John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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My girlfriend and I love abstract games, and we've played Alexandros together a few times. Usually she wins - except when she thinks about strategy, apparently. Maybe that's why I lose - I'm always thinking about how to play better. I decided to take photos of the game while we played in order to discuss strategy here. This particular game turned out to not be the best for that purpose.
This is the board position after I'd played the first move of the game. I had the option of enclosing a small territory with the yellow card, but small territories at the beginning have never won the game for me, and I decided to play it safe and leave Alexander away from the edge.
My opponent took the Big A over to the edge, enclosing a tiny territory, and again I had the opportunity to enclose a territory with the yellow card. I occupied and taxed. I didn't expect a 5 point territory to win me the game, but it at least meant I'd be scoring.
Once again on my turn I had the opportunity to enclose a territory with yellow (by moving Big Al to the left). However I decided at this stage to conserve cards, knowing that there would be fighting to come. I opted to leave Alexander in the middle of the board so any territories created would be too large to easily occupy.
Well, it looks like I'm getting a yellow card. At this stage of the game I'm slightly behind on cards and can't really afford to use cards to move Alex-baby wherever I want, so I opt to move him into the centre of the board again, i.e. to the yellow to the right.
Oh dear. My opponent moved Ally to the edge and enclosed a massive 17 point territory. From now on she'll be taxing every turn, so I need to either enclose some more territory or break her territory up. The good news is that I now have more cards than she does. I choose to use the green card to move Al back into the centre of her territory so that it's likely the territory will be broken up.
My opponent has a little bit of luck, and is able to carve off a piece of her territory which she's then able to reoccupy. Again she taxes. This time there's nothing I can do to hurt her with the cards on the table - both would take me off to the east, so I move Al with a purple card from my hand and occupy a small territory.
The green and yellow cards on display are good for my opponent, and she moves Alexander away from the territories and taxes again. It's not looking good for me.
At this point I've used up all of my red, purple and blue cards and only have green and yellow. Only green and yellow have appeared on the table for several turns, and drawing blind from the draw pile gave me two yellows. I can't get the right colours to occupy anywhere, not even using my soldiers.
Several turns later (I was trying to figure out how to save the game and forgot to take photos) Alexei has moved well away from civilisation and my hope of carving up the opponent's territory is forlorn. I occupy several small territories so I'm at least scoring 16 points to her 17. However at this stage the game is lost.
Alexander is just wandering around aimlessly now - my only hope would be to take over the 13 point territory, but having a handful of green and yellow cards made that impossible.
To add insult to injury my opponent is able to occupy another decent territory on her last turn and scores 30 points to my 16, winning the game 115 to 71.
I think the small territory I enclosed at the beginning may have been a strategic mistake - it left me a little low on cards. However I feel that my inability to pick up anything other than yellow or green during the important part of the game overshadowed the 2 cards I'd squandered earlier. IMHO I was screwed over by the luck of the draw, which makes this game not very useful for instruction in strategy. However I hope at least that this insight into the feverish workings of my desperate mind has provided a new perspective on one of my favourite games.
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Drew
United States
Eau Claire
Wisconsin
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This is weird. Looking at your endgame image, you've got only a handful of very large territories. The couple times I've played we had lots and lots of very small territories.
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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It was in my interests to split the territories up but I couldn't do it. It was in my opponent's interests to keep them whole, and she knew to manipulate Alexander away from them.
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Andy Leighton
England
Peterborough
Unspecified
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I've just played this for the first time so apologies for resurrecting the thread. Are you sure you are playing this correctly or have I misread the rules?
The rules say Alexander must move by the shortest possible path.
Quote: Next, the player places black boundary walls on the triangle sides
between Alexander’s previous position and his new position. The
shortest path must be followed. If there are several shortest paths,
the player may choose freely among them.
The pictures show Alexander being moved to the vertex of the horse triangle at the start of the game via a path 4 walls long when there is a path which is just 2 walls long.
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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andyl, there was a move in between when he went to the amphora space.
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