by iNano78
I have a few comments:- 8 points on turn 1 is pretty good. *edit* Re-read your post. Sounds like you got < 8 on turn 1 and a max of 8 on a future turn. Perhaps you should have declined them earlier to increase your points per turn. See next comment.
- It's quite common to go into decline on turn 2 or 3. This way, you get to score for both an in decline and an active race as early as possible.
- Most races have a way to "counter" them. Surrounding the Drow is the way to counter them. You got countered. The fact that they got countered doesn't make them underpowered.
- Similarly, the way to "counter" Flames is to stay away from them. If people instead stayed away from Drow and camped out next to Flames, they would both seem very powerful.
- Drow are a points-scoring race (which generally wants to avoid conflict), while Flames are a conflict-oriented race. Perhaps a more conflict-oriented race better suits your play style (?).
- Not all the races and powers are equally balanced, but the game has a balancing system built in: If a race/power combo gets skipped, it starts accumulating VP tokens. At some point, the race/power combo + VP tokens will be worth taking. Midway through the game, you would almost certainly prefer ____ Drow with 3 VPs over spending a VP to take ____ Flames.