Roll for the Galaxy FAQ
179 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup
- Which tiles go into the bag at setup?
- Do I have to place my two starting construction tiles with the lowest costs face up?
- What dice do I take for my faction and home world at setup?
- Can the world on my faction tile hold goods and be used like any other world?
- How should I make up the VP chip pool?
- Is the Citizenry die in the setup illustration red or brown?
Assign, Dictate & Phase Selection
- Do I have to select a phase with one of my dice every round?
- Does the die I use to select a phase have to show that phase's symbol?
- Is the die I used to select the phase still a worker, and where does it go afterwards?
- Can I select a phase when I have no other dice under it, or one I cannot use?
- When do I decide which phase a wild die face counts as?
- Can I freely move dice to a different phase column after rolling?
- Can I reassign the die I used to select the phase?
- Must I select my phase before using Dictate or other reassign powers?
- Can reassign powers be used after the screens are lifted?
- How does Dictate work, and what does it cost?
- Can I use Dictate just to get a die back into my cup?
- How many times can I Dictate in a round?
- Does the Dictate die count as having done a task?
- If I reassign a die, does the face it shows still matter?
- Can reassign powers move wild dice or dice that don't show the power's icon?
- Can I Dictate a die that Executive Power just reassigned?
- How many dice can Galactic Mandate reassign when I Dictate?
- How does Executive Power's 'same phase' work, and can I pair a wild die?
- Which die does Psi-Crystal Forecasters move?
- Can Propaganda Campaign or Homeworld Patriotism reassign to any phase?
- Can I leave some of my dice out of a phase instead of using them?
- Do dice go to the Citizenry or the cup after a phase?
- What happens to dice I assigned to a phase nobody selected?
- In what order do I use the workers in a phase?
Round Flow, Timing & Secrecy
- How does the two-player game work?
- In a two-player game, do powers trigger when only the white die brings a phase in?
- Can one player activate more than one phase in a round?
- Do phase powers trigger if I have no workers in that phase, or if another player selected it?
- Do phase powers trigger if nobody selected that phase?
- Does a phase power trigger once per phase or once per task?
- What does 'in this phase' or the highlighted phase icon on a development mean?
- Must everyone finish a phase before anyone moves on to the next one?
- When does strict turn order matter, and how is it determined?
- Must the Explore phase be resolved in player order?
- May I announce which phase I am going to choose before reveal?
- What information is secret, and what must I tell opponents?
- May I turn a die to a different face after assigning it?
Phase I — Explore
- How many tiles do I draw when I Scout, and how many can I abandon?
- Can I abandon tiles on every Scout task, including tiles I drew earlier in the same Explore phase?
- When I Scout, can I choose whether a drawn tile becomes a world or a development?
- Can I discard a tile to take $2 instead, or Scout and then Stock with the same die?
- When do abandoned tiles go back into the bag?
- Does the order in which players draw or abandon change anyone's odds?
- Is there a limit on how many tiles one player can draw in a single Explore phase?
- What happens if the tile bag runs out during Explore?
- If I abandon the tile that has dice on it, what happens to those dice?
- If Explore empties a Develop or Settle stack, do the workers on it go back to the cup?
- If Explore leaves a tile with enough dice to complete it, is it built straight away?
- When does Alien Research Team's extra tile get drawn, and can Improved Reconnaissance use it?
- Do virtual explorers (Alien Research Ship, Major Research Lab) work when I assigned no dice, and can I reassign them?
- Does the colour of an explorer matter, for example Alien Research Ship's yellow one?
- Can I reorder the tiles in a construction stack?
Phases II & III — Develop & Settle
- How are developers (and settlers) placed on the stack in Develop and Settle?
- What happens to dice already on a stack that can complete the top tile when Develop starts?
- Where do leftover developers or settlers go after the last tile is built?
- If I can't finish a tile, do the dice stay on it?
- Can I complete several developments or worlds in one Develop or Settle phase?
- Must I place all my developers or settlers on the stack and use every applicable discount?
- If a world is already complete because of Explore, when does it join my tableau?
- Can discounts reduce a development or world to zero workers?
- How do Free Trade Zone and Replicant Robots combine on a grey world?
- Do Galactic Exchange and New Galactic Order stack when I settle with several dice?
- Where can Contact Specialist's removed red die come from?
- Which colour die goes on a world that comes with a good when I settle it?
- When does a world's or development's Immediate effect happen?
- Which of my dice can an effect that removes a die take?
- How does Space Marines' die swap work?
Phases IV & V — Produce & Ship
- Does my producer die's colour have to match the world I produce on?
- Can a world hold more than one good, or can I replace a good with a new one?
- Is a good's trade value set by its die or by the world it sits on?
- How many VP does a Consume earn, and is there a cap of 3?
- How does a purple Consumption die score when used as the good or the shipper?
- For the shipper's colour bonus, does the phase-selecting die count or each shipper?
- Do I declare Trade or Consume in advance, and may I deliberately mismatch dice?
- Where does a shipper go if I have no goods to ship?
- What happens if the VP chips run out during the Ship phase?
Manage Empire & Galactic Credits
- Must I spend all my credits recruiting, and which dice do I pick if I can't afford them all?
- Is there a limit to how many Galactic Credits I can hold?
- What happens when I have $0 credits after recruiting?
- Can I recall developers, settlers and goods, and where do they go?
- If I have no dice in my cup after recruiting, must I recall one?
- Can I pay credits to bring citizens back to the cup before Manage Empire?
- What is the difference between the Citizenry and the cup?
Winning, Scoring & Game End
- When does the game end?
- Do the faction and home world tiles count toward the 12 squares?
- How is a tie broken?
- Should I recall goods and unused dice at game end?
- What counts toward my final score?
- Which costs count toward a 6-cost development's bonus?
- Does a 6-cost development count its own cost in its bonus?
- How does Galactic Federation score?
- How does Galactic Renaissance score for VP chips?
- Which developments count as 'Reassign' for System Diversification and New Economy?
- On Technology Unions, does 'more devs' mean more tiles or more points?
- When are 6-cost development bonuses counted?
Tile & Power Rulings
- Can I earn VP in the Produce phase?
- Must I use the extra shipper from Space Docks, and does it work if I assigned no Ship dice?
- Do Galactic Salon and Space Tourism pay once per Ship phase, and when in the phase?
- Can I choose not to take Galactic Salon's VP?
- Who gets Space Tourism's bonus?
- Do Jumpdrive Research, Galactic Demand, Export Duties and Galactic Bankers apply every time I Trade?
- How does Galactic Bankers work?
- Do Genetics Lab, Consumer Markets and similar powers count other players' goods?
- Do tiles that pay 'per group' of dice (Space Piracy, New Galactic Order) round the groups up?
- Does Organic Shipyards give extra shippers even if I assigned no dice to Ship?
- Does Galactic Recycling pay when other players build tiles?
- How does Galactic Reserves score at game end?
- How does the Galactic Religion faction count Novelty dice?
- With Improved Reconnaissance, can I put some drawn tiles on top of a stack and others underneath?
- What does Nanotechnology's reassign power do?
Roll for the Galaxy: AmbitionExpansion
- How does Terraforming Specialists work?
- How does Contact Specialist work, and how many times can I use it?
- Can Alien Uplift Blueprints reduce a cost to zero, below the usual minimum of one?
- Can I recruit talent counters with credits, and where do used ones go?
- Can Galactic Exchange or Galactic Federation return a talent counter to my pool?
- What can a talent counter stand in for?
- Can tile reassign powers move talent counters, and can one pair with a die?
- When do I get the $1 when my credits hit zero under Ambition?
- When is a Leader die treated as a Home die?
- If a die with a $ face selects or is assigned to a different phase, does its $ still apply?
- What happens to a two-phase die when its assigned phase doesn't occur?
- Where does an orange die go if I assigned it to an Explore that no one selected while Develop was selected?
- Do Ambition's black and orange dice cost extra to recruit?
- Does Ambition change which die I must remove for 'remove a die' effects?
- How do objectives work at setup, and can I play without them?
- When are objectives claimed, and can two players claim the same one?
- Do home worlds and factions count toward objectives?
- Do virtual dice or Ship-phase shippers count for objectives checked during assignment or Reveal?
- What counts for the Committed Workforce objective?
- For Military Expansion, can the five red dice complete worlds across several rounds?
- Does settling a green world count as two for Genetic Manipulation?
- Do purple and black dice count as matching colours for the Consumer Goods objective?
- What counts as a 'power' for the Innovation Leader objective?
- Can Alien Discoveries be met with any mix of yellow dice and yellow worlds?
- How does Uplift Bio-Engineers pay out?
- How does Uplift Mercenaries count dice, and does it apply to other players' worlds?
- How many VP is Rebel Stronghold worth?
- Do faction powers like Imperium War Faction's count other players' worlds?
Roll for the Galaxy: RivalryExpansion
- Can I play Rivalry's Deal and Orb games separately, together, or with Ambition?
- How does Rivalry change the two-player game?
- Do Leader and Pioneer dice count as Home or Novelty dice?
- When does Galaxy's Edge take effect?
- When does the Alien Refining Technology swap happen, and when does Oort Cloud Refinery swap?
- Is the parenthetical sentence in the top Orb face chart entry a rule?
- How do dealers act in the Deal phase?
- How is the first Deal phase order determined?
- Is there a limit to how many dealers can stand on one side of a deal?
- Which deal die icons matter when exchanging assets, and can I rotate deal dice?
- When do deal dice return to the Open Market, and what if nobody is dealing?
- Where do dice gained in place of a tile during a deal go?
- Can I repeat deals by letting my credits reset to $1 each time?
- Can one player join both sides of the same deal to profit?
- When is a deal die removed in an asset swap?
- Can I recall dealers locked into deals?
- In what order does Manage Empire run with the Deal game?
- Does running out of VP chips during a deal end the game?
- When do I reset to $1 with Rivalry but without Ambition?
- How much is Rebel Underground, and do Mystery Monolith and Rebel Underground gain VP chips?
- Which dice does Ruler of the Empire count?
- Does Publicity Bureaus pay for both developers and settlers?
- Does a development placed by R&D Crash Program count as newly completed for bonuses such as Galactic Recycling?
- On Terraforming Guild, where does the die placed as a good on the completed world come from?
- Do Replicant Robots and an Orb -1 Settle face stack?
- Where do talent counters go when they complete a task, or when they don't?
- Can a talent counter that completes a world be removed as the settler?
- How does the Alien Orb die move around?
- Where can dice shifted by Orb powers come from?
- Do the Orb -1 and -2 cost faces still matter when talent counters exist?
- Can I research an Orb face down to the initial level, add yellow faces, or research the Clone face?
- How do clone faces, arrow faces and utility faces differ?
- Can the two upgrade points from the Orb Utility technology be split?
- What do the dots on customizable Orb die faces mean?
- Does the Production Efficiency objective count shippers created by Orb faces?