Tips tigriseuphrates

First moves

At the beginning of the game, you need to get some leaders out so you can collect points of their colour. There are no optimal, one-size-fits-all openings. You’ll need some tiles to defend your leaders in case of early wars; if you have more than two or three tiles of one colour, it’s often a good idea to start with that leader.

If you have the tiles, getting out your green and black leaders first on the same temple, at an angle, and next turn reinforcing them with an additional, shared red tile is a solidly oldschool opening move. (In other words, this will form a little 2x2 square with each leader adjacent to two temples.)

Red and green is another good starting combination, if you have some tiles for support.

Starting points

The starting points traditionally considered “good” are F3, F9 and N5. Since there are only three of those, the last player to start in four-player games usually has to get a bit creative.

Starting on the four corner temples (B2, B8, O2 and P2) is rarely a good idea as their treasures get picked first, leaving them vulnerable to a catastrophe. If you do have to start out there, make sure to place an additional temple for support, at least.

The temple on N5 is right next to the only spot where you can build a monument from blue tiles, hence it is sometimes called the “water temple”. With some blue tiles in hand, placing a blue leader here can pay off nicely.

Rogue leaders

Putting one of your leaders into an enemy kingdom early on is currently all the fashion with the cool kids. This can be good way of cramping your opponents’ style, since they will give you points or even a treasure when the want to cross rivers (blue leader), reinforce leaders with tempels (red leader) or connect to treasure temples (green leader). Temples with treasure make great sports for annoyance leaders, since they’re catastrophe proof.

However, doing this often means underusing that leader, and coordinating moves with leaders in several kingdoms can be a pain, since you’re constantly relying on other players not fucking up your plans (hint: they will). On the other hand, controlling just one, strong colour in a kingdom means you can gladly start wars in that colour and not care about what becomes of the rest of the kingdom.

The best way of dealing with a rogue leader is often patience. If you can’t catastrophise him, hem him in with some tiles to prevent the building of supporting temples, if necessary, then play around him until you can kick him out with an internal conflict. Sometimes you can use a convenient enemy kingdom that’s strong in that leader’s colour to start a war and blast him out of your kingdom.

Kingdom construction

A kingdom consisting of one straight line of tiles is extremely vulnerable. A single tile lost to a war or catastrophe will split it, and bridging the gap takes three tiles – more than an entire turn.

Monuments are indestructible and can stabilise a kingdom.

Putting all your leaders into the same kingdom can be very convenient and greatly simplifies things. However, their supporting tiles can get in each others’ way and make your kingdom vulnerable to wars: If you put some green tiles between your black leader and his black tiles, loosing a green war will mean your black leader gets cut off from his supporters and will certainly lose a black war as well.

Look for such breaking points in enemy kingdoms and exploit them to split them up and defeat their leaders one by one. Keep your own leaders well connected to their supporters. Rivers with their blue tiles are a natural breaking point.

Putting your leaders on the edge of your kingdom, facing outward so an attacker has to connect to them first, can isolate you in case of a lost war. The vanquished leader is taken from the board, leaving one empty space between the attacker and your remaining kingdom – a bit like a blown fuse.

A note on “your” kingdom

Don’t get too attached to a kingdom you’re building. This is no game where you slowly build up something in order to enjoy and cherish it. A kingdom is a weapon to smash other kingdoms with and a tool to make points. Expect it to get smashed to bits in the process. Perhaps try not to thing of it as “your” kingdom. Kingdom is wherever you put your leaders.

Efficiency

An average game on this site (so far) lasts around 16 or 17 turns, often less. This means you get less than 40 moves to score enough points in all four colours. You need to make efficient use of your moves. Remember that placing or moving a leader will not earn you a victory point.

When you start out with a few red tiles in your hand, consider getting a leader on-board by inciting a revolt (what some call “with tempo”). This is an efficient move (if you win!), as it will earn you a red point at the same time, and also make life interesting for the other players. This is the best way of dealing with a rogue leader at the beginning.

Victory Points

Never forget that your score is determined by your weakest colour. If you have 20 points in red, green and blue, but only 1 black point, your score is still 1. This is why temple treasures are so useful; they count as whatever colour you need most at the moment.

Putting a tile into a kingdom will get you a single victory point. That is not a lot. To win a game you need to look at other sources of points: wars and monuments. Treasures and single tiles are nice for rounding out a score, but wars and monuments will win the game.

Monuments

It is tempting to build a monument as early as possible, but this can backfire easily: you are turning your kingdom into an valuable target at the very same time you are weaking its defences in one colour (and four tiles of the same colour is lot). In other words, don’t build a monument unless you can defend it – for a while. Make sure the effort is worth it.

On the other hand, when other people start putting up the first monuments, you have to decide: either quickly build a monument of your own to keep up, or move to take over someone else’s monument by starting a war or revolt.

Losing a monument

When losing a monument, often the first impulse is to take back what’s yours, right now. This can lead to a vicious back and forth for little gain. Avoid useless grudge wars. It often pays to pause and consider: do you really need that monument right now? If you have enough points of that colour, maybe it has served its purpose. You cannot expect to keep a monument to yourself forever in this game.

Having fun with monuments

• Spike another player’s half-finished monument with a tile of the wrong colour
• Complete an enemy monument yourself and pick two colours you prefer
• Or complete it by placing the fourth tile, but refuse to actually build it
• Cut off a leader from his monument with a catastrophe
• Banish a leader by incorporating his only adjacent temple into a new monument
• “Gift” someone a monument, weakening him in a critical colour

You can also place a tile to at the same time join two kingdoms and complete a monument. First you finish the war, then you can decide whether to build, and what colour.

Defending against revolts

Sometimes is useful to go on the defensive. To make a kingdom less vulnerable to revolts, plug spaces next to temples. Never leave open a two-temple spot if you can help it. Arranging leaders and temples in a tight grid so that several leaders share one temple is an effective defensive setup, though costly in red tiles and time. Keep in mind that a determined attacker can always place a catastrophe or two, or plug a temple into a walled-up kingdom and start a revolt there. Excessively fortified leaders have been known to attract a veritable barrage of catastrophes.

There is no such thing as an invulnerable kingdom.

Some notes on wars

Revolts often come out of the blue, but you can usually see a war coming. When one kingdom approaches another to within a distance of two fields, an attack becomes possible – two tiles is the distance you can cover in one turn. Consider going on the attack first, if you have the advantage in some colours.

When another kingdom approaches yours to within a single tile, alarm bells should ring. This is the critical distance, because an attacker can play a catastrophe and attack in the same turn. If your kingdom has a vulnerable spot, this can be devastating. It’s usually a good idea to strike first in this situation.

Using catastrophes to delay or prevent a war is an act of desperation and rarely useful outside of the endgame, if ever.

Things to keep in mind

• When joining two kingdoms with a tile, you won’t score a point for that tile.
• You cannot join three kingdoms in one action.
• Also, you cannot place a leader where he would connect two kingdoms.
• Keep an eye on the number of treasures. The game ends as soon as the number of treasures drops below 3, which can come as a rude surprise.

A final thought

There is no such thing as security or safety in this game. Sooner or later, things will always go to hell. Kingdoms will fall apart, monuments will get captured, leaders will be ousted. It’s impossible to always prevent this. You can make the other players work hard and stack the odds in your favour, but it’s the dramatic turns and sudden twists that make this game tense and interesting. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, and when in doubt, go on the attack.

Only monuments are forever.

Links

If you want more than the few hints in this quick guide, take a look at this annotated game over on Board Game Geek. It’s a game log with commentary, full of valuable insights and lessons; taking the time to think through each move and then playing a few games yourself will get you up to speed very quickly.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/170187/annotated-game-part-1

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/170597/annotated-game-part-2

Then there is this discussion thread on strategy – more recent and much more shorter than the above:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2893767/two-and-half-experts-discuss-tigris-euphrates-stra