Tips automobiles

Basic Strategy

The most obvious difference between beginner and intermediate players of Automobiles is that intermediate players prioritize buying cubes over moving for their first several turns. Determining which cubes are worth buying comprises much of the skill of Automobiles and depends on the situation, but they are usually to be found among the blue and green cubes. Therefore, spend a few turns at the start of the race using your active pile to buy desirable cubes. (This may be hard to do when other players use their cubes to move and possibly even lap you, but if you use these turns wisely to sculpt your bag, it will pay off.)

As a beginning rule of thumb, by the time you use your active pile to move, have at least 2 purple cubes in your deck. Wear builds up very quickly, and wear cubes take up valuable slots that could be used by productive cubes. (As you advance in the game, you may see limits to this rule of thumb and discard it in specific situations. But pit cubes are greatly preferred over Pit Stops, which waste valuable turns.)

Buying desirable cubes is one part of sculpting one's bag. The other part is removing undesirable cubes. Which cubes are undesirable again depends greatly on the situation, but they are often a portion of your white and yellow cubes.

Card Set Strategies

How to shape one's bag varies greatly based on the card set, track/racing season, and driver (if used). Your game's card set may not be listed below, but understanding strategies for various car sets will likely help you develop a strategy tailored to your specific card set. (More card set strategies are to come.)

First Game Card Set (Manager, Suspension, Crew Chief, Hybrid Engine, Gearbox)

Hybrid Engine (blue) is very powerful, so buy them during your setup turn and on your standard turns. If your opponents are experienced, Hybrid Engines will be bought until they are depleted. If your opponents are not experienced, you may be the only one buying them while others are racing. In this case, keep buying engine cubes either until they are depleted, or until opponents are about 1 lap up on you. White cubes, however, are not useful either for buying cubes, or for moving when compared to Hybrid Engine. So when a yellow cube is not useful for its buying power, use it to remove a white cube. In a base 2-player game, experienced players may spend their first 7 (or so) turns sculpting their bag (mostly buying blue and purple cubes, and removing white cubes) before moving on their 8th turn. (Using a driver from the expansion may shorten this time, as drivers can increase purchasing power.)

What about the other cubes? Gearbox can be powerful, but it can undermine Hybrid Engine. Adding Gearboxes to your bag makes your bag less dense with Hybrid Engines, which will be a problem if you don't draw enough Hybrid Engines to be playable (that is, more than is in any other players' discard pile). The same reasoning goes for Suspension, so be cautious about buying these cubes. However, Crew Chief does not suffer from this downside, because when played, it replaces itself with a cube from the bag. Just be sure to play Hybrid Engines if Crew Chief might re-bag your discard cubes and make Hybrid Engine unplayable.

Rinse & Repeat (Factory Support, Burnout, Pit Mechanic, Internal Combustion, Overdrive)

This card set offers may desirable options. Some experienced players will load up on Burnout; others will load up on Overdrive; many will buy a combination of both. But nearly all experienced players will try to get their share of Internal Combustion. Internal Combustion is powerful because it lets you trade a less powerful cube for 3 more powerful cubes from your discards.

Note, however, that these highly desirable cubes (Burnout, Internal Combustion, Overdrive) all add wear, and Pit Mechanic is limited in its ability to remove wear. This means you will want to get enough Pit Mechanics to keep wear under control, and it means you'll want to draft in situations where moving further is not worth the additional wear.