Tips faraway

Your Starting 3 cards:

When you play the advanced variant you get five cards and you get to keep three. I would argue this is one of the most important parts of the game. The card's you choose will dictate the direction you head for the remainder of the game. Now, I have found that people often win when they take two high fame cards into there starting 3. Now that could be a card that just gives you something like 17 straight fame, a card that give you a lot of fame for certain wonders (symbols) such as 4 fame per clue symbol, or (my personal favorite) the cards that give you 10 points per each set of 4 different regions you have. Now, you may get one card that gives you 15 fame but requires two chimera and a thistle, and another card that gives 12 fame but requires a thistle and two stones. At first you might think that you should only keep one of them since that is a lot of symbols and might be hard to get them all, but that's most likely not true. There are two ways you can get the symbols you need, sanctuaries and cards that give you symbols. I will talk about sanctuaries later but if your high fame cards are placed early on then you could potentially have 5-7 other cards in front of it that will most likely have some or all of the requirements that card needs. Keep in mind though that stone is the most common and thistle is the least which may influence which cards you go for. Your third card should be lower than your other two in terms of duration and should have a clue symbol. You will learn why later. Now that you have your starting three cards you now have to decide which one to play first. Now you may want to put down the card that requires the most symbol first but that is not always the best choice. You also need to consider if the high fame card has a symbol that could be used for one of your other cards but more importantly is the exploration duration number at the top left. Now obviously you'll gain more fame the longer your exploration takes so all the higher exploration duration cards provide the most points. So chances are at least one of your three cards has a high duration. Playing your cards in order of shortest to longest gives you sanctuaries which are crucial for obtaining victory. All this being said there are still ways to winning that don't require high fame cards in your starting three. Another approach you can take is to try and get two or even all three cards to go after the same symbol. So for example you may get one cards that gives 4 fame per stone, another that gives 2 per stone, and another that gives 3 per stone. Going with those three cards means you'd get 9 fame per stone played after those cards. But again, here you have to look at their duration value as well as what symbols they provide to determine their order.

Sanctuaries:

Sanctuaries are crucial for success. As I said above many cards require symbols in order to score and the last thing you want is to get to your 8th card and realize that your 15 fame card isn't going to score because you didn't manage to get that thistle you needed which costed you the game. That is where sanctuaries come in. Most of the symbols you will need to fulfill each cards requirements should come from sanctuaries. The main reason for this is because symbols on sanctuaries apply to every card which can be especially helpful for cards that are played 7th and 8th. I have seen some games where a card worth a lot of fame was played last but score because the sanctuaries provided the required symbols. Now there is one big thing to consider that I didn't notice until about 40 games in and that is the importance of sanctuary color. There are both sanctuaries and cards who score a significant amount of points for having one of each of the four regions. When looking at which sanctuary to choose and you have a few good options if the one that is colored vs being grey isn't quite as good as your other choice I would go with that one. Having all four regions in your sanctuaries means that even if the last card you play is a card that scores for regions, you get 10 points. Sanctuaries can also help you pick up additional high scoring cards later in the game while providing you with the confidence that you have or will most likely fulfil it's requirements. When I first started playing I often focused too much on playing cards that would give me the symbol I needed to fulfil past requirements and I would forgo grabbing the high scoring cards when in fact by the end of the game my sanctuaries already gave me the symbols I needed and if I had picked up the high scoring card i would have succeeded in fulfilling that card's requirement too. So with sanctuaries being so important that means you should really be trying to get between 6-7 per game. That means that you can only afford to play a card lower in duration than the previous card once or twice. Now of course you can win with few sanctuaries and you should if it's the difference between playing a perfect card or not; this game is very situational. But as a general rule, you want a lot of sanctuaries. That means that you need to play your cards carefully. Looking back on your starting three cards I often play them in order from shortest to longest duration unless one card will greatly benefit from being played earlier, take a card that score based on all four regions being played for example. If that is the case, then I will often play that card first and then the other two lower cards I may play a few cards later depending on their duration value. It may be a risk that I won't get all the necessary required symbols if I play them too late, but hopefully sanctuaries and future cards will be enough.

Clues:

With how important sanctuaries are you are going to want to have a lot of options to choose from when you get the chance. If you don't have any clues played out then each time you will be relying on top decking, and trust me, you don't want to rely on top decking. Having just one clue early on is going to be a massive help. Being able to have two sanctuaries to choose from is far better than getting one randomly. This is why I said that you idealy want one of your three cards to have a clue and have a low duration so you can play it first. For the longest time I undervalued the importance of clues. I have been in games where I basically didn't get any clues the entire game and I lost pretty bad. When looking at your first three cards, or your first card to grab after that, getting a card with a clue is pretty important. Clues help you find the right sanctuary, which helps you fulfil requirements. Once you have a clue or two that can sometimes be enough to help you get all the sanctuaries you need but obviously the more clues you get the better. Many times I have been on my 8th card that granted me a sanctuary and I was able to grab the perfect one I needed to get a ton of points because I had 6 to choose from. Typically after you have one or two I wouldn't worry too much about getting more. Chances are you will naturally get a few more from either cards or sanctuaries but not focusing on them after the beginning of the game enables you to get more higher fame cards. I will say though that if you don't get a card with a clue in your first three and in your choice from the next three then you are going to really prioritize getting one as soon as possible. Unless you have all of the required symbols you need for your high fame cards early in the game, don't worry too much about it, but again, sanctuaries can still help you score quite a bit on your last played cards. So you are still going to benefit a lot from having 5-6 sanctuaries to choose from. I should add that there are also sanctuaries and cards that score for having clues so it doesn't hurt having a few clues for that reason as well.