Board Game Arena - User contributions [en]

Tips viticulture

2021-07-14T20:23:44Z

Eleon:

During the game:

Get Aging: It's tricky to fulfill some contracts without high value wine and it doesn't matter how good your vineyard, that means you need to age the wine. If you can get a vine out and grapes harvested in the first two years at the latest then you can start aging. Turn one is great, but rarely will this wine be more than a 1.

Lots of Wine: This is a game about exporting wine and lots of it. You need lots of grapes to do that - especially if you are making blush or sparkling which will require combinations of grapes. I always prefer making lots of wine through the game, rather than relying on the big value sale to make the win.

Balance Visitors: I like to keep a balance between summer and winter workers, but if I know I am going to play winter workers (two of them with 3+ players) then I will probably have 3 in my hand that winter to pick the best two. This is a bit of luck mitigation / maximization but I find this helps.

Train Early & Often: I always focus on enough money and a worker to train. It's important to get the workers out and be able to take actions to build the engine. This also means that the free worker is important early game, but the more workers you have the less important that is.

Start Filling Contracts: It's tough to fulfill a contract but the earlier you can the better your chances. It's tough to get more than one worker on the "fill contract" slot in the late game, so an early contract is valuable. Don't miss out later though, once you start to fulfill you need to keep it at about one a turn. Best guess, 4-5 years in and you should be completing a contract a turn.

It's a Race: Don't lose sight of the race in all aspects. Players will be optimising and you can block their moves if you can predict them. Help build your way to victory and watch how the other players are going about it!

Early Vine or Worker: Early in the game, I find it helpful to take the player order spot which either gives you a worker (because of it's impact at the start) or the Vine. The Vine is earlier in the round (only no bonus can go earlier!) and the wine can help you get aging quicker or produce higher value wine.

Tour Money; If you are going to take money, you get more from doing the tour in the summer than the money action in the winter. Try to plan your winter workers and use spare to get more money through the tour.

Yoke when Busy; If this board gets busy and it gets hard to harvest in the winter, the yoke can allow you to harvest on your own board and then go straight for making wine. I find this a powerful way to get to score on a crowded board.
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A More Aggressive Play Style:

Turn 1:

I view the strongest start to be to sell one plot of land, and aim to buy two workers on turn 1 (or turn 2 if blocked from buying them turn 1). This also means that the first two slots of the wake-up chart are critical. It is rarely worth having more than 2 plots as the extra effort to get them all harvested is not worth it.

Turn 2 - 5:

I find number of wine tokens is WAY more important than the level of the wine. The best contracts take blush or champagne, and since these take 2 or 3 grapes, it is trivial to get them to level 7-9. So with this in mind I always try to make sure each plot has a red and white grape in them, and the two plots I have, the white/red in one plot have a different strength than the other.

Turn 3-4:

You will need to have at least a medium cellar (I like having larger as well). The contracts that need just 1-3 wine strength are normally not worth doing.

In General:

I do not like to make wine without having contracts unless I need room to harvest more grapes. A wine made with no order is a waste of 2 to 3 actions.

The game will end fast. I have seen (and done) 15 points in one turn, so the moment people have a couple of grapes and are around 4 to 5 points, the game could end. There is normally a fight for fulfilling wine orders at the end of the game. This means that sometimes is it good to have a few good yellow/blue visitor cards that earn points (a bit of luck getting them).

Mana/Papa: The two best ones in my mind are the one that gives an extra worker, or the cottage. A jump on extra actions or visitor cards can be a major boost.

Tips teotihuacan

2020-06-11T16:49:47Z

Eleon:

I did not see a hints page for this game as yet, so I figured I would give a few hints.
For starting titles, I like to make sure I get at least 2 to gold and a worker in range of the tech tree set up. The best time to have a tech is before you need to use it, and the sooner you get the tech the more likely others buying after you will give you a few points (while the points are not too much overall, they can edge out a win in a close game).

The technology tiles are very powerful, are getting a few of them on turn one and/or turn two is rather important.

If the level 1 tech that gives one more resource per resource tile is in game, it is almost always a good buy.

Resources are very important, but only up to the amount you need to buy stuff before the end of the game. Ending the game with a ton of extra resources normally means a game lost. I have won many games where I barely got my last "buy" in with other players sitting on 15 resources and just not in position to get to the buy point titles (pyramid, Nobel house, steps) . The temptation to do the 1 then 2 then 3 die on a resource is very strong, but if you do not have the time to spend them, all you have done is waste 3 turns. A lot of the time it is better to get a few resources and spend them right away than try to horde a lot and try to get them all spent. This is of course also based on how many turns are left in the game.

The game will go much faster than expected, and always keep an eye out for other players with the “extra aging” tech or just lots of 4 and 5 dice sitting on the board. With one or two well placed moves they can cut 2 to 3 turns off the eclipse (per player) in one turn. I have seen an eclipse last only 4 turns because of all of the deaths.
Never count on having the number of turns shown before scoring. I always assume it will be at least 2 shorter for the first eclipse, and sometimes as many as 4 less for the next two.
The “pay all coco free” titles are very powerful and can be used to pay for workers. This lets you have level 4 and 5 workers and pay them all for free (from 3 to 8 coco).

You always (most fo the time) want to kill your 4 and 5 workers before the end of the eclipse for cheaper workers and nice bonuses.

I personally think trying to get masks is a trap. Even with the temple bonus of scoring masks again, I have yet to see anyone win with this strategy. You just do not have the control over which masks you can get with the random factor, and even at max masks, they just are not THAT many points.

The pyramid is worth more on the first eclipse by a rather large amount (4 extra points per buy). If you can get 4 of them on year one, that is 4 * (1 + [0-4]+4) which is an average of 28 points as well as a possible few temple bumps for more resources, coco, or points. I personally feel it is worth at least 40 points with all of the bonuses you get. If you get the tech that gives free temple bumps on pyramid buys, that is a hard tactic to counter (other than doing it better).

By careful of the allure of getting the 4th dice. If you are planning on locking a lot of dice or have need of some really easy to get 3 dice resources, or builds, then it can be worth it. I personally have almost never found a good use for it unless I am locking dice (something I am more likely to do with the expansions, which are not on this site as yet).

I hope these hints have been helpful. They are by no means all of the hints, but for a beginner, I think they are all solid until you get a few games under your belt and can adapt some of the more complex other paths to victory.

Another small hint. It is best to level up your "1" dice on the thing like building (steps, tech, ext), as the number on the dice do not matter. A "1" really hurts any combo of dice on resources, so always try to use "2-5" for those as the rewards are so much better.

Tips teotihuacan

2020-06-11T16:48:41Z

Eleon:

I did not see a hints page for this game as yet, so I figured I would give a few hints.
For starting titles, I like to make sure I get at least 2 to gold and a worker in range of the tech tree set up. The best time to have a tech is before you need to use it, and the sooner you get the tech the more likely others buying after you will give you a few points (while the points are not too much overall, they can edge out a win in a close game).

The technology tiles are very powerful, are getting a few of them on turn one and/or turn two is rather important.

If the level 1 tech that gives one more resource per resource tile is in game, it is almost always a good buy.

Resources are very important, but only up to the amount you need to buy stuff before the end of the game. Ending the game with a ton of extra resources normally means a game lost. I have won many games where I barely got my last "buy" in with other players sitting on 15 resources and just not in position to get to the buy point titles (pyramid, Nobel house, steps) . The temptation to do the 1 then 2 then 3 die on a resource is very strong, but if you do not have the time to spend them, all you have done is waste 3 turns. A lot of the time it is better to get a few resources and spend them right away than try to horde a lot and try to get them all spent. This is of course also based on how many turns are left in the game.

The game will go much faster than expected, and always keep an eye out for other players with the “extra aging” tech or just lots of 4 and 5 dice sitting on the board. With one or two well placed moves they can cut 2 to 3 turns off the eclipse (per player) in one turn. I have seen an eclipse last only 4 turns because of all of the deaths.
Never count on having the number of turns shown before scoring. I always assume it will be at least 2 shorter for the first eclipse, and sometimes as many as 4 less for the next two.
The “pay all coco free” titles are very powerful and can be used to pay for workers. This lets you have level 4 and 5 worker and pay them all for free (from 3 to 8 coco).

You always (most fo the time) want to kill your 4 and 5 workers before the end of the eclipse for cheaper workers and nice bonuses.

I personally think trying to get masks is a trap. Even with the temple bonus of scoring masks again, I have yet to see anyone win with this strategy. You just do not have the control over which masks you can get with the random factor, and even at max masks, they just are not THAT many points.

The pyramid is worth more on the first eclipse by a rather large amount (4 extra points per buy). If you can get 4 of them on year one, that is 4 * (1 + [0-4]+4) which is an average of 28 points as well as a possible few temple bumps for more resources, coco, or points. I personally feel it is worth at least 40 points with all of the bonuses you get. If you get the tech that gives free temple bumps on pyramid buys, that is a hard tactic to counter (other than doing it better).

By careful of the allure of getting the 4th dice. If you are planning on locking a lot of dice or have need of some really easy to get 3 dice resources, or builds, then it can be worth it. I personally have almost never found a good use for it unless I am locking dice (something I am more likely to do with the expansions, which are not on this site as yet).

I hope these hints have been helpful. They are by no means all of the hints, but for a beginner, I think they are all solid, until you get a few games under your belt and can adapt some of the more complex other paths to victory.

Another small hint. It is best to level up your "1" dice on the thing like building (steps, tech, ext), as the number on the dice do not matter. An "1" really hurts any combo of dice on resources, so always try to use "2-5" for those as the rewards are so much better.

Tips teotihuacan

2020-06-09T16:11:41Z

Eleon: Some beginner tips and a few thoughts on how the game plays and get a good score.

I did not see a hints page for this game as yet, so I figured I would give a few hints.
For starting titles, I like to make sure I get at least 2 to gold and a worker in range of the tech tree set up. The best time to have a tech is before you need to use it, and the sooner you get the tech the more likely others buying after you will give you a few points (while the points are not too much overall, they can edge out a win in a close game).

The technology tiles are very powerful, are getting a few of them on turn one and/or turn two is rather important.

If the level 1 tech that gives one more resource per resource tile is in game, it is almost always a good buy.

Resources are very important, but only up to the amount you need to buy stuff before the end of the game. Ending the game with a ton of extra resources normally means a game lost. I have won many games where I barely got my last "buy" in with other players sitting on 15 resources and just not in position to get to the buy point titles (pyramid, Nobel house, steps) . The temptation to do the 1 then 2 then 3 die on a resource is very strong, but if you do not have the time to spend them, all you have done is waste 3 turns. A lot of the time it is better to get a few resources and spend them right away than try to horde a lot and try to get them all spent. This is of course also based on how many turns are left in the game.

The game will go much faster than expected, and always keep an eye out for other players with the “extra aging” tech or just lots of 4 and 5 dice sitting on the board. With one or two well placed moves they can cut 2 to 3 turns off the eclipse (per player) in one turn. I have seen an eclipse last only 4 turns because of all of the deaths.
Never count on having the number of turns shown before scoring. I always assume it will be at least 2 shorter for the first eclipse, and sometimes as many as 4 less for the next two.
The “pay all coco free” titles are very powerful and can be used to pay for workers. This lets you have level 4 and 5 worker and pay them all for free (from 3 to 8 coco).

You always (most fo the time) want to kill your 4 and 5 workers before the end of the eclipse for cheaper workers and nice bonuses.

I personally think trying to get masks is a trap. Even with the temple bonus of scoring masks again, I have yet to see anyone win with this strategy. You just do not have the control over which masks you can get with the random factor, and even at max masks, they just are not THAT many points.

The pyramid is worth more on the first eclipse by a rather large amount (4 extra points per buy). If you can get 4 of them on year one, that is 4 * (1 + [0-4]+4) which is an average of 28 points as well as a possible few temple bumps for more resources, coco, or points. I personally feel it is worth at least 40 points with all of the bonuses you get. If you get the tech that gives free temple bumps on pyramid buys, that is a hard tactic to counter (other than doing it better).

By careful of the allure of getting the 4th dice. If you are planning on locking a lot of dice or have need of some really easy to get 3 dice resources, or builds, then it can be worth it. I personally have almost never found a good use for it unless I am locking dice (something I am more likely to do with the expansions, which are not on this site as yet).

I hope these hints have been helpful. They are by no means all of the hints, but for a beginner, I think they are all solid, until you get a few games under your belt and can adapt some of the more complex other paths to victory.