Thank you very much for having me, Sam! It was an extremely special, interesting and fun experience. My apologies for my at times too silent audio. Unfortunately the connection seemed to also had suffered at times, so some key words were lost. In our next video I will definitely speak louder, with clearer pronounciation and make sure I am at all times talking directly into the microphone. Last but not least, if any viewer has any question(s) or anything wasn't entirely clear, please feel free to ask in the comments section. I am sure we are both very happy to reply. After the video, I realized a couple of important concepts, that I missed explaining. We wanted to keep the video length as short as possible and not totally overwhelm the audience with way too much information at once. Stay tuned for our next collaboration.
@@davidme123 Yes, only 2 player on BGA. I feel the game is much deeper at this player count with so many interesting tactical decisions. But I enjoy playing 4-player as well. It doesn't play totally different to 2-player imho. It's much less tactical and a bit more strategic at 4-player, while being more forgiving with much less blocking, because it's not zero sum. I do think 3-player is the worst out of the 3 options, but still can be great fun. I think, there are just more (accidental) king-making situations though. e.g. First player plays strategy A, 2nd player plays Strategy B and the losing player C is either playing similarly to player A (very good for B and very bad for A) or player C plays similarly to player B (very good for A and very bad for B)
I have been hurt pretty badly by board 1 today. I have tried starting in the middle and in the 6 spot of the 3 castle region. Mines are a big problem on his board. Buildings and yellow tiles I did pursue. But the biggest problem with this board is region poins are hard to get. This board has left a bad reputation in my mind.
@@Pistol_Star I had to google what the difference between "tactical" and "strategic" is since I thought they were basically the same thing. Learned something new as to the use of those terms, LOL!
For a while i found myself coming back and back to this video! Now i find myself sharing it with others who i face and think would benefit from it! This is truly a must watch for anyone wanting to get better!
I appreciate all the tips and strategies for popular games on BGA. I feel extra thankful because a lot of good players don’t want to share their knowledge. Thanks so much!!!
I have watched a couple of your videos here. I love this strategy based content! I have noticed that you suggest prioritizing Boats, Mines, and Castles. Is there an order in which you prioritize these or is it mostly situational? Also, are there any yellow monastery tiles that you prioritize even more when they come out? For example, in my group of newbie players, we have been prioritizing the monastery that allows for your workers to bump your die pips twice with one single worker. When this tile comes out, we all jump at it (this may be a newbie move).
It will vary a bit based on player count and what stage of the game it is. Stages A-C Mines help you out so much. I would look to get them first most of the time. In 2 player games I would prioritise Boats next, but this may be less important in 4p games. Then Castles are good throughout the game as they truly only cost 1 action to take and place while completing a small region. It’s also a good idea to get an “economic” yellow tile early. The super worker tile is okay. Pistol Star loves the tile that gives you a silver when you take 2 workers. I like the tile that makes your mines produce workers each stage. You could consider an economic yellow tile roughly equal with a Mine or Boat in Stage A and then getting slightly worse as the game progresses. Glad you’re enjoying the content!
Whoa, this is an awesome channel you've got here! Pistol Star linked me this video - i'm the person who started that BGG thread you referenced. He & i have talked quite a bit about this game as well as 7 Wonders Duel, and i'd say he's my board gaming sensei haha. Great job here with some points even i had never fully realized after countless hours playing ranked!
Very glad you made that original thread! Without it I probably would have never made that first CoB video. Pistol Star is very insightful and generous with his time. It's always a pleasure to talk with him!
Hey Josh! I totally agree with you. This channel is a true gem. Just as Sam, I also want to thank you once again for starting that thread back in the days. It was the initial stepping stone and ultimately lead to this video series.
It's interesting to know that it took so much time for a game expert to notice the positioning of the numbers on the player boards. I've only played the game maybe 20 times, but I've noticed this just after a few plays.
I'm already an Expert on BGA but I found this very informative - there's so much to learn! I came here for help on Board 10, my worst nemesis with like 1/3 my usual win rate. Glad that most of the analysis shows that I wasn't doing anything particularly wrong, it's just an absolutely horrendous board with horrible number duplication and poor access/branching in general. Still, I picked up some tips that'll hopefully elevate me to the next level!
I definitely MUCH prefer playing games where everyone has the same board, for this reason. Same with Ark Nova, some maps are just so much better than others. In a digital format it is definitely the fairest to all players.
Very nice video. You are generally playing symmetrical boards. This is balanced in that both players have the same strength of board, but it seems from your commentary that it causes a lot of benefit to first player as both players are looking for the same things. How much would your strategies change when playing with random mixed boards?
I haven't played a lot with mixed boards, but I guess my strategy wouldn't change much. Both players will still want the big 3 (mines, ships, castles) on any board. There may be some differences later in the stage when those tiles are gone, but you can already have players going for different things on the same board (animals vs yellow for example). I agree that first player can often have a big advantage with a good opening roll. But I've also been in plenty of games where the second player gains the ship lead at the end of stage A and is able to maintain it for the rest of the game.
I almost never play CoB 2p, because our group likes it so much it's almost always 4. Interesting to hear a lot of these strats that revolve around 'matching' for castles, boats and single regions. I'm sure it's applicable in higher player counts, but feels much more complicated if a couple people get ahead of you on turn order early.
Yes, if all boats are gone in Phase A and you end up on 0 boats, then it will be very difficult at any player count. In general though, you can play the style shown in the video at any player count with a couple tweaks here and there. Boats, mines and castles are very powerful at all player counts. Early mines always and with castles it depends on the board, how strong they are. But they are nearly always very strong as well. Boats are super powerful at all player counts. If you have like no chance regarding boats, you could play with let's say only 3 boats until the end of the game. Then still fight for early mines and castles, if given the chance. Besides that, you could for example focus on strong early yellow economic tiles and then either follow a yellow + building strategy with nearly all your buildings scoring via a few 4 points per building tiles (you would need at least 3+ cities for that strategy or yellow tile 1). Alternatively, you could go for an animal strategy focusing from the start on the first 4 points animal of any type showing up (don't play a full animal strat on 3+3 pastures). In non top level games, you could even try yellow + building + an animal strategy, without many boats. You would need some early economic tiles to help you on the way to pull it off and opponents who would not really pay attention in Phase E on what you try to pull off :) In 4 player games the color bonuses are even more important than in other player counts, because of the higher points gained/blocked, while the third and 4th player finishing a color will end up with 0 color bonuses. Keep in mind, that the color bonuses are already incredibly important in 2 player games, because they score a ton of points for 0 actions. If you do not play an animal strategy, because the board is more suited towards a building + yellow strategy, make sure to early on focus on specific top tier buildings if possible, which you then want to score heavily with the corresponding yellow tiles for maximum points per played tile. I would very much look forward for 1. boarding houses 2. town halls 3. Bank
Hello Great video as usual :-), by any chance are you willing sometime to check some matches in order to spot the errors we did, as I do have some that i do not understand where i did the mistake that lead to lose the game
Glad you like! Sadly I don't have the time to look at individual games. If you have access to the stats on BGA they can be very telling. I'd look at how many incomplete regions you finish the game with, as well as how many times you took workers.
Just heard the mind blowing fact ! wooow. indeed, mind blowing, I never discover this before !! Wonder if the board from extensions (lall named 11 i think: 11a, 11b, etc.) respect this rule.. I will need to check :) Talking outside BGA here, what do you think about the different extensions ? Did you try them ? which is your favorite ? (talking to both of you ;))
All boards, except a promo board follow this rule. 11a-h used to be 13a-h before the 2019 edition. Then there are boards 10a-10h, as well as 2 german championship boards. One of these german championship boards had a seperate promo version with slightly differing numbers. I have tried most expansions. I love the trade routes, the cloisters, the new player boards 10a-10h, the 2 championship boards, the solo boards and the 4 new hex tiles (wild goats, park, Sequential Order Yellow Tile and the buy workers with a silverling yellow tile, even though all 4 new tiles are extremely strong). I also had great fun playing the shields expansion, even though there is one shield, which is extremely overpowered. It turns 1 of your 2 dice each turn into a number of your choice. You will obviously always choose the worse of the 2 rolled dice and that is extremely broken :) You can create so many powerful combos and block opponents. You can also easily get doubles rolled for extra shields, etc. :) The White Castle (Pleasure Garden) expansion is welcome as well, so there are a total of 9 unique buildings (10 with the park, 11 if you also count the cloisters). But the white castle seems to me to be the by far weakest building. I love the monastery boards expansion idea, but a lot of the 11a-h boards are imho horrific designs. It's probably not possible to design that many good and balanced boards, so I do think it's not a surprise that the newer the boards on average, the "worse" the designs. I think I would prefer the monastery rule to be an option for boards 1-10, 11a-h as well as for the 2 championship boards. I think that "7th color" brings in a lot more to the game. I especially like the updated monastery rule. I absolutely adore the Special Edition vineyard expansion. I obviously couldn't try it out yet, but I have huge hopes for that one. I haven't tried out the team game yet. I hope that the Special Edition will one day make it's way to Boardgamearena :) Hard to say what my favorite expansion is. Probably trade routes, but I expect the vineyard expansion to take the crown very soon. What is your favorite expansion?
Didn't played all the extensions yet. I agree with you, the boards 11 are really ugly :/ but the monastery was fun to play. The black new tiles are really good and powerfull. The white castle give some extra option. Didn't played the shields but yes by reading the different powers, i felt like something not well balanced... The cloisters bring a new interesting dynamic to maximize score when finishing a region. The trade routes are interesting , you need to think more to sell at the good moment with this one... and have a litle luck to have the good colors...
@@flolem05 I absolutely agree, that there is a little luck involved with the trade routes. Some colors are just better than others. The order of colors is also a bit important. The cloisters are especially nice for the 2nd player who can't be blocked much at all anymore, which is very interesting. It gives both players more options on what strategies to follow. And yes, you can make these cloisters score massively, if used correctly.
Board 8 - it’s generally considered as the strongest board. You have a nice big region of animals with lots of small regions that are easy to complete. You can do pretty much any strategy and score well with this board.
I agree with board 8 being a good board for beginners. Board 2 is another beginner board, which is also quite friendly to new players. I would also recommend board 5 for beginning players. It's actually my favorite board :)
I feel a bit disappointed after hearing all these. It seems that there isn't too much difference between the boards regarding the main strategy. Going for boats and mines seems the mandatory movement for all of them. The buildings seems a trap in most cases, but their comboing abilities are the most interesting part of the game. Not to mention that the majority of the tiles are buildings. So, in conclusion, if you want to enjoy the most interesting part of the game, you'll probably lose most of your plays. Am I right or did I miss something?
It’s probably not as extreme as you think. It’s true trying to complete all 12 buildings is often a trap, but they are still useful and provide important tactics throughout the game. Every game I’ll grab at least 2, sometimes 8, sometimes all 12. Then there’s boards like board 7 where buildings are quite good. On board 5 buildings can be effective and boats not mandatory. There’s subtle differences between them all. Then on top of that it’s also a play style difference. Former #2 player Forza Binda plays a heavy building style game, and he managed to reach over 700 ELO that way.
33% (4/12) of the main tiles are buildings in each phase. 40% of the black market consists of buildings. That translates into 1.6 of the 4 black market tiles in each phase being buildings. So 35% or 5.6/16 tiles are buildings. So the majority of tiles are not buildings. Now imagine, if buildings would be at every stage of the game on par with other rarer tiles. That would lead to your dice rolls having no real meaning, because all tiles would be pretty much equally good. The game must have at different stages of the game better and worse tiles or the game would be very boring as decisions wouldn't matter much at all. The better tiles must be on average rarer, because the rarer tiles are on average waaay more expensive than the common tiles. This doesn't mean that the rarer tiles are always better than the more common tiles. It depends on the game stage, what each player is doing, on which board they are playing and what dice rolls they have. A stronger tile which costs 2 or 3 Workers is often (way) worse than a weaker tile which costs 0 workers. Those are one of the interesting decisions you have to make. Also calculating in your opponent's dice rolls. "Is this tile 2+ workers better than that tile?" / "My opponent precicely rolled for tile X, is it worth it to take this tile away from them for the cost of y workers?" etc. There are a couple of really strong buildings like the boarding house, the town hall, an early bank and even the warehouse is often a good tile. The market, the church and the carpenter's workshop can be very strong as well in a number of situations. The Watchtower is a strong end game tile. Buildings are on average getting slightly stronger, the later the game stage is, but they are depending on your dice rolls mostly at every stage of the game (very) viable options. For me, buildings are for the most part fast connectivity tiles and also tactical tiles. Boats, which do not lead you to be at least on par with your opponent(s) in the boats mini game or which give you a 3 or 4 boat lead can often also be (very) bad picks. They are also mostly very bad picks, when your opponent can not possibly take 2+ boats in their turn to get the turn lead back/being on par with you. Buildings are nearly never totally ignored (less than 1%) and going for all 12 buildings is often a very viable play on boards 2, 4, 5 and 7. That's 40% of the boards. Actually, the last game I played was against another Master and we both finished 12 buildings on board 4! Plus with yellow tile 1 in game it becomes a viable and often (very) strong strategy on all of the boards to complete all 12 buildings. I think, that is a rough 50% rate of 12 buildings being a (very) competitive option. Isn't that great? If it was great in 100% of games, then where are the decisions and analyses we have to make? Mines are fantastic production tiles early on, so it's natural that we have to quite heavily focus on them in the early game. On the other hand are they often extremely weak, when played in the late stages of the game. Boats are important to not let your opponent get uncontested first picks for the rest of the game. Once you let your opponent get a 2+ boat lead and they pick up 1 boat per phase, the remaining boats for yourself are very bad. So it's not like picking up boats and mines every time. Not at all. I sometimes also surrender on boats and pick up other stuff instead. I had 3-4 games on board 6 (6 boat region), where I always totally gave up on boats and I won all of them! Including 1 game, in which my opponent took away my last boat(s), so I was stuck at 5 boats in a 6 boats region. I also won that game and my opponent was an expert player. Summary: Yes, there are types of tiles, which are on average more contested, as it should be. But taking these aggressively comes with a (great) cost. That is the balancing act of the game.
Thank you very much for having me, Sam! It was an extremely special, interesting and fun experience.
My apologies for my at times too silent audio. Unfortunately the connection seemed to also had suffered at times, so some key words were lost.
In our next video I will definitely speak louder, with clearer pronounciation and make sure I am at all times talking directly into the microphone.
Last but not least, if any viewer has any question(s) or anything wasn't entirely clear, please feel free to ask in the comments section. I am sure we are both very happy to reply.
After the video, I realized a couple of important concepts, that I missed explaining.
We wanted to keep the video length as short as possible and not totally overwhelm the audience with way too much information at once.
Stay tuned for our next collaboration.
Do you only play 2-p on BGA?
@@davidme123 Yes, only 2 player on BGA. I feel the game is much deeper at this player count with so many interesting tactical decisions.
But I enjoy playing 4-player as well. It doesn't play totally different to 2-player imho.
It's much less tactical and a bit more strategic at 4-player, while being more forgiving with much less blocking, because it's not zero sum.
I do think 3-player is the worst out of the 3 options, but still can be great fun. I think, there are just more (accidental) king-making situations though.
e.g. First player plays strategy A, 2nd player plays Strategy B and the losing player C is either playing similarly to player A (very good for B and very bad for A) or player C plays similarly to player B (very good for A and very bad for B)
I have been hurt pretty badly by board 1 today. I have tried starting in the middle and in the 6 spot of the 3 castle region. Mines are a big problem on his board. Buildings and yellow tiles I did pursue. But the biggest problem with this board is region poins are hard to get. This board has left a bad reputation in my mind.
@@Pistol_Star I had to google what the difference between "tactical" and "strategic" is since I thought they were basically the same thing. Learned something new as to the use of those terms, LOL!
@@MaryJoSminkey I am glad you've learned something new. I have to admit that I too did not know the difference a couple years ago :D
For a while i found myself coming back and back to this video! Now i find myself sharing it with others who i face and think would benefit from it! This is truly a must watch for anyone wanting to get better!
I appreciate all the tips and strategies for popular games on BGA. I feel extra thankful because a lot of good players don’t want to share their knowledge. Thanks so much!!!
You're welcome Nikki! I'm super glad for this video too because I'm also trying to master Castles of Burgundy!
I have watched a couple of your videos here. I love this strategy based content! I have noticed that you suggest prioritizing Boats, Mines, and Castles. Is there an order in which you prioritize these or is it mostly situational?
Also, are there any yellow monastery tiles that you prioritize even more when they come out? For example, in my group of newbie players, we have been prioritizing the monastery that allows for your workers to bump your die pips twice with one single worker. When this tile comes out, we all jump at it (this may be a newbie move).
It will vary a bit based on player count and what stage of the game it is. Stages A-C Mines help you out so much. I would look to get them first most of the time. In 2 player games I would prioritise Boats next, but this may be less important in 4p games. Then Castles are good throughout the game as they truly only cost 1 action to take and place while completing a small region.
It’s also a good idea to get an “economic” yellow tile early. The super worker tile is okay. Pistol Star loves the tile that gives you a silver when you take 2 workers. I like the tile that makes your mines produce workers each stage. You could consider an economic yellow tile roughly equal with a Mine or Boat in Stage A and then getting slightly worse as the game progresses.
Glad you’re enjoying the content!
Whoa, this is an awesome channel you've got here! Pistol Star linked me this video - i'm the person who started that BGG thread you referenced. He & i have talked quite a bit about this game as well as 7 Wonders Duel, and i'd say he's my board gaming sensei haha.
Great job here with some points even i had never fully realized after countless hours playing ranked!
Very glad you made that original thread! Without it I probably would have never made that first CoB video.
Pistol Star is very insightful and generous with his time. It's always a pleasure to talk with him!
Hey Josh! I totally agree with you. This channel is a true gem. Just as Sam, I also want to thank you once again for starting that thread back in the days. It was the initial stepping stone and ultimately lead to this video series.
It's interesting to know that it took so much time for a game expert to notice the positioning of the numbers on the player boards. I've only played the game maybe 20 times, but I've noticed this just after a few plays.
You have a good eye! Honestly I would have never noticed.
I'm already an Expert on BGA but I found this very informative - there's so much to learn! I came here for help on Board 10, my worst nemesis with like 1/3 my usual win rate. Glad that most of the analysis shows that I wasn't doing anything particularly wrong, it's just an absolutely horrendous board with horrible number duplication and poor access/branching in general. Still, I picked up some tips that'll hopefully elevate me to the next level!
I definitely MUCH prefer playing games where everyone has the same board, for this reason. Same with Ark Nova, some maps are just so much better than others. In a digital format it is definitely the fairest to all players.
Very nice video. You are generally playing symmetrical boards. This is balanced in that both players have the same strength of board, but it seems from your commentary that it causes a lot of benefit to first player as both players are looking for the same things. How much would your strategies change when playing with random mixed boards?
I haven't played a lot with mixed boards, but I guess my strategy wouldn't change much. Both players will still want the big 3 (mines, ships, castles) on any board. There may be some differences later in the stage when those tiles are gone, but you can already have players going for different things on the same board (animals vs yellow for example).
I agree that first player can often have a big advantage with a good opening roll. But I've also been in plenty of games where the second player gains the ship lead at the end of stage A and is able to maintain it for the rest of the game.
Are workers usually used in the first round so that you're able to get key picks?
Usually yes, to either get a mine or boats. I would say the most common time to use workers is in the 1st turn of each stage.
I almost never play CoB 2p, because our group likes it so much it's almost always 4. Interesting to hear a lot of these strats that revolve around 'matching' for castles, boats and single regions. I'm sure it's applicable in higher player counts, but feels much more complicated if a couple people get ahead of you on turn order early.
Yes, if all boats are gone in Phase A and you end up on 0 boats, then it will be very difficult at any player count.
In general though, you can play the style shown in the video at any player count with a couple tweaks here and there.
Boats, mines and castles are very powerful at all player counts.
Early mines always and with castles it depends on the board, how strong they are. But they are nearly always very strong as well.
Boats are super powerful at all player counts. If you have like no chance regarding boats, you could play with let's say only 3 boats until the end of the game.
Then still fight for early mines and castles, if given the chance.
Besides that, you could for example focus on strong early yellow economic tiles and then either follow a yellow + building strategy with nearly all your buildings scoring via a few 4 points per building tiles (you would need at least 3+ cities for that strategy or yellow tile 1).
Alternatively, you could go for an animal strategy focusing from the start on the first 4 points animal of any type showing up (don't play a full animal strat on 3+3 pastures).
In non top level games, you could even try yellow + building + an animal strategy, without many boats. You would need some early economic tiles to help you on the way to pull it off and opponents who would not really pay attention in Phase E on what you try to pull off :)
In 4 player games the color bonuses are even more important than in other player counts, because of the higher points gained/blocked, while the third and 4th player finishing a color will end up with 0 color bonuses. Keep in mind, that the color bonuses are already incredibly important in 2 player games, because they score a ton of points for 0 actions.
If you do not play an animal strategy, because the board is more suited towards a building + yellow strategy, make sure to early on focus on specific top tier buildings if possible, which you then want to score heavily with the corresponding yellow tiles for maximum points per played tile.
I would very much look forward for 1. boarding houses 2. town halls 3. Bank
Hello Great video as usual :-), by any chance are you willing sometime to check some matches in order to spot the errors we did, as I do have some that i do not understand where i did the mistake that lead to lose the game
Glad you like! Sadly I don't have the time to look at individual games. If you have access to the stats on BGA they can be very telling. I'd look at how many incomplete regions you finish the game with, as well as how many times you took workers.
@@NoWondersTV Great thanks for reply, no worries I do undersdantd !!! really appreciate your videos and thanks for all the job !
Just heard the mind blowing fact ! wooow. indeed, mind blowing, I never discover this before !!
Wonder if the board from extensions (lall named 11 i think: 11a, 11b, etc.) respect this rule.. I will need to check :)
Talking outside BGA here, what do you think about the different extensions ? Did you try them ? which is your favorite ? (talking to both of you ;))
I believe all the boards follow the same number pattern :)
I have only played the base game personally!
All boards, except a promo board follow this rule. 11a-h used to be 13a-h before the 2019 edition. Then there are boards 10a-10h, as well as 2 german championship boards.
One of these german championship boards had a seperate promo version with slightly differing numbers.
I have tried most expansions. I love the trade routes, the cloisters, the new player boards 10a-10h, the 2 championship boards, the solo boards and the 4 new hex tiles (wild goats, park, Sequential Order Yellow Tile and the buy workers with a silverling yellow tile, even though all 4 new tiles are extremely strong).
I also had great fun playing the shields expansion, even though there is one shield, which is extremely overpowered. It turns 1 of your 2 dice each turn into a number of your choice.
You will obviously always choose the worse of the 2 rolled dice and that is extremely broken :)
You can create so many powerful combos and block opponents. You can also easily get doubles rolled for extra shields, etc. :)
The White Castle (Pleasure Garden) expansion is welcome as well, so there are a total of 9 unique buildings (10 with the park, 11 if you also count the cloisters).
But the white castle seems to me to be the by far weakest building.
I love the monastery boards expansion idea, but a lot of the 11a-h boards are imho horrific designs.
It's probably not possible to design that many good and balanced boards, so I do think it's not a surprise that the newer the boards on average, the "worse" the designs.
I think I would prefer the monastery rule to be an option for boards 1-10, 11a-h as well as for the 2 championship boards.
I think that "7th color" brings in a lot more to the game. I especially like the updated monastery rule.
I absolutely adore the Special Edition vineyard expansion. I obviously couldn't try it out yet, but I have huge hopes for that one.
I haven't tried out the team game yet.
I hope that the Special Edition will one day make it's way to Boardgamearena :)
Hard to say what my favorite expansion is. Probably trade routes, but I expect the vineyard expansion to take the crown very soon.
What is your favorite expansion?
Didn't played all the extensions yet. I agree with you, the boards 11 are really ugly :/ but the monastery was fun to play.
The black new tiles are really good and powerfull.
The white castle give some extra option.
Didn't played the shields but yes by reading the different powers, i felt like something not well balanced...
The cloisters bring a new interesting dynamic to maximize score when finishing a region.
The trade routes are interesting , you need to think more to sell at the good moment with this one... and have a litle luck to have the good colors...
@@flolem05 I absolutely agree, that there is a little luck involved with the trade routes. Some colors are just better than others. The order of colors is also a bit important.
The cloisters are especially nice for the 2nd player who can't be blocked much at all anymore, which is very interesting. It gives both players more options on what strategies to follow.
And yes, you can make these cloisters score massively, if used correctly.
which one boards better for new players? exclude 1
Board 8 - it’s generally considered as the strongest board. You have a nice big region of animals with lots of small regions that are easy to complete. You can do pretty much any strategy and score well with this board.
I agree with board 8 being a good board for beginners. Board 2 is another beginner board, which is also quite friendly to new players. I would also recommend board 5 for beginning players. It's actually my favorite board :)
I feel a bit disappointed after hearing all these. It seems that there isn't too much difference between the boards regarding the main strategy. Going for boats and mines seems the mandatory movement for all of them. The buildings seems a trap in most cases, but their comboing abilities are the most interesting part of the game. Not to mention that the majority of the tiles are buildings. So, in conclusion, if you want to enjoy the most interesting part of the game, you'll probably lose most of your plays. Am I right or did I miss something?
It’s probably not as extreme as you think. It’s true trying to complete all 12 buildings is often a trap, but they are still useful and provide important tactics throughout the game. Every game I’ll grab at least 2, sometimes 8, sometimes all 12. Then there’s boards like board 7 where buildings are quite good. On board 5 buildings can be effective and boats not mandatory. There’s subtle differences between them all.
Then on top of that it’s also a play style difference. Former #2 player Forza Binda plays a heavy building style game, and he managed to reach over 700 ELO that way.
33% (4/12) of the main tiles are buildings in each phase. 40% of the black market consists of buildings. That translates into 1.6 of the 4 black market tiles in each phase being buildings. So 35% or 5.6/16 tiles are buildings. So the majority of tiles are not buildings. Now imagine, if buildings would be at every stage of the game on par with other rarer tiles. That would lead to your dice rolls having no real meaning, because all tiles would be pretty much equally good. The game must have at different stages of the game better and worse tiles or the game would be very boring as decisions wouldn't matter much at all. The better tiles must be on average rarer, because the rarer tiles are on average waaay more expensive than the common tiles. This doesn't mean that the rarer tiles are always better than the more common tiles. It depends on the game stage, what each player is doing, on which board they are playing and what dice rolls they have. A stronger tile which costs 2 or 3 Workers is often (way) worse than a weaker tile which costs 0 workers. Those are one of the interesting decisions you have to make. Also calculating in your opponent's dice rolls. "Is this tile 2+ workers better than that tile?" / "My opponent precicely rolled for tile X, is it worth it to take this tile away from them for the cost of y workers?" etc.
There are a couple of really strong buildings like the boarding house, the town hall, an early bank and even the warehouse is often a good tile. The market, the church and the carpenter's workshop can be very strong as well in a number of situations. The Watchtower is a strong end game tile.
Buildings are on average getting slightly stronger, the later the game stage is, but they are depending on your dice rolls mostly at every stage of the game (very) viable options. For me, buildings are for the most part fast connectivity tiles and also tactical tiles.
Boats, which do not lead you to be at least on par with your opponent(s) in the boats mini game or which give you a 3 or 4 boat lead can often also be (very) bad picks.
They are also mostly very bad picks, when your opponent can not possibly take 2+ boats in their turn to get the turn lead back/being on par with you.
Buildings are nearly never totally ignored (less than 1%) and going for all 12 buildings is often a very viable play on boards 2, 4, 5 and 7. That's 40% of the boards. Actually, the last game I played was against another Master and we both finished 12 buildings on board 4! Plus with yellow tile 1 in game it becomes a viable and often (very) strong strategy on all of the boards to complete all 12 buildings. I think, that is a rough 50% rate of 12 buildings being a (very) competitive option. Isn't that great? If it was great in 100% of games, then where are the decisions and analyses we have to make?
Mines are fantastic production tiles early on, so it's natural that we have to quite heavily focus on them in the early game. On the other hand are they often extremely weak, when played in the late stages of the game.
Boats are important to not let your opponent get uncontested first picks for the rest of the game. Once you let your opponent get a 2+ boat lead and they pick up 1 boat per phase, the remaining boats for yourself are very bad. So it's not like picking up boats and mines every time. Not at all. I sometimes also surrender on boats and pick up other stuff instead.
I had 3-4 games on board 6 (6 boat region), where I always totally gave up on boats and I won all of them! Including 1 game, in which my opponent took away my last boat(s), so I was stuck at 5 boats in a 6 boats region. I also won that game and my opponent was an expert player.
Summary:
Yes, there are types of tiles, which are on average more contested, as it should be. But taking these aggressively comes with a (great) cost. That is the balancing act of the game.
Video is great, but the sound is awful