I recently published two articles to BGG: a discussion of strategy in Modern Art and a review of the live-action pseudo-boardgame Cash & Guns: Live.

Play against AIs. Nowhere near as good as the real thing, but when it’s 2:30 AM and you gotta have your fix, it’s available here.

http://snapper.rooms.cwal.net/games.html

The interface is very nice. The AI is decent but has a couple weaknesses that can be exploited:

• It won’t call Ra with the intention of buying the lot with its non-highest sun. This means you can often get some good bargains on lots of 5-6 decent tiles early on each epoch.
• It doesn’t take into account the value of holding onto a high-powered sun into the next round. For instance, if the Ra track is all-but-one, it would rather buy a single Pharaoh or River with its 13 -valued sun than either hold out for a good lot or be willing to take its 13 into the next epoch.

I am planning something a little different: a series about the strategy of specific board games. It’s surprising how few strategy resources are out there for board games. It’s even more surprising that there’s no central repository for board game strategies. The boardgamegeek.com forums are the best thing there is, but there’s certainly no organization there. Perhaps one day I will have enough of a collection here…

I enjoy Thurn and Taxis and have been thinking about a “blitz” strategy for that game: rush to get the value-7 carriage in the minimum number of turns. This seems like a powerful strategy for several reasons:

• Likely to have a 10-point carriage where other players have only 5
• Likely to finish Bayern first, getting a large bonus, as well as the game-end bonus
• Other players can only make short routes near the end of the game for fear that you will finish the game and stick them with wasted cards. This advantage might be much bigger if you play late in the turn.

The weakness of this strategy is that it foregoes the smaller province bonuses and the long route bonuses. It is also likely to place fewer houses because it will be choosing the Cartwright three or four times and may end up duplicating towns more than other strategies.

To test this out I will play a two-player game against myself. The two players will use the following strategies:

The “Blitz” player will:

• Concentrate on finishing the game as soon as possible. Close each route as soon as it will provide the next carriage, using the Cartwright if necessary.
• Draw extra cards instead of using the Cartwright is OK if those cards will not be discarded.
• Focus on Bayern, where the towns have many connections and it will not be difficult to draw something that fits. If it is convenient, grab the Green provinces too, or the Purple ones. The Blue cities have too few connections to be worth the risk of taking their cards unless both are available at once. The Red/Orange cities require builds spread across too many turns.
• Not be in a rush to end the game; if the other players can’t usefully close a route, wait a turn if it will help place more houses.
• At the end of the game, should have the following points: 10 for a rank 7 carriage, 5 for first to finish Bayern, possibly a couple for the Green provinces, 1 for ending the game.

The “Normal” player will:

• Look at the cards available and see what opportunities are available.
• Look for efficient ways to scoop up province bonuses. If it is convenient, also go for long route bonuses.
• Not waste time with the “all provinces but Bayern” bonus, unless it’s too close to pass up.

In addition, the game will have the following parameters:

• Between the players’ turns, a “phantom player” will remove and refresh either 1 card or 2 city cards, (50/50 chance) which will be replaced as normal. The cards will be chosen randomly by the roll of a d6. This is to simulate the effect of other players taking the cards they need for routes.
• After the Blitz player gets the 5-length carriage, all province and long-route bonuses will be worth 1 less to simulate the effect of other players having already got those bonuses.
• The Normal player will go first. If it looks like the turn order played a serious role, another game will be played with the Blitz player going first.

My prediction is this: For the first player, the added advantage of being half a turn ahead of everybody else makes a mixed, go-for-lots-of-bonuses strategy worthwhile. For the last player, the threat of being able to end the game when you want is so powerful that a blitz strategy is more worthwhile.

Does this seem silly? I want to get my predictions out in the open before I actually run this test to keep myself honest in how I interpret the results.