T. Nomad
New Zealand
Winnipeg/Auckland/Cheonan
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Hey! That’s my Fish has two phases: placement and movement. Each of these has a separate set of strategies.
During placement, players may put their penguin meeples (Pengueeples? Sphenisceeples?) on any ice floe containing a single fish. The key here is to select those floes which have single-move access to three-fish’ed ice floes. That means finding a straight line, inside any opponent’s line, to ice floes with three fish. If there is an opportunity to take an ice floe with multiple paths to three-fish’ed floes, then that is a great choice. Remember that at the end of a two-player game, there is usually only a swing of 4-8 fish between winning and losing, so getting the triples really counts!
The secondary consideration during the placement phase is not getting boxed out (or in). Wherever you place your flightless aquatic waterfowl, make sure they have multiple movement paths available to them.
During the movement phase, a choice has to be made between one of two main strategies, though a combination of the two is possible in a two-player game (see below). The first is the Mad Dash: get as many triple-fish floes as you can, position be damned. If you have done a good job in the placement phase, this can net you up to 12 fish--a huge number, even if you lose a bird to positioning as a result.
The second strategy is positional: boxing in/out your opponents’ penguins to limit their haul. Often, this strategy presents itself to you based on the moves your opponents make. If they go into a corner after a three-fish’ed floe, then it can be quick work to follow them in and prevent their escape. It should be noted, however, that in a three- or four-player game, another player can follow your penguin and leave you just as stranded as your intended victim (my eight-year old niece did this to me recently). In a two-player game, a hybrid strategy of assigning two penguins to do the Mad Dash and two to play positional spoiler against the opponent can yield results, but can also lead to “picking,” where you end up getting in the way of your own penguins.
If only these birds could dive.
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ronaldinho @boardspace.net
Taiwan
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I think the Mad Dash is a poor strategy.
It's "all" about the position. If I do look at fish counts, I look at them in terms of position instead of getting the points now.
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Eric Johnson
United States
Rohnert Park
California
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drunkenKOALA wrote: I think the Mad Dash is a poor strategy.
It's "all" about the position. If I do look at fish counts, I look at them in terms of position instead of getting the points now.
Ronaldinho has an important point -- often many more fish can be scored by clever positional play than by short-term mad dash thinking, especially in a two player game, where the future consequences of positional moves are more easily anticipated.
That said, it's also important to watch the fish counts -- as tommynomad rightly points out, many games are won by a difference of only a few fish (especially two player games).
The moral of the story, and what gives this game a deeper interest than is at first apparent, is that you must balance your immediate gratification (grabbing those three fish) against your long-term scoring potential (isolating your penguin with ten fish).
Balance them best, and you win.
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Graham Dean
United Kingdom
Bedford
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I played this for the first time last night (2 player), and it seemed like playing for position was by far the better strategy. If you get it right you can collect large areas of tiles without competition. I found the best approach was to move my penguins so that they were adjacent to my opponent, and then aggressively move to fence them in.
I think this would change with more players, although not having played much I can't say for certain. Grabbing fish may well be the better option with more players, as the board will change so much between moves it will be difficult to plan.
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