Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[yuma]

Played a four player game today with a strategy I kinda stumbled into that I felt was way too powerful...

I obtained Construction: " I demand you transfer two cards from your hand to my hand, then draw a 2!
If you are the only player with five top cards, claim the Empire achievement."

Which in a 2-player game can be a good card, but in a 4-player is dominant. I played it a few times and received 5-6 cards each time. From that I obtained cards of multiple colors and Currency: "You may return any number of cards from your hand. If you do, draw and score a 2 for every different value of card you returned."

The last construction play I was able to obtain the empire achievement and playing Currency twice allowed me to score ~ 40 points and a whole lotta cards--because Engineering not only steals cards from other players, but has them draw a 2--or a higher card if the 2 card pile is gone--as a result I was scoring 1-6 cards each time I played it, generally 1 of each 2-5 and two 6s. From that I was also able to obtain the Monument achievement. By that point the draw had reach about 7 and on my next turn I drew and melded a 7 and the next I achieved 4 & 5, but could have achieved 6 & 7 for the win... as you only need 4 achievements to end the game in 4 player.

Perhaps there was a way for players to block me--having more castles would have, but I had about 6 at that time and in four player all the castles were spread pretty thin--but my opponents couldn't see anything. We thought it was extremely strong. Perhaps too strong.

Thoughts?

[Hideyoshi]

You are right. Most demanding cards in 4P game is very powerful, even oars will be very powerful for demanding three times if you get enough castles. To be frank, base only is not suitable for 4P game. It would be much better for echoes set. If you have base only and 4 players, you may try team play as it is much better than directly 4P game.

[Lekkit]

Yeah. I've played two games of 4p once. It wasn't pretty. Demands were super powerful and four achievements are achieved super quick. In neither of the games we got over age 6. We didn't try the team version, though. I would like to try that one some time.

[dan11295]

With team 4p, have found some late game demands (Combustion in particular) to be even stronger than in 2p. Steal from both opponents score piles and that find a way to get an 11 drawn.

[Darthcaboose]

It does go both ways. Clothing, which is usually very powerful in a 2-player game, is not as powerful in a 4-player game since it is a lot more difficult to have unique colors when you are comparing your board to three other opponents. Likewise, Machinery is not quite as effective since you might end up passing all the high-tech goodies to another player after doing multiple exchanges!

[Kahryl]

From what I've played of 4-p Innovation it just doesn't work. It's total chaos and complete imbalance all the time. It's amusing but winning is pretty much a matter of chance.

[ksasaki]

It is amusing (I just played a 4p echoes yesterday), but I agree with everyone's general sentiment.  The demand / card steal cards are just ridiculous (I'm thinking enterprise here specifically, and later mobility for some massive scoring).  There is also kingmaking going on at the end, for sure.