Tips bandido

Intro:

Hi world. This is a game playable with children, but at the same time it gave a lot of possibilities. Optimising the game is extremely hard. Having 70% winrate is relatively easy. Going to 90% or more goes exponentially harder. You will first read general tips about the games, then traps which is a powerful way to play around, and finally my playstyle which is extremely different than most players, but give great results.

Notation and list of tiles: https://imgur.com/XtgLkwO.

Note that even if in the base game communication is allowed, most experienced players don't communicate. You have enough options available to communicate inside the gameplay.

Gameplay Tips:

• Familiarize yourself with all the tiles as quickly as possible so you know the possibilities.
• At the beginning of your turn, select and rotate each of your tiles in o.rder to see all your options. Take care not to double-click until you are ready to commit to a placement
• Try to figure out what your teammates are attempting to accomplish. If you see a teammate laying parallel lines, try to maintain the parallel lines until a U -tile can close them. The more familiar you are with the deck, the more easily you can see your teammate(s) building an arrangement that can be resolved nicely by a few specific pieces. If the perfect piece to resolve a situation is still out there somewhere but you don't have it, try to play somewhere else and be patient. The right piece will come, or maybe your teammate already has it!

General Tips:

• In general, try to join or extend tunnels rather than splitting them: you want to be able to close 2 or 3 exits in one tile by luck by making them closer.
• If you need to play a tile that adds exits, try to align open ends in a parallel or perpendicular grouping which can then be closed or combined with complementary tiles.
• If the tunnels start to branch too much to contain, switch to using ends sparingly and strategically. An example of strategic use would be to close a tunnel that is far from all others. An example of a wasteful use would be to use a corner end or T end to simply extend a line - only do this if you are confident that someone can close the tunnel within the round.
• Remember, there are only 2 of each tunnel type and 3-torches each end type in the standard game. Keep track of what has been used and what is still available. If you need to, search the table to make sure a piece is available before you create a situation that requires a specific piece. The "wood grain" design always follows the length of the tile; this will help you distinguish each tile from adjacent tiles.
• There are only 2 I, S, and Z tiles, so joining distant exits is not likely to work.
• If there is multiple exit, you can plan ahead and plan to play another tile after it. Sometimes, you have the possibility to start by the worst tile which should tell to others that you would like to play on that part again.
• Avoid building in a confined area. That leave you less options to play your tiles, and can make the game lost if you are not careful. For more informations look at Traps below.

Advanced:

Everything noted here is what I advise before having lots of experience. There is exceptions, but the experience can make you do better decisions about following them or not:

• the game is a succession of weak moment where you play your worst tile, and strong moment where you try to win. Because of that, I advise to always keep 1 single exit in hand and one Y-torch in hand while there is 4+ exits on the board. Even if you got no good place to play, you can usually play on a safe spot, open more exits but that will give you more options in your next turn. If you see that both players do it, that mean that any time you will goes under 3 exits, you will win immediately. But having more exits give usually more options. The game is a succession of weak moments where everyone tries to have a good hand, and some strong ones when everyone tries to win the game.
• try to create various patterns. There is nothing worst than having 4 single exits far from each other and have no single exit in hand. If you got many single exit accross the board, it's very bad to create more of them.
• the Y-torch is the best tile of the game, above the one exit tile. Don't waste them without reason. If there is one exit left, I try to give one timing to my teammate to try to end the game. If I have seen they didn't kept one of the three differents one exit tile, I will not play an Y-torch on it unless I assume the odds to win are low. (instead, transforming that single exit I into an U give more options to your teammate to try to win. He could have an U and you win, he could have an Y-torch which can make the game win with yours, or you could transform it back into an I, and if he tempo, you have 5 extra chances to try to draw a 1-exit tile instead of 1 or 2).
• many 2-exits tiles don't accomplish much and are just situationnally good. But often you will just want to play them on a single exit to draw a new card and have more option during your next turn. If there is exactly one exit left you should put extremely high priority on playing your 2-exits tiles there if there is no other good space for it.
• when there is more than one single exit far from the others on the board: immediately close it at 1 player (no upside to hold your one exit tile), at 2 players, I advise you to keep one 1-exit tile in hand, and play your extra ones.
• when you got a 'three quarters of an H' usually play it on a single exit, that give more options. Exception is you already got a lot of that 'U pattern' and/or you got many single exits in hand. But still, transforming two exits close to each other into one exit is pretty bad: if you add a 3 or 4 exits tile, it will be nearly always worst on I than on a U. You can do the same with the F tiles by transforming a single exit I into an U. And you can play that same tile again to transform an U into an F. (And you can play that tile a third time but the other type to close all three exits yeah :D)
• check the F pattern below. Try to create one of each type if possible. If you keep a one torch two exit tile you will be able to play on it and create a three way trap.
• when there is three exits left: one solo I, and two in a corner and if you can close both, close the solo first, that way your teammate will play on the double and often give one exit left you can tempo by playing your other tile, and he can end the game with his solo exit.
• for experienced player, you shouldn't keep your two tiles at all times. Playing them early has the downside of making it more difficult to end the game which is really bad. But closing a solo exit can be good if there is another solo exit far away. If there is none, that can be good to give you more options. if you got a torch two exit tile, closing that exact pattern is usually bad. But if you assume your two others tiles are great to keep (there is others valuable tiles like an U, or the F), that can be good to do.
• you can communicate how strong your hand is by adding extra exits or in the contrary closing them.

Traps:

An advanced and enjoyable technique is to create a "trap"; i.e. a completely enclosed space which can only be filled by a specific tile.

This let you close everything except the trap first, then close the trap. One of the upside is that the exits which are part of the trap don't need to be closed immediately. Another one is that if you can close a trap with one of your cards, you can keep it in hand, which let you when there is only one exit left outside of the traps, make you 'pass your turn' by closing the trap, or close the single exit left, hope your teammate can't play in the trap, and then close the trap.

Traps are good early on because many tiles can fill it. More the game advance, and less traps are effectives.

When you can play a card, you must a play card.

If at any point, you got a trap of size 1x1 like presented here, or if there is no tiles remaining to fill the gap, the game is immediately lost.

If one turn before the picture was taken (i.e. without the top torch) there was 3 exits left on the picture, and I was left with three I-torches, I would be forced to play like I did on the picture, and the game would be lost.

The most common is the "3-way trap". Since tiles have 4 exits at most, in worst case, that trap will give a single exit after being filled.

Adding tiles without exits at the bottom left or the bottom right of the picture is great because it reduces the amount of 4exits tiles which can fill the trap, which make it more likely to win the game when it's the only exits left.

They must be without exits leading to the trap: if you add a single exit torch to the bottom of it, you will then be left with a 1x1 square and lose immediately.

The second most common is the "2-way trap". Far worse, many tiles can fill the gap on it while still leaving 1 or 2 exits. You shouldn't force it, but if you got a nice tile to play and create that trap, this look good.

If already one trap of that type is present, it is advisedto avoid create another one.

The third one (enclosed 2x1 trap) can have various patterns, point is, you got an empty space of size 1x2. Before doing it, you need to check if the tile missing is still present on the deck.

Note when you do a trap like this, you force one tile of that type to goes there. Which mean, if it's a valuable tile, like the one of this trap, this is usually not good.

Cards with 4 exits are usually worst than others, so doing this trap with exactly 4 exits is better.

If you got the missing tile, you shouldn't rush to play it, since it's the only tile of that type which goes there, it can be used to pass your turn. With 2 players, if at least one of the player hold into it, you are close to have all the advantage to a 5 card hand together. But if you got nothing great to play, or if your other tiles in hand are great, don't hold into it too much.

Tiles with two exits down like presented here and some exits top are usually the worst one. So when creating a trap like that, putting exits far from each other is usually better.

When you got that trap nearly fully done (5/6 parts around it) with 3 exits or less on it actually, you get some value on not closing the trap immediately. Because you can in many cases have the choice between adding an extra exit to it or not. You should try in most cases to add an extra exit, but sometimes you can close the trap by having either a single exit torch or a double exit /-torch, which gave you more liberty.

This pattern is great (one exit maybe trap), you got a single exit which lead to a 2x1 space under it. This isn't a trap, but it let you easily create the one above it.

When there is few exits left, you can either close it normally, or create a trap and play an annoying card, sometimes while leaving no new exits outside of the trap, and make the next player play.

Traps of size 2x2 are mostly safes. The probability to lose with them is really low: it's when you play a tile which make the remaining trap have no copies left, or have 5 or 6 exits.

Patterns:

And now the juicy stuff.

Note that everything on that part will be my own experience. Feel free to talk to me here: https://boardgamearena.com/player?id=84207926.

For that section, check the screen below. The part to the left of the green is called F. The exit on the right is an I. An U represent two exits next to each other and so on.

Where did that came from?

I noticed that when I got an U and many other exits, I regularly wanted to play an F like on the below picture to combine it with another card on my hand.

But those cases where pretty commun for a two tiles-combo.

I then started to play more around that potential combo, and then tried to play the other way by default. The main problem of those kind of strategy is that it can make the game lost if you are not careful. But on that specific pattern, the change to make the game lost is nearly 0% (the most commun is a T-torch, followed by an U or the bad J-torch, but note you often need all your three tiles to be like that).

Why is F extremely good?

The main strength of F is that with the best card of the game Y-torch can be played on it to create a 3way trap. That make it an excellent finisher since not only that can make you win the game.

But it make many other 3 or 4 tiles be able to either close most of them or be played in a fine way.

More you got single exits, and more creating F is valuable.

I often add an extra exit one away from any side of the F. This can be done with L or J curves.

But adding extra exits closer to that pattern is a downside to me. The IF is not something I consider to be safe: I would avoid it at close to the end, but sometimes does it if the game is far from being won. That's because single exits plays atrocely into it, the Y-torch is bad too, you can create a trap with it, but that's the only upside.

Are U good?

For a long time, I didn't put much value to the U. I still think that playing them the normal way isn't much valuable (it's good to have various pattern, but that's pretty much it).

But recently, I tried to avoid (if possible, I don't force it) playing my U tile on it to play it somewhere else. And try to transform the most I into U.

And use my fancy J to create more U and not the opposite.

That's because the F-tiles can create an F pattern above, same for the bench, two Y-torch can close it, and most 3 or 4 tiles are way better on a U than on a I.

And two single exit can still close that U.

Having a board full of U far from each other will be far better than a board full of I far from each other in my opinion.

You still need to adapt to your hand, if I got two single exit and a fancy J, then I would strongly envisage to do the opposite, but that's rare.

Often, if you got two Y-torch, using a fancy J to create an U is a strong option, sometimes above closing two exits in a /, because again that makes 3 and 4 exits be way worst. And the player who got the worst hand can be on it which is a big upside if you try to win.

The / pretty nice to end:

Another pattern to note is the / (two exits on a corner), while it usually don't survive long, that's because it's a really good one. All except one 3 exit tile can transform it into an I, and can be close with a J-torch, and is without risk (always sad when it's the one left and you change your hand, but that's not bad).

Having too many of it isn't good I think? They are really chaostic since you don't know what to expect from that exit because it's versatile (except on end game).

And the I?

And with all that I have come with the conclusion that creating I is extremely bad. Of course you still need to pass by it on many cases, but my top priority is to try to avoid them.

Playing a 4 exits tile (except beds and facebook/twitter) on an I got nearly no chance to end the game soon. While playing that same tile to the patterns above still give a good chance.

And that's it for my own part. Don't hesitate to share me differents playstyle, I didn't read much stuff coming from others on that game so needed to do everything from scratch.

To end on a good note...

Even if winning seems unlikely, play your best and don't give up. Games can be won even in the very last round with an empty deck!