Tips theisleofcats

Try to work your way from the center of the ship outward, this gives you a better position to tetris your pieces to map spots, also gaining treasure pieces.

The biggest point gain is almost always the lesson cards. Try to get and complete as many private lessons as possible and be mindful about the ones that your opponents get or can get later, i.e. don't let them get an "empty bedrooms" lesson card, if their bedrooms are both empty, even if you can't use it yourself.

Getting good lessons early is great. In the first two days you can safely pick a private lesson over anything else. But if there aren't any, keep your options as open as possible (i.e. by starting from the captain rooms and keeping the bedrooms and the dining room empty for a while). It's helpful here to know good lesson combos and either aim for them or prevent your opponents from getting them. For example, "no empty spaces along the edge" + "empty dining room" + "covered captain's rooms".

Sometimes, when lesson cards aren't an option, you can also stick to big families of 1 or 2 color cats and in the last couple of days spam public lessons that focus on these colors (as long as this color isn't common on your opponent's boat).

Treasure pieces are valuable for bridging your pieces toward trickier map spots or filling in the gaps between cats to complete a room. Sometimes it's worth keeping treasure cards for the next turns, but beware of waiting too long and getting your treasure pieces taken before you can use them.

Some cards lose or gain utility as the game progresses, for example:

• Adding a treasure or cat at any part of the board is very useful early, but grows obsolete by the third/fourth turn (because by that point you will have enough pieces bridging to the sides of the boat)
• Public lessons get more valuable as choices as the game progresses and you have a better idea of how your board is turning out. It's usually better to skip them on the first turns, since you're wasting a card choice that could benefit you more specifically AND you're helping out your opponent design their boat around the public lesson card without them having to waste a card choice.