun with the additional cards in this expansion, without being any more complicated! Awesome!