Sebastian
Germany
Merzig
Saarland
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robbgraham wrote:
I didnt complete chains until I knew that on a specific turn, I could use the resulting amphora to my advantage in a 'surprise' mid turn move. Often I will attempt to influence other players to attack the routes of my greatest opposing player, which I did.
You know though, that you don't have to use amphoras immediately but can save them up for later?
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Matt Davis
United States
Upland
California
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robbgraham wrote: Ultimately, you must conceal the fact that you are about to make an ending move by holding off a little (dont connect to either temple at the end of your chain until youre just about to strike and end the game.
Sorry, but with experienced players, this won't fly. Temples will get cordoned off long before anyone gets close to connecting. And if your black-bordered buildings are too close, you shouldn't be able to complete all your chains without a lot of cooperation from others, which I promise will come back to bite you in a long game. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just suggesting that there's still more to discover in this "simple" game.
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Tim Koppang
United States
Westmont
Illinois
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Surprise is certainly a valid and important tactic in the game. However, as other posters have pointed out, experienced players will build aggressively to try to block other players. With new players, things can often be less aggressive. With four players, the game can be a bit chaotic. In either situation it's easier to pounce on an unsuspecting opponent. However, as you learn the game, you also learn to anticipate where someone is going to build -- and to start blocking that person early.
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Michael Hines
United States
Perry
Georgia
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I agree with the previous posters: more experienced players will corner off a temple at the start of the game, forcing the more drawn out end game. The best strategy to work for is to corner off a single temple and then try to build out all of your tiles as cheaply and quickly as possible.
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Tim Koppang
United States
Westmont
Illinois
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R3sp4wN wrote: I agree with the previous posters: more experienced players will corner off a temple at the start of the game, forcing the more drawn out end game. The best strategy to work for is to corner off a single temple and then try to build out all of your tiles as cheaply and quickly as possible.
"Best" strategy might be overstating it a bit. I usually play Attika with two, and the connection game is not to be ignored. Although most games end with a build-out victory, the threat of a connection victory serves as a powerful attacking move (and keeps the game interesting). Likewise, playing in the center first can often open up options that a corner build will cut off.
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Jimmy Smith
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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How to win the game: Be a top-decking whore
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Andrew Swan
Australia
Sydney
NSW
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jmsmith2434 wrote: How to win the game: Be a top-decking whore
¿Que?
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Jimmy Smith
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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game_boy wrote: jmsmith2434 wrote: How to win the game: Be a top-decking whore ¿Que?
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Frank Hamrick
United States
Rocky Mount
North Carolina
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Seems you made the same mistake most newbies make with this game.
1) Assuming the game is simple because the mechanics are extremely simple (a huge plus IMO).
2) Going for temple connections as if that's "the way to win." True, it is one way to win - but with experienced players you will seldom win that way. They will block you and from the beginning be working for a "build out" win. Once you're blocked, you will be too far behind to catch up with those who've planned ahead for the build-out. Yes, even with veteran players there will be the occasional temple connection win but it is rare.
The more I play it, the more strategies I see. An awesome game, IMO, with far more depth than most players are willing to learn. One play or ten won't cut it.
And, BTW, you are often not able to build all your starting buildings on a single turn unless you're lucky, or get to go first on a resource-rich board.
The key to winning is 1) block, 2) threaten a connection by building as straight as possible for temples, to keep others on the defense; 3) keep your player mat as empty as possible, 4) never finish a stack on your second draw, 5) be willing to start second cities if necessary. There are lots of other tactics and strategies - but you can discover those yourself.
This is a classic game - simple mechanics with excellent depth of play in a short time! Great combination.
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Alan Kwan
Hong-Kong
Hong Kong
Unspecified
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jmsmith2434 wrote: game_boy wrote: jmsmith2434 wrote: How to win the game: Be a top-decking whore ¿Que? i.e. constantly draw stuff that builds for free off of what you've already played
And more reliably, the converse: build out your stuff so that most of what you draw will be a free (or cheap enough) build.
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David Boeren
United States
Marietta
Georgia
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Frank Hamrick wrote: The key to winning is 1) block, 2) threaten a connection by building as straight as possible for temples, to keep others on the defense; 3) keep your player mat as empty as possible, 4) never finish a stack on your second draw, 5) be willing to start second cities if necessary.
I agree with most of what you've said except for #3. Keeping your player mat close to empty robs you of your ability to quickly react to problems or opportunities. Plus, as a practical issue it's expensive. When you play your buildings as soon as you can they're likely going to cost more than if you can wait to play them free next to a predecessor building. Chains are more likely to get surrounded if they have to sit a while before the last buildings are played - turning a free play into an expensive one.
A lot of the game boils down to controlling tempo and threats. Tempo can often be measured by board resources which include all four card resources types plus the fifth resource of space. Playing buildings quickly means you get more board resources, but at the cost that it might cost more because you're not waiting to get the predecessor building. Who does this advantage? You've got to look, there's no hard & fast rule. A cheap building should probably go ahead and build, the "free" bonus isn't that high and may be made up for by getting additional board resources as well as covering them up for your opponent so he can't use them. An expensive building may be more inclined to wait, something like a Fortress or Vineyard, etc...
Threats come in different types. There's the obvious connection threat of course. If you have the opportunity, then it's worth making one because it usually costs your opponent at least as much to block it as it costs you to make it, plus it tends to cause him to become more clumped. You can be pushing out for space while he curls into a tight ball. You may gain a card advantage and you're likely to gain a space advantage.
Another type of threat is the threat of stealing resources. When you place a tile, you're hoping to use those resources for yourself. If your opponent has a group that can play relatively cheaply on his board then it's fairly easy for him to jump in and steal or block you from those resources - taking them away. The Fountain group is ideal for this job because it plays so cheaply - it's not very dependent on the resources in the area you want to attack. If the resources are right, then the Quarry, Harbor, or Street groups are also pretty good at rapidly sucking all the resources out of an area to your opponent's dismay. Long groups (Fountain) are generally better than wide ones (Harbor) because they have more flexibility in placement and if you had to start a new group there's a better chance they can immediately link back up with your other buildings.
Control the rate that resources enter the game. If you're doing well or would like to draw tiles for a bit, don't put a new tile in the game that you're not in need of, it will help your opponent more than yourself. I frequently draw multiple piles down to 1 tile each to control the moment that a new one enters the board.
Take advantage of opportunities. Last night my opponent used all their cards to get some building done, which gave me a guarantee about what they could or not not build the next turn. She'd blocked a temple connection (or so she thought), so I drew tiles from one of my 1-stacks that I'd been saving, and put the tile down to allow me to go around her block. It wasn't very good on resources, offering only 2 mountains to keep extending her block and of course she had no tiles that could play for that. On my next turn I dropped the fountain ground to connect for the win. If the tile I drew had been resource-rich, I would have had the opportunity to place it elsewhere and draw from another 1-pile for another chance, or call it quits and just go for the efficiency win. Either way I knew she couldn't steal the resources by jumping on my tile because she had no cards and so she couldn't start a new group either.
This is the kind of situation that can allow a connection victory even between experienced players, or allow a large surge of growth that your opponent can't take part in before the chance is lost.
Some other points to keep in mind:
1. If you get the chance to connect a 2nd (or 3rd...) group back to another, do it. It lowers the penalty for starting another new group later on. Conversely, block enemy groups from connecting back up, it will limit what they can do late in the game (as well as taking space).
2. Push for space. Space is often the most valuable resource of all, it gives you more room to build, more free spaces, more resources. Conversely, crowd your opponent. Push adjacent to his City, choke his free building spaces so he has to pay full price. Take the resources he needs.
3. Watch their board, not just your own. It's important to know what they have ready to build, especially large groups that could suddenly drop in for a low cost. Say your opponent has the Quarry and two Towers. So far, not a threat. If there's a nice rich mountain/hill area on the board he's not going to take it because you'll probably move to surround the Quarry and deny him the free Fortress build before he draws it. As soon as he draws that Fortress though, you've got to jump into action and grab that spot! He's going to take it on his next turn and make a big surge forward if you don't. But if you can afford to wait, you can probably deny it more efficiently than if you did it earlier with fewer free builds. Know what he can or cannot efficiently do by watching his board.
Attika is an awesome game, and I believe far too overlooked. The strategy and nuances go really deep as the other posters in this thread have noted. There is some luck in the order you get your buildings and the cards, but it's still dominated by player skill.
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Alan Kwan
Hong-Kong
Hong Kong
Unspecified
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dboeren wrote: Say your opponent has the Quarry and two Towers. So far, not a threat. If there's a nice rich mountain/hill area on the board he's not going to take it because you'll probably move to surround the Quarry and deny him the free Fortress build before he draws it.
Not entirely safe, depending on the resources. He can drop in with a Tower, or with a Quarry and Tower. Or Quarry, Tower and Gymnasium.
One good way to avoid getting blocked while placing a "naked" black building is to also place more buildings (whatever that fits there well) so that the free-build spaces are segregated. Then it becomes more difficult for the opponent to block them all.
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David Boeren
United States
Marietta
Georgia
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No, you're seldom 100% safe, but this sort of thing is good to keep an eye on. There's less risk when the building chain is missing an expensive link, and you must also take into account how crowded the potential building spot is and what you have on YOUR board to potentially choke it out with. You're right that it would be more correct to say "not a LARGE threat" or something like that though.
Something else I'd like to add...
I've noticed recently that when teaching the game to new players, I occasionally come across someone who believes that since it's a race to build your buildings first, they should build every building they draw immediately if it's possible to do so. They will typically start off drawing white tiles and placing a lot of the low cost buildings on the board in free or cheap locations and expend their starting cards in a blast of what they feel is "getting an early lead".
However, so far this has never ended well. What they end up with is a sprawl of semi-randomly placed buildings and no infrastructure. By infrastructure, I'm talking about getting their root (and occasionally second level) buildings in place - the things that you're hoping to get free builds off later when you draw the descendant buildings. Believing in the strategy of consuming board resources to fuel their growth, they usually cover up a lot of them and find themselves resource-poor which limits their ability to react to opportunities or emergencies.
I feel that at the start of the game it's critical to get your city established, since so many tiles can build off of it. Other groups too are valuable if you can start them early, in particular the Quarry group and Harbor group. The 2-building roots I usually hope are at the bottom of my black stack, as they are of lesser value at this point.
It's not necessarily your best play to put a tile on the board even if you CAN build it for free either. Once someone begins to understand the game, they'll usually reason that building a tile immediately on drawing it saves them 1/3rd of a turn compared to building it from their mat for a similar resource cost. Also a resource card is worth 1/3rd of a turn. Therefore, to make a net gain, building it later would have to save at least one resource to break even or more to come out ahead. This is a bit off though. First, paying cards later rather than now preserves flexibility, so I would argue that paying one less later is better than one more now with all else equal (assuming the space the building would occupy is of no particular interest in terms of reaching, blocking, choking, etc...) Secondly, I find it to be of great value to keep at least one "blitz" group on my mat if I can. These are typically the Fountain or Street groups, but can also include the Quarry group at times. Ideally it's something that is deep rather than wide (so you have the option to reach farther if you want), and something that starts cheaply (so you can almost always afford to play it). Thus, the Fountain group is the best for blitzing. By keeping this on your mat as a threat, you retain the option to quickly make a temple connection (or just threaten one), surround/choke something, fill in a lot of resources your opponent wanted, etc... and you can do it for as little as one water card. So, if I draw my fountain, unless it's really important that I get a building down for some other purpose, it's going on the mat even if it will build for free.
Something else new players also struggle with is the concept of space having value. Take opportunities to reach for open space when you can, fill contested areas before your opponent can, and be willing to spend an extra card to get more room in certain situations.
For instance, last night I was playing with two new players and one of them was stuck with a sort of crowded city early in the game and needed more room. She wanted to build her Fountain, and it could have built free next to Athens, but it wouldn't be doing anything to give her access to more room and the resources located further away.
We ended up stopping to talk a little about strategy and she ended up choosing to build the Fountain one space away from Athens instead. It cost her an extra card, but it did a better job of reaching for space and by keeping the spot next to Athens open a future building could play there for free that wouldn't be able to if she'd filled it. That is, she paid one more card now but would save 1-2 cards later while also reaching more effectively. Also, a 1-space jump is a pretty safe extension in that an opponent was unlikely to be able to prevent her from eventually connecting the two settlements which might have been a bigger problem with a larger jump into new territory.
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