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Author Topic: Echoes Strategy Guide: Age 3  (Read 2879 times)

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Hideyoshi

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Echoes Strategy Guide: Age 3
« on: April 26, 2013, 10:08:45 pm »
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Hi everyone, that’s Hideyoshi again~

Well, it seems that no one reply my writing last time...  :-[
anyway, welcome for any comment and discussion, and I will continue~

At age 3, there are many good cards in the echoes set. Compared to age 2, you may find more useful cards in base 3, and some of them are “too powerful” that you may still use them at later stage of the game.

Drawing

Novel
You may read the effect easily as “Draw two 3 and splay your purple cards left”. It is a very simple card, or you just consider it as “super wheel” by drawing 3 but not 1, or as “super calendar” by no restriction. You may find purple cards splaying left useful as bell and flute both have echo effects when you splay purple cards left. As the echo effect of novel is also visible after splaying left, you may still have the echo effect “draw a 3” after melding a new card. It is a good combination with democracy and novel with bulbs dominant to all players, which you just score a 8 by returning your 3 drawn by echo effect. Claiming Supremacy by novel is just a bonus anyway. It is easy to do so when you have just 2-3 top cards, but it is a difficult job when you have 5 top cards. Well, I usually claim Supremacy by its requirement rather than novel.

Scoring

Almanac
In the old drawing system, it is a useless card as there are less echoes cards in the pile, and you even do not know the echo card whether has a bonus. But in the new draw system, many people just consider almanac as a bug, as you can keep no echo cards in hand and foreshadow and score a lot of cards, even reaching age 11. If you get it, the easiest way to use it is just keeping no echoes cards in hand (well, at least one base card) to draw and foreshadow an echo card. You may repeat this until getting enough cards in both score pile and forecast, and these cards will become a hard crash to your opponents. To counter this bug card, the easiest way is to get enough leaves to share the effect. You may also do some trick to cover it by demanding or sharing, such as compass and sailing. Anyway, the card does not need so much skill, and I do not talk about it too much.

Sunglasses
Well, you may consider it as splaying card, but I generally use it as scoring rather than just splaying. You may notice that, if you do not get any colors splayed, this card is actually completely useless; but if you get anyway colors splayed, you may splay all colors in a few turn with the same direction, with the echo effect of scoring some cards from your hand. To be frank, sunglasses is not very useful at age 3, unless you get a combination of paper and sunglasses. At age 3 you can just splay the cards left but actually you are not supposed to splay all cards left at age 3, even in echoes game, unless you get cards called paper or slide rule. Generally, splaying left is useful for blue and purple for more echo effect, but not for others. I prefer to tech up or score or other things rather than just splaying left at age 3, as you can start it splaying right at age 4. However, sunglasses is more useful at later stage when you get any colors splayed up or right, as you are actually doing something like metric system or flight, with scoring at the same time. If you have your purple cards splayed up, you may gain the echo effect again. Well, it is not too useful anyway, as you may not really need it at age 8…

Liquid Fire
It is a very useful card in multiplayer game or team play, with demanding all players to get a lot of cards in score pile and forecast. But in 2P game, liquid fire generally serves as the only red card with 3 bulbs rather than its effect. The problem is you only benefit one cards in 2P game, and you even do not know this card would be entered your forecast or score pile. You may try this at later stage when your opponents have a high bonus, such as 7-9, but I prefer doing something more useful such as direct scoring or splaying. Well, you may try to reach age 11 when your opponent has a Sudoku on his board…. There is no one win by Sudoku, and I think the possibility of reaching age 11 by this method are even lower…

Tech up

Magnifying Glass
Well, it is not a bad card, but you often just draw a 4 and return a card, and splay your cards left. You can easily tech up by the echo effect, but you need to have one card to return; otherwise, you just return the card you draw. There are 4 cards in both base and echoes for directly tech up to age 4 – paper, alchemy, charitable trust, magnifying glass – among all these, magnifying glass is generally the worst one as you need to have at least one card in your hand originally. The splaying left action is just a simple move, which may lead to your echo effect on magnifying glass visible after melding a new blue card. The main problem is the first action, which you can return three cards of the same value to draw a card of value two higher. It looks similar to tools, or some may compare it with education or lever. Although it looks like a “super lever”, it is actually a bad dogma for itself. You actually need to get three cards of the same value first, which means you need something for you to get a massive draw. At the same time, you are actually returning three cards to draw a new card, which may be quite depends on luck. You may get a very good card, but you may also get something useless. Well, you may combine it with something like explosive to reach age 11, but generally this effect is not useful for me.

Charitable Trust
It is a very simple card, draw a 3 or 4, and then achieve or return your top green card if you meld the card you draw. Generally, you return Charitable Trust, or your do something with the card you just draw if you draw a green card. If you are shared by some players, you may do something else. Some people consider this as a card to claim achievements, but I generally just use it as tech up from age 3 to age 4. I seldom draw a 3, unless I really want to do so to find some cards. If you draw a non-green card, you may just meld the card and return the Charitable Trust as it is commonly not useful at later stage. Well, you may leave it here as you may want a echo effect when your green cards splayed right.

Board Building

Deodorant
It is a very simple, but very useful card at age 3. Well, actually, I do not like this card much as you may find it will destroy your board when your yellow cards splayed right at later stage. You will get a “Draw and meld a 3” when you execute the yellow cards, and you may make some trouble to yourself. Anyway, if you just consider it in age 3, it is quite useful. At age 3, you usually get a double of “Draw and meld a 3” as you often get some castles on your top cards. You may draw a 4 at later stage, when you have no castles. Well, the card is somehow too simple such as sailing, you just use it when you want to meld some cards. You may consider it as an alternative of optics.

Sandpaper
It is a useful card at age 3 in order to return some 1 and 2 and draw some new cards. Because of the new drawing system, returning cards is one of the new strategies in echoes. Well, I do not talk about this too much, as this is too complicated as it is not easy to explain in words. Sandpaper is also a very simple card and I do not spend too many words to talk about. Just to remind, you may meld something new rather than the drawn cards, which means it is possible to renew some cards and then meld a 8 which is completed separated from the drawing.

Board Attack

Katana
This card is similar to engineering, which you score the top cards with castles. For Katana, you just score two cards, but it is acceptable as you generally just score two cards even you use engineering per time. Especially if you played with some experts, they often just have 1-2 top cards with castles at age 3, so Kanata may just demand one or two times in the game. You get a foreshadowing as your feedback, which is generally more useful than the splaying left in engineering. You may need to prevent gunpowder anyway.

Score Attack

Homing Pigeons
I often consider it as the first card for score attack for echoes game, which I generally consider map making as scoring as draw and score a 1 is more important than stealing a 1 in map making. Anyway, homing pigeons is not too difficult to use, which you need some cards in your hand. Some beginners may misread the effect as they think they need to have at least two cards if they want to attack two cards in score pile. Actually, you can just have a 3 in your hand, and your opponents need to return up to two 3s from their score pile. Well, this card is useful in some situation, but you may find it is useless in some cases. To use the pigeons wisely, you must need some cards in your hand which match your opponents score pile. The next point is that you may not have some cards with too low value. To be frank, just returning a 1 or 2 is generally useless in most situations, unless you want to combine it with anatomy for returning opponents top cards. At age 3, I think the most useful way is to return some 3s from opponents. You may return higher cards at later stage, but there are more cards helping you at later stage such as combustion and Indian Clubs. Splaying left is a bonus effect for you, anyway.

Some base cards changes

Splaying left cards (Paper, Engineering, Machinery, Feudalism)
As splaying left is generally stronger in echoes game for the echo effect, you may consider these cards are more useful. Especially for feudalism, as you may get a bell below it, you may find feudalism and bell is a funny combination which steals other hands and scores them.

Optics
You need to remember that there are 4 cards with a crown in echo set. As there are totally two read cards in echo set, the possibility of melding a red card is 1/5 for melding a echo card, but not 1/9 anymore. Anyway, it is just a small statistics change.



Hope all guys like this~
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Kenbutsu

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Re: Echoes Strategy Guide: Age 3
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2013, 08:54:48 am »
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I think your articles are great!  I just can't comment strategically because I haven't played echoes.
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theory

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Re: Echoes Strategy Guide: Age 3
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2013, 09:28:52 am »
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Ditto. I have been reading them diligently, though, getting ready to dive into echoes :)
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