Hello All, I'm new to the forum. I want to find out what questions you ask yourself to come up with your strategy for a given board. I am also very interested in the order of the questions, so please number them instead of just listing them. I do not believe it is possible to have an exhaustive list, but I would like to see what you all can come up with!
My list goes like this:
1) Are there are any cards that allow for multiple terminals to be played in the same turn? (Villages, but also cards like Throne Room)
2) What are the trashers?
3) What are the Alt VP?
4) What are the attacks?
5) What are the + Buys?
6) What are the Gainers?
Then there are a few other questions that I am not sure where they should go (from an order standpoint)
- What are the Specific card combos / cards that go together well?
- Will this be a slow/medium/long game?
- What are ways to end the game quickly once ahead?
Here is the logic behind why I ordered the 6 numbered questions in the order above:
A lack of villages means I need to be very careful of not buying too many terminals, and so that is what i look for first. I put trashing as #2 because I have trouble creating engines without strong trashing (I might be in the over-trashing stage of the game
). Depending on the answer of those first two questions, I then look for other options such as Alt VP, Gardens rush etc. I have found that in general Attacks are more important than either +buys or gainers so I put it 4th, and then I put +buy slightly ahead of gainers because sometimes I see engines get overbuilt but without a +buy to take advantage of it.
Thanks!