by Ranior
ligtreb wrote:
I won a 4-player game last night without taking an island or any extra boards (I filled up my main board, immigrated 4 ships and had 10 points from occupations, and won with 111 points).
So posting here to say it's very possible.
So posting here to say it's very possible.
rafaeldallabrida wrote:
So we can say...
Emmigration strategie is the better path to victory!
Who emigrates more is all the time the winner.
Emmigration strategie is the better path to victory!
Who emigrates more is all the time the winner.
So just wanted to chime in here for whomever else may be looking on. You can of course win this game without exploration as it partially depends on how well your opponents are playing and other factors. But in terms of what strategy is dominant, or what will win you more games, it is exploration.
Emigration is not the dominant strategy. Many newer players find it to be, and for good reason--it is powerful. But it's also the easiest to play well. You largely just focus on homeboard development for income and the wood/stone bonus. Then turn those bonuses and income into boats, and emigrate those boats. By the end you can have 70+ points just in boats, 18 in final income, no negatives on your home board. That way you only need a few dozen points in occupations, silver, and houses to get to 110-120 which is a nice score. It can certainly win you a game against beginner to average opponents.
But against great players that is unlikely to be enough to win, especially if you have the two islands from the mini expansion added to the game. Players who know how to maximize their income and bonuses from exploration boards quickly will be scoring in the 130s-140s.
This is probably easiest to see in a 2 player game. You could have one player playing the emigration type game with no exploration boards as well as you want, but they will probably cap out around 120 with maybe 5 emigrations, a full home board, some leftover silver, and maybe a full longhouse. The exploration player on the other hand could fill some combination of Shetland/Iceland/Newfoundloand and covering negatives on the homeboard or something like Iceland/Newfoundland and a full homeboard. This puts them at somewhere around 80 points from exploration boards and final income. They likely could have about 20 points in leftover silver. They probably have time for some combination of a total of 2 emigrations or longhouses. They will have a few leftover boats and some occupations. This will put them into the 130-140 range. It's harder to play that strategy--you really have to know how to earn tiles quickly and get them to fit on your board well to unlock bonuses and income as fast as possible. But a great player can do that and will, and they will win against am emigration focused strategy.
Ultimately it turns out that there is not a no-exploration strategy that can compete with a player who explores well.
And for sake of completeness:
ryusora wrote:
bxrrr wrote:
ryusora wrote:
Tried another solo game, no islands, no raiding/pillaging. Scored 131
Multiple immigration actions?
Yeah! The game doesnt have many sources of points so if i ignore islands the only way to score big is with emmigration basically.
I had 4 emmigrations, 2 big hut, 1 medium hut.
Even in solo no-exploration strategies can fare well but typically cap out around 130, maybe 140 as seen here. Whereas in solo the top players can fairly consistently hit 160-180 with a Shetland/Iceland/Newfoundland type strategy.