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Subject: Is capturing opponents workers worth it? 
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I have played this gane about 6 times now. And have been last place every time. Every time I have tried to capture workers from my opponents to make the game more dynamic, however, i have lost every time.
Is taking workers worth it? It seems that the time lost taking them may not be worth it. Also, once they are sent to prison, is very easy to get them back, actually easier than going to the town hall and getting a group back.
But however, if you don’t capture any wirkers, everyone is kind of playing by himself.
Any thoughts? What do you do to make the game more dynamic between players? Am I missing something on capturing workers ?
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Atrusni wrote:Every time I have tried to capture workers from my opponents to make the game more dynamicI think you misanderstood the meaning of capturing. It is not something you do to shake up things. It's an opportunistic move: do you need money? Do you want to stop someone from taking too many resources? If capturing can be both beneficial to you and hindering for your opponents, then go for it. Then do some more capturing when the opportunity presents itself and finally sell a bunch of prisoners for money. Otherwise do something else that gives you more benefit.
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So you can go a whole game
Without capturing opponents? It seems
That capturing is the only interaction you have with the other players
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Atrusni wrote:I have played this gane about 6 times now. And have been last place every time. Every time I have tried to capture workers from my opponents to make the game more dynamic, however, i have lost every time.If you check out my video on strategies and tactics I discuss this near the beginning!
Is taking workers worth it? It seems that the time lost taking them may not be worth it. Also, once they are sent to prison, is very easy to get them back, actually easier than going to the town hall and getting a group back.
But however, if you don’t capture any wirkers, everyone is kind of playing by himself.
Any thoughts? What do you do to make the game more dynamic between players? Am I missing something on capturing workers ?
However here are some important points:
1. Do you need money? If not, don't capure (unless someone is getting to many dudes on the mines, if they are getting 2 or 3 gold a turn, someone needs to stop that).
2. Can you turn money into resources or points? Ie debt strategy, black matket, merchants. If yes, then capturing is a great way of killing two birds with one stone.
3. Are you capturing in an efficient manner? If you capture groups of 2 or three you will be earning less silver than at the silversmith. But if you look to capture groups of 4 plus. And capture at least 3 turns (6 groups) before selling, you get a good yield.
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Atrusni wrote:So you can go a whole gameIt happened to me last time I played, actually. I never captured anyone and I won regardless. As I said, It's a matter of opportunity. That's for me is the beauty of this game: each time it plays different.
Without capturing opponents?
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- Last edited Sat Feb 9, 2019 11:06 am (Total Number of Edits: 1)
- Posted Sat Feb 9, 2019 11:05 am
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Atrusni wrote:So you can go a whole gameIt is a worker placement game, which generally means that there's not going to be a lot of interaction with other players.
Without capturing opponents? It seems
That capturing is the only interaction you have with the other players
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Atrusni wrote:If you need the money for sending them to prison, or if you see them loading up on resources, capturing their workers can be a good strategic move. You can also just hold them on your board (making it more costly for your opponent to reclaim them) in certain circumstances. It's a novel mechanic that adds a different tactic into the game. But it's not something that you want to do just to add interaction to the game.
Is taking workers worth it? It seems that the time lost taking them may not be worth it. Also, once they are sent to prison, is very easy to get them back, actually easier than going to the town hall and getting a group back.
But however, if you don’t capture any wirkers, everyone is kind of playing by himself.
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rantinronrevue wrote:Yea, exactly. The interesting dilemma it creates is that considering the fact that each circle could be powered up to 20 workers, it is up to the other players to decide when someone's action has become OP and must be stopped!Atrusni wrote:If you need the money for sending them to prison, or if you see them loading up on resources, capturing their workers can be a good strategic move. You can also just hold them on your board (making it more costly for your opponent to reclaim them) in certain circumstances. It's a novel mechanic that adds a different tactic into the game. But it's not something that you want to do just to add interaction to the game.
Is taking workers worth it? It seems that the time lost taking them may not be worth it. Also, once they are sent to prison, is very easy to get them back, actually easier than going to the town hall and getting a group back.
But however, if you don’t capture any wirkers, everyone is kind of playing by himself.
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Atrusni wrote:I have played this gane about 6 times now. And have been last place every time. Every time I have tried to capture workers from my opponents to make the game more dynamic, however, i have lost every time.It seems like you want this game to have a lot of interaction/confrontation and it’s not really that game. There are lots of games out there that have more interaction and confrontation, you may want to ask in the Recommendation forum.
Is taking workers worth it? It seems that the time lost taking them may not be worth it. Also, once they are sent to prison, is very easy to get them back, actually easier than going to the town hall and getting a group back.
But however, if you don’t capture any wirkers, everyone is kind of playing by himself.
Any thoughts? What do you do to make the game more dynamic between players? Am I missing something on capturing workers ?
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- Well not a lot of interaction, but at least some ! Seems like te only player interaction on this game is the capturing mechanic
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Atrusni wrote:Well not a lot of interaction, but at least some ! Seems like te only player interaction on this game is the capturing mechanicSome games simply don't have meaningful interaction even if it looks like they should. This is one of those games
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- Nico(ZdadrDeM)Germany
Germany
But I don’t want to go among mad people
Oh, you can’t help that, we’re all mad here.
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Atrusni wrote:Well not a lot of interaction, but at least some ! Seems like te only player interaction on this game is the capturing mechanicAnd building the cathedral, and the space for the buildings, and the black market and the market for the apprentices.
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Hi
What do you mean by the space for the buildings?
I may be missing a rule there
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- I think he is refering to the Guildhall spaces where you lay a meeple when building. It doesn't necessarily impact your opponent, but in some cases it could force him/her to reset the black market if he wants to build.
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Atrusni wrote:HiI assume they are referring to the fact there are limited worker placement spaces to build buildings and the cathedral - it's a race to get what you can done before others take the available spaces.
What do you mean by the space for the buildings?
I may be missing a rule there
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- Nico(ZdadrDeM)Germany
Germany
But I don’t want to go among mad people
Oh, you can’t help that, we’re all mad here.
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alanB wrote:The building space is not limited, only the cathedral, but yes, by building stuff you can trigger the black market.Atrusni wrote:HiI assume they are referring to the fact there are limited worker placement spaces to build buildings and the cathedral - it's a race to get what you can done before others take the available spaces.
What do you mean by the space for the buildings?
I may be missing a rule there
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ZdadrDeM wrote:When the Guild Hall is full, the final round is triggered. I believe that is the sense of "limited" being used above.alanB wrote:The building space is not limited, only the cathedral, but yes, by building stuff you can trigger the black market.Atrusni wrote:HiI assume they are referring to the fact there are limited worker placement spaces to build buildings and the cathedral - it's a race to get what you can done before others take the available spaces.
What do you mean by the space for the buildings?
I may be missing a rule there
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ZdadrDeM wrote:There is only a limited number of spaces at the guildhall which limits the total number of times that players can build the cathedral or buildings before the end game is triggered.alanB wrote:The building space is not limited, only the cathedral, but yes, by building stuff you can trigger the black market.Atrusni wrote:HiI assume they are referring to the fact there are limited worker placement spaces to build buildings and the cathedral - it's a race to get what you can done before others take the available spaces.
What do you mean by the space for the buildings?
I may be missing a rule there
n the final round after the end game has been triggered you can place workers at the guildhall even if it's full so I suppose my initial statement wasn't 100% correct but it's certainly true that if you leave building your buildings until late in the game you can run out of time to do so as others fill up the guildhall and trigger the end of the game.
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I agree that capturing is only helpful during particular times. That said, in our group we are vocal about the fact that one person can’t be responsible for doing all the capturing for the whole game.
Besides that, there is value in holding onto opponents on your playing mat and letting them rot before taking them to the guardhouse. I find this works well if I am the only one holding a particular colors workers. Once more people start collecting yellow for example it makes the 3rd guardhouse action more viable for the yellow player but otherwise I think it’s pretty solid. Certain players get annoyed that you hold their workers and it doesn’t make sense for them to pay 3-5 coin or get 3-5 workers back. A few times I have done this though its been squashed cause yellow ends up being able to build the Barracks.
I have played this 3 times with 5 players and got a single win so I suspect there’s some value to this strategy in one of many strategies. The other 2 games were within 1-2 points. Overall this game is my new fav right now. I bought it to take on a vacation and I must say it’s a hit with everyone.
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As others have said, you need to have a purpose and a plan for your capturing.
I have gotten into a bad spiral of sending opponents to jail to offset my workers in the black market to gain money to pay off debts, this doesn't really work.
As some have said above, capture when someone is doing something and is getting out of hand, other than that capturing isn't that good of a money gain.
It might be better to go to the silversmith 4 turns in a row, if you lucky you can go a 5th time.
I have found that sometime in the early to midgame spending 4-5 turns to gain some resource (wood, silver, etc) will solve your need for that resource, and that turns out to be great.
It seems like a lot of turns to devout to 1 thing, but the number of turns you will spend capturing selling and repeating will be much greater.
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One strategy where capturing synergizes really well is the debt strat.
A person playing the debt strat wants the game to not finish to early, as the real pay-off (pun intended) of a debt strat takes time.
So capturing slows their opponents down. It costs less (because they won't be paying the tax). When they sell the workers for money they can also pay off debts with that money if they have more than one worker in the guardhouse.
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Capturing opponent workers and sending them to the guardhouse is a great strategy if you're playing with fire in the black market.
With 3 spots, you know that you can usually go there once and be fine in terms of not getting a penalty in the guardhouse when the time comes. But to be sure (and to make the opponent(s) get more debt cards) you can chuck some guys in the slammer right before a black market refresh, or if you enact it yourself with the final spot.
It's a (black) magical moment for sure. Is it a winnable strategy? Not if that is all you do, but it's something to add to the mix.
Another reason why this game is amazing. Solo or otherwise.
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It's very situational. Sometimes it's the only way, but quite often just not worth the tempo hit of sacrificing two workers.
It works a little bit different when you're playing 2p game, because then you're the sole person responsible for stopping your opponent - so suddenly it makes quite a lot of sense to play "I hinder you" game, rather than "I score more efficiently than you" game.
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