A discovery? A reaquaintance? The meeting of an old friend on the street?
You could call it any of those.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Egizia - Strategy Tips
No strategy posts for this excellent game? Wow. Well I'm certainly no expert, but if you're about to play your first or second game I can throw a few nuggets your way. Please feel free to debate or add to with any comments!
(1) If you've ever played Power Grid, you know that for the most part you should try to keep your plants = to how many you can power. Same here, try to keep your crew strength balanced and = to your stone production = to grain to feed crew. There are other ways to get stone of course, none of which are as efficient as getting stone cards, so keep em growing in a balanced manner.
(2) Always build on sphinx. No matter what, every time. Always. Not only is Sphinx good for vp, but it also gives you the crucially important Sphinx cards, which provide you directional strategy to maximize bonus vp points.
(3) When going for sphinx card strategy, try to stay focused. You should get 5 cards so you'll have a good selection. Instead of going for 3+ different strategies, focus hard on 1-2. You're going to be 'the pyramid guy' or 'the obelisk gal'. Am I saying don't build anything else? Of course not, just don't try to do every card you own, everything at once, and not end up getting everything. Every time you build it should be in the hopes of getting bonus points somewhere. If you built and just have a leftover crew that is goin to get you 2 or less random vp for no reason or n hopes of bonus points, the ship most likely would have been better used somewhere else upgrading your engine. This mostly goes for area 3, as ....
(4) Don't forget building on the middle area moves your grain and stones down 1, this is a good bonus. Build a simple 1 or 2 to nab a cheap move in the market.
(5)
(6) A 2 player game: mostly a vp race, remaining friendly for the most part, still excellent game. 3 player: tad more cutthroat, watering is moved, good cards are aggressively taken early, building taken early, be on guard. 4 player: very aggressive and cutthroat, blocking, watering and racing. Need to have your thinking cap on and really anticipate what your opponents need most and what they'll be going for. This game is absolutely different and absolutely excellent 2-4 players.
(5) The card that allows you to draw 2 extra Sphinx cards is the best card in the game and should be acquired aggressively. I repeat, that card should be valued above all others, and taken with great force. When using this card, don't forget to use a 3 crew, as the most cards you can take is 5, so > 3 is useless.
(6) When building, it's not necessarily important to be first building at the Sphinx. It's also not as neccessary to build first in the middle (graveyard and obelisk). It's more important in the pyramid, where whoever builds first in each row has an advantage in getting pyramid bonus points. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that being the 'pyramid guy' is one of the strongest strategies in the game. There are great sphinx cards for this, as well as lots of cheap blocks and places to build. General strategy, you should build the first few of each row if possible. Ensure your majority dominance, let your opponents finish the row and get you extra VP. If they don't you can always finish it up. True you can finish each row yourself, but why do that when you can aggressively get first in another row?
(7) Watering is just ok. If one person is too heavily invested in red grain, someone will do it, but for the most part (2-3 players) there's kind of a 'general understanding' where not many people are out to f your neighbor. It's tempting, but using one of your precious ships to move it isn't all that sexy. For the most part, keep your grain weighted green to brown to red. By the end of the game, maybe you have 11 green, 8 brown 6 red. What I'm saying is don't be the 'red grain' guy or you'll get watered.
(8) If you have a choice of which guy to move, it's usually good to move your joker. This is just a theory for now, not a fact, but it just seems that I'm always wanting my joker one more space to the right.
(9) The round spaces where you move two guys to the right are good. Use them a lot.
(10) The first round space, move grain/stone down 1. Meh. My first few games, I would ALWAYS play this round space first every game. Yeah my markets were moving quickly, but I guess it wasn't an efficient use of my resources. I shouldn't have to worry about paying 3 vp per unfed crew if I'm playing/feeding correctly. I shouldn't have to worry about getting extra stone if I'm playing/collecting stone cards correctly. This will happen naturally through building in the middle section, and getting random left over cards that let you move down 2. So far, I haven't seen a successful 'market strategy' where you focus your resources on moving grain and stone, and winning from that. You don't win from that, that's only a supplement, and not a very good one. And most stone spaces don't do anything, only grain does something better each move, which is why I favor that one. Again in 4 player game, these get better as stones get more scarce.
(11) The round space that lets you move a worker and get 2 stones is ok. In a 2-3 player game, just meh. In a 4 player game, everything is good, and you take what you can get. In a 2-3 player game though, there's much more efficient ways of improving stone and worker strength.
(12) Watch your opponents and what they need! Pay attention! Most people don't and will suffer for it. Also monitor their red grain development and their permanents. What will they go for next?
(13) Blocking. Blocking is an interesting subject, as you may be able to tell what someone desparately needs and are in position to block it. Again, very different depending on how many players. In a 2 player game, if opponent desparatly needs grain, and there's only one grain, feel free to take it, as you probably need it to. Everything gets blocked in a 4 player game. 3 player just make the most efficient move for you that you need. Let player B block player C.
(14) Building bonus. In the rulebook, it mentions bonus points for 'cooperatively' building. This is kinda misleading as it's just a bonus for building.
Let's talk about optimal building strategy. You'd think that building in all 3 spaces all 5 rounds is the right move. It's definitly one way to do it, 6 points is sexy, and after 100 games, I may say that it's the Only Way to go. However kinda like Dominion, my opinion is that you should take the first round to build your engine.
First round: Always sphinx, maybe/probably middle (if you have corresponding sphinx card) and skip the third. Why? You should be heavily investing in moving crews up, feeding them, and getting stones. I think Stones > Feeding > Crews, if we're looking at number of options to do so (this isn't proven just a feeling after 8 games), however investing in your engine first round will tenfold in future rounds.
Round two: Always sphinx, definitely one of the other two areas, maybe all three if you have corresponding sphinx cards. If both of your sphinx cards are the gravestones, then maybe skip area 3 and again focus heavy on area two, using that other ship that normally would have been in building space to upgrade crews, food, or stones.
Roune three - five: Build on all 3 for sure if you can.
That's about all I have right now, I'm sure I'll think of more. This is a great game, hope it catches on!
BGG's HauRuck:
zenmazster wrote:
No strategy posts for this excellent game?
I WAS keeping them all to myself! But having played about a dozen games now with varying ranges of players I'll now comment on your most excellent post:
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(1) If you've ever played Power Grid, you know that for the most part you should try to keep your plants = to how many you can power. Same here, try to keep your crew strength balanced and = to your stone production = to grain to feed crew. There are other ways to get stone of course, none of which are as efficient as getting stone cards, so keep em growing in a balanced manner.
Agreed on all counts. Though I will add that getting stone cards isn't an absolute necessity. Primarily in 2-Player Games were someone keeps thinking AH-HA I screwed you again by taking them all themselves. By doing so they are likely overlooking maybe other good choices and leeping too far ahead. Be patient, play more ships than them. Get the two extra stones on the round space each round, maximize the stone market and make other stones that way. I've still won games with zero stone production past the starting until a late turn where I had 6 total. Though I admit its harder and certainly not ideal.
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(2) Always build on sphinx. No matter what, every time. Always. Not only is Sphinx good for vp, but it also gives you the crucially important Sphinx cards, which provide you directional strategy to maximize bonus vp points.
Disagree kind of. I think you should "ALWAYS TRY" to build on the sphinx. But in reality the only way to guarantee you can is to skip everything before it and thats just not always a good idea. A good green food card, a good stone production card, certainly the +2 sphinx card and likely some others situationally would still be good choices over skipping to the sphinx. If your lucky you can still play on it.. If not your building a better engine for next turn. What you should never do is miss it two turns in a row though. And if you DO skip it try to place on the other two build sites so you still score at least the 3 CO-OP building points rather than just a measily 1 (Which would put you 5 behind someone building at all 3!).
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(3) When going for sphinx card strategy, try to stay focused. You should get at least 5 cards if you're playing correctly, so you'll get a ton to choose from. Instead of going for 3+ different strategies, focus hard on 1-2. You're going to be 'the pyramid guy' or 'the obelisk gal'. Am I saying don't build anything else? Of course not, just don't try to do every card you own, everything at once, and not end up getting everything. Every time you build it should be in the hopes of getting bonus points somewhere. If you built and just have a leftover crew that is goin to get you 2 or less random vp for no reason or n hopes of bonus points, the ship most likely would have been better used somewhere else upgrading your engine. This mostly goes for area 3, as ....
Agreed. But some of your strategy tips seem to very much lean towards 2-player games. Outside of those it can sometimes be very difficult to even have advanced your crew much the first couple rounds. So it can be more important to save the better crews to still be able to build elsewhere since the Sphinx can be satisfied with 1 or 2 and still work towards a good CO-OP bonus. Remember if you build on all 3 your CO-OP bonus is 6 VP. Some Sphinx cards are only barely worth that much and only IF something gets done (and often something not entirely in your control).
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(4) Don't forget building on the middle area moves your grain and stones down 1, this is a good bonus. Build a simple 1 or 2 to nab a cheap move in the market.
Agreed. One reason why I almost always skip the first round space with the market moves. I'm more likely to get to play on the Sphynx and I can get the market moves in less risky other ways such as this one.
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(5) I think the grain market is strictly better than the stone market. Yes trading in stones at the end is nice, but if you're playing optimally, you probably used all of your stones in building 5th round anyway, and most likely won't have any left over. Getting 3 stones is ok, but getting 2 vp is better. On the other hand, I think stones may have the edge in a 4 player game, since stone cards are harder to come by.
TOTALLY DISAGREE. Ok admittably I thought this for my first half dozen games but I know strongly follow a stone market tactic. The first problem with your logic is in not treating stones as VP. They are. They are worth exactly 1.5 VP at the end of the game (or even 3 VP if you get to spend them in game). So your getting the flexibility of 1.5-3VP vs a fixed 2VP. That flexibility may help you get CO-OP BONUS VP or SPHINX BONUS VP as well. Ideally you advance both markets but if its one or the other I'll take the stone. The only reason to take grain is if your repeatedly getting screwed on grain cards but I've seldom had that happen soon enough that it matters.
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(6) A 2 player game: mostly a vp race, remaining friendly for the most part, still excellent game. 3 player: tad more cutthroat, watering is moved, good cards are aggressively taken early, building taken early, be on guard. 4 player: very aggressive and cutthroat, blocking, watering and racing. Need to have your thinking cap on and really anticipate what your opponents need most and what they'll be going for. This game is absolutely different and absolutely excellent 2-4 players.
Agreed. I've played all 3 types equally and not sure that I have any preference for the number of players. They are all somewhat different games and enjoyable to me.
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(5) The card that allows you to draw 2 extra Sphinx cards is the best card in the game and should be acquired aggressively. I repeat, that card should be valued above all others, and taken with great force. When using this card, don't forget to use a 3 crew, as the most cards you can take is 5, so > 3 is useless.
Agreed. Powerful enough its house-rule banned by many players and also as an option in the online version. I would always take it if you can and I would jump the sphynx to take it if it were on the next space or two. However its real strength is only overstated perhaps against newer players. If playing experienced players they can just deny you playing on Sphynx at all as much as possible. To counter that be careful not to have the most points if you take the +2 card. You might find you can never actually USE IT!
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(6) When building, it's not necessarily important to be first building at the Sphinx. It's also not as neccessary to build first in the middle (graveyard and obelisk). It's more important in the pyramid, where whoever builds first in each row has an advantage in getting pyramid bonus points. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that being the 'pyramid guy' is one of the strongest strategies in the game. There are great sphinx cards for this, as well as lots of cheap blocks and places to build. General strategy, you should build the first few of each row if possible. Ensure your majority dominance, let your opponents finish the row and get you extra VP. If they don't you can always finish it up. True you can finish each row yourself, but why do that when you can aggressively get first in another row?
TOTALLY AGREE. First doesn't matter at Sphinx. First DOES matter at obelisk usually first turn because there are so many easy snatches (1's and so on). But after that it doesn't. Pyramid is totally the way to go before your sphynx cards say otherwise and I will always try for pyramid sphinx cards if I can. The pyramid has bonuses of its own which can usually be quick rewarding if others are only casually playing on it. For one who focuses on it and the cards its a huge tilt.
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(7) Watering is just ok. If one person is too heavily invested in red grain, someone will do it, but for the most part (2-3 players) there's kind of a 'general understanding' where not many people are out to f your neighbor. It's tempting, but using one of your precious ships to move it isn't all that sexy. For the most part, keep your grain weighted green to brown to red. By the end of the game, maybe you have 11 green, 8 brown 6 red. What I'm saying is don't be the 'red grain' guy or you'll get watered.
Agreed. Honestly even -3 points here or there isn't a big deal. If that lets you play on just one more building space you get your 3 VP back in CO-OP points so I always develop crews and don't worry so much if I can feed them all or if someone will screw me. Equalize as best you can but don't overdue it. Also I don't think the "Evil Doer" strategy really works in this game. If you have occasion to play on the watering spaces without risking something else only then do so and go ahead and move the track if its of no relevance to your personal situation. But I wouldn't go out of my way to skip a more developing action for your own plays just to try to screw others. Early on they won't likely even be over enough that it'll matter much.. Later on the penalties likely won't be enough to really matter either... vs what your otherwise sacrificing..
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(8) If you have a choice of which guy to move, it's usually good to move your joker. This is just a theory for now, not a fact, but it just seems that I'm always wanting my joker one more space to the right.
DISAGREE. I played this way at first too. But its less optimal IMHO. You get a better range of values to move your crews and have a 1,3,and 5 crew with a 2 or 3 joker. That sort of thing. Also there are a bunch of VP cards for the regular crews in the SPHYNX deck.
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(9) The round spaces where you move two guys to the right are good. Use them a lot.
DISAGREE. This is more like 2-Player game advice. There just aren't enough opportunities to do this in 3+ without losing something more valuable. Far better to get the card that gives you a free advancement each turn, the one that converts stone to crews, or even the one that gives you two of your choice free, or often the space that gives you two stone and your choice. Probably a word choice thing but I would say "Whenever you can play on the round spaces..." but then again is there really any space you wouldn't play on? The whole beauty in the game is chosing risk/reward and while any space should be played on if you can, the round spaces with 2 guys aren't particularly necessary ones in games with larger players.
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(10) The first round space, move grain/stone down 1. Meh. My first few games, I would ALWAYS play this round space first every game. Yeah my markets were moving quickly, but I guess it wasn't an efficient use of my resources. I shouldn't have to worry about paying 3 vp per unfed crew if I'm playing/feeding correctly. I shouldn't have to worry about getting extra stone if I'm playing/collecting stone cards correctly. This will happen naturally through building in the middle section, and getting random left over cards that let you move down 2. So far, I haven't seen a successful 'market strategy' where you focus your resources on moving grain and stone, and winning from that. You don't win from that, that's only a supplement, and not a very good one. And most stone spaces don't do anything, only grain does something better each move, which is why I favor that one. Again in 4 player game, these get better as stones get more scarce.
UNSURE what the advice is. I think your saying to skip the first round space. And there I agree per the Sphynx strategy above its best to limit the number of plays before playing on the sphynx and this round space just isn't powerful/necessary enough.
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(11) The round space that lets you move a worker and get 2 stones is ok. In a 2-3 player game, just meh. In a 4 player game, everything is good, and you take what you can get. In a 2-3 player game though, there's much more efficient ways of improving stone and worker strength.
AGREE. But I find myself using it quite a bit even in 3player games. Maybe its due to screwage or maybe its just that I need 1 more crew so as not to go over what I can feed and thats still suitable to build whats needed. I think its also because I "fish ahead" more than others so by the time I get to that area I have more time to kill before playing the pyramid.
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(12) Watch your opponents and what they need! Pay attention! Most people don't and will suffer for it. Also monitor their red grain development and their permanents. What will they go for next?
AGREE. Particularly if they are playing screwage strategy on stone production. In a way it can be a good bluff on their part. Steal them all then when they have 12 production and you have next to none assume you will jump ahead half a track just to nab one. Of course I never really do that as I've found other ways to win if they keep the screwage up to unnacceptable levels.
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(13) Blocking. Blocking is an interesting subject, as you may be able to tell what someone desparately needs and are in position to block it. Again, very different depending on how many players. In a 2 player game, if opponent desparatly needs grain, and there's only one grain, feel free to take it, as you probably need it to. Everything gets blocked in a 4 player game. 3 player just make the most efficient move for you that you need. Let player B block player C.
AGREED. In 4 Player games I leave it to the others for all the screwage. I optimize my plays for myself. My screwage mostly comes in the way of noticing X player building the obelisk all by himself and figuring I'm not going to help as he obviously has a stack of Sphynx cards for it so I just play graveyard instead.
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(14) Building bonus. In the rulebook, it mentions bonus points for 'cooperatively' building. This is kinda misleading as it's just a bonus for building.
AGREED. Heck yeah I wish I could strike that word from the rulebook as new players are getting confused that this is somehow a Cooperative EuroGame or something silly like that. But on the topic you should NEVER EVER play less than two building sites a turn. I don't think i've ever done that and won. You could score 5 VP playing 1 site a round vs 15 VP for 2 sites per round vs 30 VP for 3 sites per round. 2 sites as a minimum with an occasional 3 generates enough to win (This means 2-3 rounds scoring 3 sites).
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Let's talk about optimal building strategy. You'd think that building in all 3 spaces all 5 rounds is the right move. It's definitly one way to do it, 6 points is sexy, and after 100 games, I may say that it's the Only Way to go. However kinda like Dominion, my opinion is that you should take the first round to build your engine.
100 games eh? I think you mean 10. I do absolutely agree with this per my comments above. And while I still try to build 2 in the first turn (sphynx always and often the obelisk to nab the cheapy spaces) I will easily sacrifice doing so in a 4player game if it lets me "build the engine". In best cases everyone races on the first turn and gets maybe 4 ships or so placed while I sit back patiently playing my full allottment.
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First round: Always sphinx, maybe/probably middle (if you have corresponding sphinx card) and skip the third. Why? You should be heavily investing in moving crews up, feeding them, and getting stones. I think Stones > Feeding > Crews, if we're looking at number of options to do so (this isn't proven just a feeling after 8 games), however investing in your engine first round will tenfold in future rounds.
AGREED and further agree with the STONES->FEEDING->CREWS priority.
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Round two: Always sphinx, definitely one of the other two areas, maybe all three if you have corresponding sphinx cards. If both of your sphinx cards are the gravestones, then maybe skip area 3 and again focus heavy on area two, using that other ship that normally would have been in building space to upgrade crews, food, or stones.
AGREED. But I avoid OBELISK cards. I just don't see the 8th and 9th level built enough. Nor do I see the graveyard finished enough. On the contrary I see temple and pyramid cards complete far more often.
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Round three - five: Build on all 3 for sure if you can.
AGREED!
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That's about all I have right now, I'm sure I'll think of more. This is a great game, hope it catches on!
You forgot to mention to always nab at least one graveyard space to get the intro bonus. Or the card that comes out round 5. This is a better play than a obelisk space (unless your sphynx cards say otherwise) and in general is less likely to help other players as well.
How about a list of what pyramid cards to take in order of preference (Sure current situation matters as well as number of players but all else aside)
Here is a shot a my order of preference:
FINAL SCORING (?VP) - During Final Scoring 1VP for each 10VP Your Score is
PYRAMID (8VP) - 7 Stones in Pyramid
PYRAMID (6VP) - 6 Stones in Pyramid (Combo with above)
VARIETY BUILD (10VP) - 2 Stones in Pyramid, Temple, Obelisk, & Graveyard
TEMPLE (6VP) - 4 Stones in Temple (Too Easy)
OBELISK (7VP) - 4 Stones in Obelisk (Too Easy only if you build there turn one)
TEMPLE (6VP) - 1 Column Built
GREEN FIELDS (6VP) - Most Productive Green Fields
YELLOW FIELDS (7VP) - Most Productive Yellow Fields
QUARRIES (7VP) - Most Productive Quarries (Slightly harder to ensure vs fields)
TEMPLE (10VP) - 2 Colums Built (Good combo with above but have occasionally blown this one so prefer the 1 Column)
OBELISK (7VP) - 7th Level of Obelisk Built
GRAVEYARD (?VP) - 1VP for each stone in graveyard
OBELISK (9VP) - 5 Stones in Obelisk (Nearly Impossible if you didn't get the first cheapy spaces at bottom).
PERMANENT (?VP) - 2 VP per PERMANENT Card Taken.
OBELISK (9VP) - 8th Level of Obelisk Built (Seen this happen maybe once)
PYRAMID (9VP) - Pyramid Completely Built (Just don't see this happening often)
GRAVEYARD (9VP) - Graveyard Completely Built (Saw all but one once)
OBELISK (11VP) - 9th Level of Obelisk Built (Have NEVER seen this hence the 11VP)
MARKETS (7VP) - You reach the last level in both markets (In anything other than 2 player games I just don't find enough time/benefit to focus on both markets without huge sacrifices elsewhere)
GRAIN MARKET (?VP) - Number of Players who reach last level (Not enough VP in smaller games..too uncontrollable in larger ones)
STONE MARKET (?VP) - Number of Players who reach last level (Same as above).
STONE MARKET (4VP) - You reach the last level (Why take when there are so many other ways to earn 4VP? Virtually any of the above are a better gamble.)
GRAIN MARKET (4VP) - You reach the last level
RED FIELDS (8VP) - Most Productive Red Fields (I NEVER take red fields and can't see doing so just for this card. On the otherhand if I had extra plays and red fields were near the end of the track I might have ended up with one and of course then this card could make sense)
CREWS x 4 (?VP) - 1VP per crew space of x type (I'll take this as an absolute last resort if it matches up with a crew I already have very high but never vs another as in 3 and 4 player games crews just don't go high enough on average.
So, in very very generic terms that breaks approx. down to:
1. FINAL SCORING BONUS CARD
2. PYRAMID
3. TEMPLE
4. FIELDS/QUARRIES
5. OBELISK
6. GRAVEYARD
7. FINISHED BUILDINGS
8. MARKETS
9. CREWS
And for a last simple strategy tip: ALWAYS LET ME WIN!!
Monday, August 6, 2012
Manoeuvre
Manoeuvre
- Stolen from BGG
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/399409/quantitative-breakdown-of-manoeuvre
About a year ago, my best friend and I had a Bacchanalian weekend full of Manoeuvre, culminating in our starting to break apart the game quantitatively, as a step towards handicapping the different armies in very precise ways. Well, as so many of these sort of projects go, we never got back to it after that first big push. So, rather than wait to make further progress that will never happen, I'm going to just share the spreadsheet we created with the community. While we didn't get to finish our full analysis, I think you will find even the raw data very worthwhile:http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/41703
A few high-level takeaways from our work are below. I don't claim to be a super expert, but I have played a couple/few dozen games and won a tournament at GMT West a year or two ago:
1. There is a fairly clear pecking order between the different armies, in a few different groupings. We sensed this pretty accurately during play, but looking at it quantitatively added more depth and concreteness, along with some surprises, to the assessment:
(In order, the below numbers are averages representing: Full Strength per Unit, Reduced Strength per Unit, Movement per Turn, Attack, Defense):
France - 6.625, 3.75, 1.25, 7.5625, 5.2
Great Britain - 6.625, 3.375, 1.25, 7.625, 5.225
Note: France is just a hair better, but these two are evenly matched. Neither has a weakness, and they are significantly better than all the other powers.
Russia - 6.25, 4.875, 1.25, 6.75, 4.9231
Note: A strong third that is a clear step better than those below it, the Russians are incredible resilient (far the best Reduced Strength of any army) makes them one of the most fun powers to use (along with the Ottomans) to try extreme tactical approaches that are optimized for them specifically.
Ottoman Empire - 6.625, 3.5, 1.5, 6.5625, 3.825
Prussia - 6, 3.5, 1.25, 7.0313, 4.55
Note: The Ottomans are a blast to play with all their cavalry and an extremely strong and straightforward hand of cards. They also have a strong Full Strength army. Prussia is fairly balanced - albeit a little weak on Full Strength - but have two strong cavalry that can create big problems when used well.
Spain - 6.125, 3.875, 1.25, 5.8438, 5.225
Austrian Empire - 6.25, 3.25, 1.25, 6.0294, 4.05
United States - 6, 3.375, 1.125, 6.2188, 4.525
Note: These three are all miserable, with no notable strengths. Spain's best asset is their defense (both in rating and redoubt cards); Austria is the most plain-vanilla army in the game with little of distinction; the United States is just plain awful. Although, playing their Ambush cards can prove enjoyable!
We wanted to do a formal handicapping of the armies to allow for ongoing competitive play, but it really requires quantitively interpreting the HQ cards which we did not get around to. It would be a great project for someone else to pick up.
2. The best general strategy around playing your cards is to cycle through them as quickly as possible. Of course there are times when you want to coordinate a couple of cards for a decisive and critical attack. But in general, the more you are "doing" the better off you will be.
When you draw two or three cards for that weak infantry sitting in A2 (chess notation) and there are no antagonists one or two squares away, just discard them and try to get cards more relevant to the action. Not only are you wasting moves and meaningful opportunities for tactical manoeuvre if you try to bring them up for an attack, not only are you "blocking" yourself from drawing cards that might correlate to more vital pieces that can have an immediate impact and cause trouble for your opponent, but you will almost certainly not succeed with your lumbering attack.
Why? Because any opponent with a pulse is going to catch on to your slow advance and know you are coming up to use attack cards! Thus, they will be prepared for your attack and likely negate it in one way or another. Why bother?
The beauty of cycling through cards is that a much higher percentage of your plays cause trouble for your opponents and make them worry about countering you as opposed to executing their plan. In addition, by cycling through the deck quickly you get ANOTHER PULL at the deck. Whereas a slow-moving opponent will only get a maximum of five unit cards for their best piece, if you get into your deck a second time you will get up to TEN cards for your best unit!
Sure, you get more cards for your weak units as well. But since you're cycling quickly, you really don't care. I've heard some players talk about the "advantage" of being the last to exhaust your deck, to be able to "decide" when nightfall happens. Rubbish. As Sun Tzu said, "Opportunities multiply as they are seized." Plodding through the deck - especially at the end of the game - is going to leave you vulnerable to being outmanoeuvred, turn after turn after turn.
3. Cavalry with good Pursuit numbers are devastating. Not visible in the above analysis is the impact of Pursuit (France and Great Britain are the strongest here, then Prussia, then Ottoman, then Austria. The cavalry of the other armies all have inconsequential pursuit numbers.
Why is Pursuit such a Big Deal? A good player in this game will "feint" smartly, positioning themselves to take attacks that are under 2-to-1 and retreat, in order to force their attacker into a poor board position where there can be a better counter-attack. Cards with a pursuit of 1-4 or 1-3 (and, to a lesser degree, 1-2) make it much harder to retreat strategically. It forces the defender to stand and fight more often (weakened, no less).
This is another aspect we wanted to better quantify. The math wouldn't be too difficult but would also need to incorporate the two movement of the cavalry as well (making strong Pursuits even more powerful) in order to compare a pursuit attack with a conventional attack.
4. Unless you're a good, experienced player, beware of redoubts. I'm quite convinced redoubts are the worst card in the game for most players, unless you're lucky enough to draw them toward the end of your deck when nightfall is approaching in order to entrench. People treat redoubts like they have Superglue on them. Once a redoubt is down, players feel compelled to "stick" the unit in them, not wanting to "waste" the defense. This can be a big problem, for a few reasons:
- Players hold the cards for the unit in the redoubt for DEFENSE purposes, hoping to "surprise" an attacker and flip them on an attack. The problem is, most players simply ignore the unit in the redoubt for much of the game, targeting more accessible units instead. That means that cards for the unit in the redoubt are jamming up the hand of the player and preventing their other units from making attacks. At some point, they will get frustrated and just attack out, thus losing the redoubt. They should have simply done that from the beginning.
- Players don't take advantage of holes in their opponent's lines that simply stepping out of the redoubt would create. "Cannot. Leave. Redoubt." Even with experienced players, I've found I can treat the redoubt largely like a lake square and leave gaping holes in my back lines. Sure, you can't get too cocky and get 3-way surrounded including the redoubt (that can get ugly) but other than putting yourself in position for a coordinated attack, in my experience you can march around the redoubt as if it were a stump in the ground and it is unusual the opponent makes you pay for it.
- The redoubt is a magnet for an OVER attack. Opponents will see a redoubt and treat it like a magnet for a coordinated attack. Before long, that +3 defense bonus is bloodily negated as two or three units attack in unison, hitting it a lot harder than they even need to. Why? Because the redoubt LOOKS intimidating. Sure, the +3 makes a difference, but the psychological impact on inexperienced attackers has a much greater impact. It is usually an either/or, so if your opponent isn't just ignoring your redoubt for a while (typically more experienced players), they are coming after it with enough firepower to potentially do a lot more than just flip your unit (typically inexperienced players).
Personally, I generally use the redoubt as a blind, either attacking out of it if the opponent is ignoring me, or proactively attacking with that unit or others if the opponent is subtly trying to knock me out.
Alright, that's all the Manoeuvre strategy I have in me tonight. I hope you find the spreadsheet worthwhile, and your mileage may vary on my strategy points. While I believe everything I said, the emphasis and sarcasm is for your entertainment purposes only.
Onward!
Dirk
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I won't claim to be the best Manoeuvre player (still sitting at 4 wins and 5 losses), but the fact that this game baffles me a bit has me thinking about it a lot. One of the critical elements to master is proper hand management. Unlike many other card-driven games, your Manoeuvre turn starts with a discard phase in which you can ditch up to your entire five-card hand to pull new ones from your deck. This element is made more interesting by the nightfall rule. If one player fails to kill five of his opponent's units, the game ends when the second player exhausts his deck. The first, once he's cycled through everything, just reshuffles and keeps going. If you add the optional "experienced/optional" rule, then there's even more to consider; you get to run through your deck at setup and pick your starting hand.
Manoeuvre DeckAll of this begs the question: is it usually better to play your hand conservatively, letting the cards dictate your movements on the board, or is it better to play the hand aggressively, and discard often to pick up the best cards? After reflection and discussion with Mike, Dad, and Joe, I don't think this is really an either/or thing. Instead, it's dictated by the situation and what country you're playing. Certain countries are more defensive in nature, and it seems best to set up good defensive positions and hold onto cards for those units. On the other hand, there are countries that really benefit from aggressive play and lots of discarding (the Ottomans, specifically, with all their cavalry and pursuit rolls). With these considerations in mind, here are a few of my thoughts:
* Early Game: If you're playing with the "pick your starting hand" rule, pick a hand that will allow you to knock out an enemy unit quickly. This offers you more options while making some of your opponent's cards worthless. Once you've done that, usually it's time to discard quickly and set up a few more nasty assaults with your strong units.
* Mid Game: If you find yourself ahead on the unit kill count, continue to discard aggressively and go for the attrition win. If you've suffered some losses, slow it down and discard more carefully. If he over-extends himself, it's time to discard aggressively again and counterattack.
* Late Game: Much like the mid-game, if you find yourself ahead by quite a few units, go for the attrition win. However, if it's a close run thing, position yourself to control the most squares; this usually means not discarding as much. If this is the case, this will allow you to control the end of the game (when, as the second player, you reach the bottom of your deck).
There is also a strong relationship between hand management and initial placement. This was pointed out to me in a BGG thread; essentially the author's strategy is to place weaker units in the back row and discard any of their cards when they come up. This strikes me as sensible--less agonizing over what to discard early on. I'd love to hear comments on this--Manoeuvre is definitely a game I'm still learning.
John
Margin of Victory blog
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Well, there are not so many startegy posts here, so I'll try to point out what I've learned from my several Manoeuvre plays.
Keep in mind that I could be wrong, so feel free to add your own experience!
Setup strategy for all nationality EXCEPT Ottomans and armies facing Ottomans:
As a rule of thumb placing units on the row closer to the middle of the map is good: in that way you are closer to the zone where points are awarded at the end of the game if night falls.
If I'm going first and thus I place units first, I'll try to move units as fast as possible and make them sit in good terrain, such as villages and hills in the middle of the map. Soon those places will be heavily contested, so gaining the upper hand is good! Plus, if you're able to entrench there, that can only be better.
I often use forced marches and supply as a way to move additional units and faster than my opponent, BUT don't overstretch yourself!
Moving a calvalry 3 squares can be dangerous, even if you moved on good terrain. It will take a LONG time to reinforce it, and the opponent will soon attack it from many sides. I've lost MANY units in this way, so be careful. Cavalry don't have good defensive cards, and are your best tool for attacking and eliminating units ( thanks to their pursuit rolls ), so keeping them on the defensive is both a waste and a risk of losing your unit due to the lack of good defesive cards.
I don't use to place ALL the 8 units on the "front" line, I often keep two of them as "reserve", to fill in the gaps or ( hopefully ) exploit the gaps my cavalry will create, so often I place them at right behind horses ( that can be dangerous in other ways, though! Dung anyone? ).
Ottomans are quite different to play with and against. Their extra cavalry makes them VERY fast and able to encircle, fill in gaps, conquer key terrain and roam in the enemy territory, so I like to put all the 8 units in the front line.
I use this same strategy to oppose Ottomans, creating a line of 8 pieces hoping to soak up the enemy's attacks and not conceding gaps in my line.
Feel free to add your own opinions!
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