T&E principles
Feb. 27th, 2004 04:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerCounting the near-finished game I've got well in hand, my record so far in Tigris & Euphrates online is 4 wins out of 6 games. Here's some principles I believe I've been following, some I've just recently gotten conscious of.
-Hold back red and blue leaders and wait for opportunities to play them in kingdoms that already have some red or blue tiles. People sometimes play red without a red leader to bolster their defense against internal conflict. Merging treasures always adds a red tile as a side effect. People sometimes play blue without a blue leader to connect treasures or to cause a conflict across the river -- or even just to collect points through their black leader (usually foolish, in my opinion).
-The "put off the red leader" strategy also tends to accumulate red tiles in hand, so I tend to either make or fend off a 3 or 4 red tile attack in the first half of the game.
-Play green and black leaders early and get green and black tiles onto the board rather than spending them from hand in early conflicts. Since there's little opportunity to "acquire territory" for these colors, this is statistically the best way of having a larger kingdom than your neighbors. In particular, if you control the largest green kingdom with good temple defense, you're virtually guaranteed two treasures by the end even if you never reach for them.
-Build catastrophe-proof rather than rushing for treasures. This costs me very little in treasure-acquisition, and saves me immensely when I've become the catastrophe-target. Catastrophe-proof can be making all my arms two tiles wide, or connecting through "loops" so that each leader has two different paths back to the main body.
-For protecting yourself from getting your supporters separated by external conflicts, remember the following. If you're confident one leader will not lose an external conflict, then you're confident that his adjoining temples will not leave the board either. Ergo, connecting tiles of other colors through those temples is safe.
-I rarely build monuments. Mostly I see them as a way of weakening your own position -- four tile-plays with no supporters to show for it, attracting conflicts and catastrophes, and in the long run generating more points for my opponents than myself. I've only built one monument in these 6 games and it was a mistake. I can certainly see building monuments in the endgame to get the extra swing of a couple points, not caring if it gets taken away. But in general I see more people winning by stealing monuments than by building them.
An interesting side note is that I consistently get crushed when I play this game in person. Based on their profiles, I beleive the people I'm playing online are *more* experienced than the in-person folks. Something interesting going on there!
-Hold back red and blue leaders and wait for opportunities to play them in kingdoms that already have some red or blue tiles. People sometimes play red without a red leader to bolster their defense against internal conflict. Merging treasures always adds a red tile as a side effect. People sometimes play blue without a blue leader to connect treasures or to cause a conflict across the river -- or even just to collect points through their black leader (usually foolish, in my opinion).
-The "put off the red leader" strategy also tends to accumulate red tiles in hand, so I tend to either make or fend off a 3 or 4 red tile attack in the first half of the game.
-Play green and black leaders early and get green and black tiles onto the board rather than spending them from hand in early conflicts. Since there's little opportunity to "acquire territory" for these colors, this is statistically the best way of having a larger kingdom than your neighbors. In particular, if you control the largest green kingdom with good temple defense, you're virtually guaranteed two treasures by the end even if you never reach for them.
-Build catastrophe-proof rather than rushing for treasures. This costs me very little in treasure-acquisition, and saves me immensely when I've become the catastrophe-target. Catastrophe-proof can be making all my arms two tiles wide, or connecting through "loops" so that each leader has two different paths back to the main body.
-For protecting yourself from getting your supporters separated by external conflicts, remember the following. If you're confident one leader will not lose an external conflict, then you're confident that his adjoining temples will not leave the board either. Ergo, connecting tiles of other colors through those temples is safe.
-I rarely build monuments. Mostly I see them as a way of weakening your own position -- four tile-plays with no supporters to show for it, attracting conflicts and catastrophes, and in the long run generating more points for my opponents than myself. I've only built one monument in these 6 games and it was a mistake. I can certainly see building monuments in the endgame to get the extra swing of a couple points, not caring if it gets taken away. But in general I see more people winning by stealing monuments than by building them.
An interesting side note is that I consistently get crushed when I play this game in person. Based on their profiles, I beleive the people I'm playing online are *more* experienced than the in-person folks. Something interesting going on there!
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 05:17 am (UTC)Tigris & Euphrates makes a lot more sense. Sounds like you're enjoying it.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 05:23 am (UTC)If you don't play your red leader, do you play defensive temples anyway?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:30 am (UTC)Defensive temples are unnecessary if all other spots bordering temples are blocked by tiles, which sometimes I manage.
And yes, once in a while, I will play a defensive temple even though I don't get the point, or the point will go to an opponent who isn't weak in red. But only to defend a leader who has enough supporters I think it won't be kicked off by an external conflict. And of course I first consider if I want to plop my red leader in that kingdom first.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 07:15 am (UTC)Thus leading you to prefer online playing over in-person, to my sorrow ... :-{
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Date: 2004-02-27 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-27 11:22 am (UTC)