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[dondon151]

I played a 2-p game today against a friend where he got a lot of early scoring due to Clothing and Perspective and achieved ages 1-5, so I (with my limited knowledge of this game) thought that the best way to answer would be to tech up and punish with cards from higher ages.

I must have been doing something wrong, though, because I could never advance more than 1 age ahead of my opponent, nor could I force him to remain in a lower age, because he always managed to get at least one higher age card melded so that he could use his draw actions to keep up. So what are the best ways to tech up? Say that you don't have a card in hand that allows you to draw/meld directly from a higher age; is it generally worth using draw actions to fish for a card that will let you do so?

[ksasaki]

Most of the blue cards have some way of teching up.  Math in age 2 is probably the most efficient, but the others are pretty good too.  Generally though you want to look for a high draw card, say paper (age 3)/ fermenting (age 2)/ the wheel (age 1) so you can just see more cards.  As in other card games like Magic, card draw is crucial.  But keep an eye out for machinery (yellow, age 3, 2 leaves 1 castle), your opponent can just steal your whole hand.

I found the best counter for clothing is a nifty card in age 2 called mapmaking (2 crowns, 1 castle) i demand you transfer a 1 from your score pile to my score pile.  Don't worry if you lose 1 and 2 achievements, but you should try to start turning the tide around 3-4, usually you can do something efficient to score, maybe pottery.  But remember, the key to innovation is card draw card draw!!!

[popsofctown]

(Age 3, purple, triple lightbulb, return the highest card from your score pile, draw a card of value equal to 2+ the highest remaining card) Education + Agriculture is a poor man's Mathematics.  Cards like that can get you all the way to age 10 with no help are nice.

Truth be told, if your opponent has already achieved 1-5 though, it's pretty much over (If you are in age 6 like you seemed to describe).  It's really hard to keep your opponent from getting a single achievement.  If you attack their score pile, they start splaying.  If you try to steal their splayer, they achieve 6.  If you cut them off from both, they activate the Calendar they have lying around to draw Translation and get World.  And that's all assuming you already achieved Monument.

A better post mortem is probably, how can I keep my opponent from achieving ages 1-5.  It's only really ever ok to let them do that if you Math'ed into tens the turn before they achieved age 5.

[dondon151]

A better post mortem is probably, how can I keep my opponent from achieving ages 1-5.  It's only really ever ok to let them do that if you Math'ed into tens the turn before they achieved age 5.

That's true; I was more or less dead anyway though because I only had Anatomy to force my opponent to return 2 1's every turn if I dogma'd twice (which is pretty weak) and I didn't have a good scoring card available to try to catch up and achieve age 5 before him.

[Hideyoshi]

Clothing quite depends on luck. To counter clothing as starting, the most effective way is to meld five different colors as soon as possible. Four colors have already stopped your opponents much. Just let him get achievement 1 or even 2, but avoid him to get achievement 3.

However, if you really cannot draw different colors, you may just scream. It is sad that I had faced my opponent using clothing with five top cards, and I had drew all yellow and purple cards without other colors.

Teching up is a good strategy. You may make it by Maths,the most simple way, or by others such as experiment, astronomy, atomic theory, etc. Those cards can help you directly draw a card one age higher. Some others may be democracy + encyclopedia, education may make you teching up even higher, but more difficult to control.

It may not be a good idea to teching up to age 10 if your opponent score too many score in a fast pace. For me, I may just teching up to age 7 to find combustion or lightning to help you to get higher achievements before your opponent getting them, or up to age 8 to find mass media or rocketry to return all your opponents score.

[DG]

One way to stop an opponent following you up in tech is to make sure the technology piles are not empty for each era. So either recycle some cards or just be more restrained with your drawing. Not only does this stop opponents from drawing better cards as an action, it also restricts many lower era cards to drawing from their specified pile.