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Yes, you're right. I do use that occasionally during the play through, but strategically you want as much blue as possible so early on I heavily favor using the white die to fill in a blue box. (You can fill a blue box by adding the two dice when you take a blue OR when you take a white which means you can get two blue boxes per round if the numbers work out.)

Good luck! I’d love to hear how it works.

Glad you enjoyed it! It's a bit dated now that we have so much more data from online play, but the structure is the main thing.

You are absolutely right. The data from online games supports this. This video is a bit dated.

Yeah, the player interactions are undoubtedly the key.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Interesting! Did they play tech cards or tapestry cards? One word I always look for is 'may'. If the card says 'opponents may advance on a track,' you have the option to stay where you are.

@@wingames9172 it was the Age of Discovery Tapestry Card twice (the second time using a token on "Heralds" civilization). So I did not gain the tech cards twice (I was at the 3rd and 6th position respectively).

@@wingames9172 one of the players, played Tapestry card "Age of Discovery" and another player had a civilization benefit that allowed him to use any opponent's Tapestry card. I would gain no benefit/bonus on either of these moves.

@@wingames9172 I've replied twice. Not sure if my comment keeps getting deleted or there's a tech glitch.

@@wingames9172 One of the opponents played Age of Discovery Tapestry Card and another used their civilisation bonus to replay this card. I was at Tech/3 and Tech/6 when both these chances were played and it forced me to move ahead without getting benefits and bonus. I still finished the game at 246, which is not bad. Thanks to you!

Glad you enjoyed it! It's a little dated now with the addition of the online play opportunities, but I think the fundamental analysis is still sound.

The instructions on the Extra Die Action say, "This action can only be performed at the end of a round (i.e. after the active player has regularly assigned all of his dice or after a passive player has chosen a die from the Silver Platter)." [instructions page 7] I interpret that to mean both active and passive players can use this action provided that they follow the restriction that "each individual die can only be chosen once a round in this manner" ( so you can't use 2 extra die actions to claim the same purple 6). This is different than the Reroll Action which clearly states "This can be used only by the active player." That said, I've interpreted rules incorrectly before, and I'm open to outside clarification!

@@wingames9172 Incredible. You're absolutely right. I have now read it again (in the German instructions). If I hadn't seen your video, I would continue to play it incorrectly. I always thought the passive player could only choose this single die. Thank you for the revelation.

Yeah! Glad it helped.

In what sense?

Nice! That’s some good racing. Now that the game is online I’m seeing some elite racing that makes me rethink what’s possible.

@@wingames9172 I can describe step-by-step what happened in the race of 15 turns from the player`s perspective. Do you need it?

@@wingames9172 I can also give link to the game table if you have BGA account so you can analyze it yourself

Sure! My guess is they slipstreamed between curves 3 and 4 on the first lap so they could take those turns in succession and did the same on the second lap to get down to 15 player turns, but I’d love to know how they managed the two long stretches with the speed 7 curve in between. It’s tough to go 17 spaces twice with only on turn in between.

@@wingames9172 Racetrack weather: start with 5 heats; corner 1 (spd limit 7) - overheat, corner 2 (spd limit 3) - overheat, corner 3 (spd limit 3) - spd+1, corner 4 (spd limit 2) - spd+1. Picked garage cards: Gas Pedal (3 spd, 3 discard), Body (5 spd, 1 stress), 4w Drive (4 spd, 1 plus). Turn 1: passing starting leg on 2nd gear with 10 spd. Turn 2: passing 1st corner on 3rd gear with 7 spd. Turn 3: passing 2nd leg on 3rd gear with 14 spd. Turn 4: passing 2nd corner on 2 gear with 2 spd. Turn 5: passing 3rd leg on 3rd gear with 12 spd. Turn 6: passing 3rd corner on 2 gear with 5 spd. Turn 7: passing 4th corner on 3rd gear with 5 spd. Turn 8: passing 5th leg (start-finish) on 4th gear with 18 spd. Turn 9: passing 1st corner on 3rd gear with 8 spd. Turn 10: passing 6th leg on 3rd gear with 15 spd. Turn 11: passing 2nd corner on 2nd gear with 3 spd. Turn 12: passing 7th leg on 2nd gear with 12 spd. Turn 13: passing 3rd corner on 1st gear with 3 spd. Turn 14: passing 4th corner on 2nd gear with 7 spd. Turn 15: passing 9th leg (finish) on 3rd gear with 16 spd. These speeds do not include slipstream, also I did not record what cards exactly have been played and when, no recording on spending and cooling heats. You can watch the replay yourself for more details.

Based in the website description the revised civ pack adjusts the civs from the base game and the first two expansions (‘Plans and Ploys’ and ‘Arts and Architecture’). If you buy fantasies and futures (the 3rd and final expansion), you will get new sieves that do not have/need revisions. If you did not want to buy the revised civ pack, you could look up the civ adjustments and pencil them in on your current civs.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Yes, I unfortunately introduced my own vocabulary. If you watch starting at minute two I place stones along the track to indicate how far you can go on each turn without spending any heat. This lets me count how many player turns it will take to finish the race without heat. If you just race from one stone to the next, I call that post to post racing, and the goal is to figure out how you can spend heat to skip a post so that you finish the race a turn or two earlier than you otherwise would.

@@peterlowe3326 yeah I watched it a few times, you’re a real pro, I got it after a few watched

An interesting point. If crossing the line first made you win it would be absolutely critical to go first on the turn that both of the finishing cars crossed the line, but the winner is the player who crosses the line by the most at the end of the round. The only advantage of going first in the final round is that you win the tie breaker if both cars cross by the same amount. That means that it if you have a choice between going one space further and owning the tie-breaker, you should always go the extra space. In my experience over the last two hands of the race I often have a choice of spending my heat on the second to last turn to boost/shift or spending my heat on the last turn. Of course if you can do both, you should do both, but if you have to chose I think that you can increase your chances of going farther by spending the heat in the last round. This is because I'm often playing a lot of my higher cards in the second to last hand, so they won't be in my deck and thus are not available for my boost. If I wait a hand, however, my discard may reshuffle into my deck and give me a much better chance at a high boost. Even if my deck is sufficiently large that none of the cards in my second to last hand will be reshuffled, I'd rather not be forced to play the next bad card. I'd rather look at the next set of cards and play them if they're high and skip them if their low. This gives me the best chance of going the farthest. It's usually not a game breaker either way, but for what it's worth, when I'm forced to chose I spend the heat on the last hand.

Also remember that if you have only 1 or 2 heat entering the final turn, each heat can mean EITHER going on further space speeding around the corner, OR let you play an extra card through upshifting, boosting, or paying the heat cost on drafted cards.

You are absolutely right. Counter guests can only be spent to discard/restart the Arrival phase, or to advance one space on the monastery track. During the final phase I should have discarded my two counter guests to advance two spaces on the monastery track because it would take me to space 8 where the reward is a noble. Nice catch!

@@wingames9172 if you fill the whole bar with 3 counter guests,see the noble sign under the bar,you get 1 noble,so there you are 😉

Yes! I scanned the instruction images and printed them on address labels. Then I chopped up a long square stick of wood with a miter saw and stuck the stickers on the cut edge. They're great for solo play, but I can't imagine making enough for a group. It's tough to know how many straight roads you're going to roll!

This is a great question, and a very astute observation. Each section of the track was analyzed without regard to what cards you would need to get through the previous section. The long stretch on Italy, for example, cannot be achieved in two player turns without using heat to boost, specific garage cards, or a very lucky and well timed reshuffling. Hand management is the name of the game, and this video only showed what you were trying to get your hand to do. I’m still learning the hand management aspect, but a good starting principle is that you want to have the cards you need this turn and the cards you need next turn at the same time. Try to save your 1’s for getting around the last turn before the big straight away in third gear. I never discard cards unless it’s very obvious that I won’t have what I need next turn. If I figure out more I’ll add an update!

This strategy is not allowed anymore.

@@SaschaKleiber What do you mean?

Oh, I'm curious to know why. Was there a rule change?

@@wingames9172 Yes. The same space can’t be activated more than once during your turn. This has been changed retroactively with arts & architecture if I remember correctly.

Great question! You're absolutely right. It is not feasible on the France track to take two curves in a single player turn. I introduce the phrase "post-to-post racing" in this video to describe driving as fast as possible without spending any heat. In general this means it takes one player turn to get across a straightaway, one turn to get around a curve at the speed limit, one turn to cross the next straightaway, one turn to get around the next curve and so on. A post refers to the locations where your car stops at the end of each movement. For the France track this means the first lap would take 11 turns/posts. If, however, you could travel two extra spaces between the first two curves by slipstreaming or paying heat, then instead of: (1) go around curve one, (2) traverse the straightaway between them, (3) go around curve two; you could instead: (1) go around curve one and slipstream (2) go around curve two. Completing these two curves in 2 player turns instead of 3 is what I mean by skipping a post. Hopefully that makes more sense.

Note that there are Garage Module upgrade cards that raise the speed limit of a corner and increase your slipstream.. So in France, if you for example play tires ++ (+2 corner modifier) and wings 3 (+2 corner modifier, costs one heat) you could even get through the first two corners without slipstreaming by paying a total of 5 heat. If you also caught a slipstream, you could potentially get through with a 3 heat cost or even less depending on weather conditions. Similar feats can also be achieved with the slipstream upgrade cards. In theory you could for example play two slipstream cards that add +2 and +3 to your slipstream, and the weather in that sector could add another +2 allowing you to slipstream as many as 9 tiles. Suddenly corner-skipping is a piece of cake if you just manage to hit a slipstream.

Thanks for trying out the strategy! That would be a tough draw for civilizations, but the Craftsmen would give you access to resources so I guess they would be the logical choice. Of course I'm with you on putting the buildings into your capital city for the points/resources there rather than on the civ mat. Last time I checked the update for 'The Chosen' says "When starting the game with this civ gain 15 VP per opponent." Maybe it would be worth it just for the extra points! Great job filling 8 sectors.

I did this strategy again, and scores 315. I had the Entertainers and filled my capital completely (left one farm on my board). I'm still a little lost about what to do after I finish the tech and science. I pushed up the military track, but I wasn't sure why other than getting my columns onto the board. I went up exploration enough to get my farms offs, but by using Anasthesia tech, I already had all my Armories off, so I wasn't sure why I was pushing up Military.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. The argument against is that it adds time to decision making, but I find that a player is much more likely to spend extra time if they have to sit there trying to remember their previous two turns. If you just let them peek at their discard pile they can often make a decision more quickly. A brief look at the BGG forum, however, shows that this can be a pretty heated topic of debate, so I went with the rules for this video.

@@wingames9172 this video was super helpful.

I'd love to know what you find out! It would be nice to have a digital version of the game so we could race a wider community. The challenge with spending too much on the 1st lap is that your discard reshuffles before (or on) the longer stretch where you are typically playing a lot of cards. This means the 2nd run through your deck happens very quickly and you can end up with a lot of heat in your hand at once, making it harder to control your car on the second lap. In addition you usually need at least 2 heat to get over the long stretches (double shifting to 4th, boosting, paying for a turbo, etc.) which leaves you very little margin if you've already spent 3 or 4 heat on lap one. Cooling cards are nice if they come up at the right time, but that's difficult to control, they offer little benefit on lap one, and they don't address the challenge of getting through your stress cards. I would admit that I've mostly tested garage cards independently, and there may well be strategic pairings that produce distinct advantages, which is part of what makes this game so great!

​@@wingames9172they have it on bga. im having a blast. Thank you for the video!

@@wingames9172​​⁠, having that problem on a BGA ranked-arena asynch game right now! I led after lap 1 but can’t keep a good speed getting through the long straightaway to the second lap’s first curve since I have 3 or 4 heat cards now in hand.

Bummer! Let them pass and slipstream well, I guess. Glad to know it’s on BGA.

@@peterlowe3326 The BGA implementation is excellent! I had never even tried Heat before, but now that price tag doesn’t look too bad,

You are likely correct. It is puzzle-y and definitely leans more towards resource management than heavy player interaction. I would note that the conquering and exploration tiles were definitely downplayed in this video and, if you go that route, they can add a bit more intrigue, but Tapestry has a steep learning curve are requires some time investment so if your instincts say 'steer clear' you should probably listen to them. Thanks for watching!

Well done! You are absolutely correct. While I followed the "closest to the dish" rule for passive rolls in earlier rounds I mistakenly eliminated the closest die to the dish in the final passive roll rather than including it. Ironically the mistake cost me two points! The final passive choice should have been among the blue 1, yellow 2, and green 4. I should chose the green 4 and trigger the free blue pick, which triggers the free green and the orange 5. I would then use my bonus picks to chose the purple 6 and finally the white 4 to use on orange. The result would be all the same numbers as you see in the video, but the 5 and 4 in the orange row would be switched, so the 5 would be the pick whose value gets doubled instead of the four resulting in 298 instead of 296. So, yes, I cheated (accidentally) but the value of this strategy is that nearly any final roll will result in a usable pick and you can bonus pick the other two. Thanks for watching so closely!

@@wingames9172 Thank you for being so gracious at my nitpickery. Thank you too for the strategy, I have been utterly rubbish at the game (barely on the scoreboard) but managed 260 on my first attempt keeping your tactics in mind 😁

This is just a starting point for strategy, and another player doing it first is certainly it's weakness. As always, the real solution is understanding your starting civilization and tapestry cards, and maxing them out. It's also helpful when you know which direction other players are going to choose a track where they aren't and avoid the competition. The goal of this video was to give intermediate players a civ-independent strategy and a set of steps to get you past the 250 point mark. It's also useful as an 'automated opponent' if your trying to refine your game skills, or only have 2 players and want a 3-player game.

Good find! The catch is that strategy gets you a free blue and a free bonus pick (2), while the other gets you a free orange, a free green, and a bonus pick (3), and one fewer pick may cost you a fox elsewhere.

@@wingames9172 Ah my bad the strategy I proposed only works for the 3 player game. It would allow you to get all five foxes. Your strategy might be better than mine in 2 player mode.

Oh, Clever! I hadn’t occurred to me that the three player game offered a different number of picks. I’ll have to try that for some variety.

@@hylas1961 The I strategy for yellow is better in 2 players, but it requires more luck whereas the H is more consistent and safe

Wow! Sounds like we have a lot still to explore.

Thanks for trying it! Sorry it didn't work out as advertised. You're right about the covered civilizations at 19:58 and I made the video so long ago I don't remember what they are, but the principle of choosing a civilization that works well with tech, capital city coverage, or resources should help in the decision process. Workers and Money would definitely be the priority when gaining resources and what track you're about to advance on would dictate which. I'm sorry the points were hard to follow but I'd be glad to explain (or own my mistakes!) if you can tell which parts were unclear. Thanks again for giving it a try.

@@wingames9172 wow, it’s been a while, can’t really remember tbh. 😂 i do know I kept trying and made it work, so no worries! Thanks for your reply!

Ah, yes. Regrettably I haven’t gotten the expansion to the table yet.

Certainly! Just use the business e-mail link in the 'About' section of the channel (recently activated).

Updates, please 😌

Oh, that’s a good one! Haven’t seen it in a while, but I’ll watch for a copy. Do you have a preference on the original, or the revised edition?

1) Get more workers. 2) Get more workers. 3) GET MORE WORKERS If you are in a 4 player game and you are not one of the first two people to get an extra person, I'd rate your chance of winning at about zero. Worker track isn't out yet? Set up for getting out your houses then.

@@wingames9172 I'd say Revised since I haven't seen original out lately

Love it! You’re quite welcome. Excited to hear how the first game goes.

Great analysis! These would certainly decrease the profitability of this strategy but here are some considerations for each situation. (1. Not first to go up tech.) Advance to the first tech space for the tech card. Then, if the opponent continues up tech, switch to science and play the strategy in the reverse order so that you gain the early tier science buildings instead. (2. Forge-sniped by a six resource civ) The forge is not as critical as the rubber factory, but with the head start they may take that as well. You could try the science track as mentioned above or favor the landmark tech cards to fill out your capital city. (3. Bad deal on civs.) [Aside: You're totally right about the Craftsmen being bad for this strategy and I missed that when I sorted them in the video.] With only (now) 12 of the 26 civs being bad (14/31 with the Arts and Architecture expansion) there is a 78.7% chance that one of your two civs is good. If not, then you find a strategy that closely matches your civ (military for militants, etc.) or you work this strategy without the advantage of additional resources/victory points. (4. Rubber factory-sniped by Dystopia) This is a real fear for this strategy, but you'd be surprised at how little of a temptation it is for opponents. Most players strategies favor cards with on-going abilities or immediate resources, so, given the choice, 'Dystopia' isn't as tempting to them as it is detrimental to you. It may also cost them points to move away from their other tapestry cards if they're doing it just for spite. In the end you forge on, favor landmark tech cards, and take a few less points on your capital city. (5. Outscored by other player's tapestry card combos.) This is what elite players do. They can read their civ and the cards they are dealt and adapt. You'll have to become one of them to beat them, or just tip your hat to them. Thanks for the breakdown. Hope that helps! Let me know how it works if you try it.

@@wingames9172 Another problem is when playing against futurists. A decent player (doesn't need to be elite) who understands the value of the tech/science combo will steal all four critical landmarks on both tracks, making it impossible to recover from. Even if you get the other landmarks from tech cards it's too much to upgrade all of them to for your mat. Also, the first upgrades are always points so you miss out on resources or buildings which are critical to this strategy. In general it does work, and I've scored 462 at one point and regularly hit the 300's when I'm playing well, but I can't seem to beat futurists favoring the tech/science track (no matter which order they preference since they can toggle back and forth to always maintain the lead). My only hope is to get dystopia or marriage of state followed by espionage.

@@coreyschumacher4245 True. That might be a good time to take a different track. The irony is that if you go military/exploration you have a better shot at the landmarks (if the futurists have gone tech/science) but you don’t get very many capital city points because you don’t have a good way to get the gray houses off your income mat. Those tracks do offer more points, so hopefully clever play can make up the difference. As much as I don’t like to play against the futurists, I am even less likely to choose them as a civilization. Missing out on all of the low-cost income buildings is too much for me.

I swear, Rubber Plant is nabbed by Dystopia in like 30% of the games I see on Board Game Arena.

Way to watch closely! This is kind of an odd quirk of the rules especially if you're used to playing with other players. In the solo mode the rules simulate the "passive roll" (where, in a game with opponents, you would be choosing one of the leftover dice) by having you roll all the dice once and choose from among the 3 lowest rolls. I incorrectly refer to this as the "bonus roll" but the single passive roll between rounds really is part of the solo rules. That's how we get 7 picks by the end of round 2. Thanks for keeping me honest!

So good to hear! If you find any tweaks or refinements to improve it let me know. How many players in the group?

4 players in the group. I actually started a thread on BGG talk about some of your tips and my experience so some more good advice there from other players

@@brighamredd9832 I checked it out, and that is a rich source of strategy! Nicely done on the blog post.

Thanks! Feel free to send me a message on bgg if you’d like to talk more about the game or any other strategy tips, they’re all fascinating to me:)

Thanks! Great question. I've had success with it in a four player game, but not when everyone was attempting this strategy. Typically people are buying upgrades along the way, so someone ends up selling three of their tables back late in the game when they are most needed. That said, if the tables did run out you'd at least be no worse off than everyone else, and it only increases the motivation to buy early and often!

@@wingames9172 I remember the rules are discards don't come back into play, once bought a table is gone forever. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't have the rules with me right now

@@jangohemmes352 That would be an important distinction! On page 8 of the English instructions in the box titled ‘special offer!’ the instructions say that “the cost of an upgrade can be reduced by returning one or more tavern cards from the area being upgraded to the general supply.” More tables for everyone!

@@wingames9172 Good to know! Thanks for looking it up

I have tried the game so many times with 4 Players and I admit, if everyone knows the winning strategy, there were be no tables by round 5 or 6. But you can still use this strategy with a little solution. You should reduce the number of your standard guests and try to buy 3 or 4 tables. In order to remove the guests you need to turn around the bartender track faster. So you need more of the value 1Dublone cards and save your schnapps to remove a guest for each 2 schnapps. If you produce 1D buy 1 bard. If youproduce 2D buy 1 bard and save the other and so on. With this strategy you will go up on the bartender track very fast and you will be able to remove 5 to 6 guests. So the lack of tables won't affect your game.

You're right! Nice catch. The tipping point in choosing the middle block was that the house in that block could ONLY use a 1, while the bottom block's first house could use a 1 or a 2 making it more likely that I would be able to fill it effectively later. If I don't take the 1 on the middle block at 8:56 there's a good chance that I'll have to take a 1 latter that has an effect I can't use. Unfortunately it totally backfired! Not only was there a 1 pool a few cards later, but the middle block filled up on parks and I had to pass on a 14 park, while the bottom block never found the last park. When I first designed this strategy it was all about optimizing your chance of filling the whole board while not having to take effects that didn't contribute to scoring. Since then I've learned the value of taking points when they are available, especially since another player may end the game early on you. Had I put the 1 in the bottom row I would have gained 10 points for finishing the parks, and still had a very good chance of some sort of 1 coming up to finish the middle row estates.

@@wingames9172Thanks for the reply and the strategy though, it is really working for me ;)

Great analysis! The early BIS strategy is a great way to counter this strategy, and the group size is definitely a concern. In practice I've found that with larger groups there is often a player who makes less strategic placements and ends the game before you'd like it to end. They don't often win, but they tip the scales towards someone else who may have taken an early BIS or a 'score sooner' approach (often through city plans). The park bonus in the top row is a great way to get 10 points in 3 plays, but maxing out the lower rows actually gets you more points per play. [Top block: 10/3=3.33 per play, Middle block 14/4=3.5 per play, Bottom block 18/5=3.6 per play] In addition the parks in the top block are the easiest to complete since you only need to use 30% of the available plays to complete them, while the lower blocks take a higher percentage, so favoring them first gives you the best chance at finishing them all. I think the key in any game is watching how quickly others are finishing their boards and adjusting play to fill your estates accordingly.

@@wingames9172 thanks for explaining, i get what you were saying about the gardens now. With bis strategy you probably should also do less gardens and go for pools (ideally completing only 1 or two rows of gardens). Bis allows you to do more risky pools. Since bis numbers are filled up without garden actions you do have less potential for gardens so fewer gardens and then more pools is best with this strategy. So The strategy in your video is much more consistent, but i think it might be a viable counterplay option.

I think I just got 4. I didn’t achieve the yellow fox. It requires crossing off all of the boxes in the bottom row, but I only did the diagonal, and the middle two rows.

It is a trademark poker six deck card shuffler. They should cost around $15. I originally got it for Wingspan as it can shuffle all of the Bird cards plus one expansion at once.

@@wingames9172 Thanks!

@@wingames9172 Does it also work with sleeved cards?

@@SaschaKleiber Not as well. I just gave it a try with a 30 card deck and it draws them in from the sides, but the center column is narrow so the cards have to tilt slightly to stack so they get a little stuck.

Thanks! I scanned the instruction images and printed them on address labels. Then I chopped up a long square stick of wood with a miter saw and stuck the stickers on the cut edge. They're great for solo play, but I can't imagine making enough for a group. It's tough to know how many straight roads you're going to roll!

I’ve started to explore lava a bit and it’s a whole different game! I like it.

Thanks! This was my first foray into a deeper probability based decision making and it was fun to see the numbers come together into a coherent strategy.

Probably not. I tend to stick to the base game unless it's a game like Tapestry that I always play with the expansion. Often the expansions involve slight tweaks to the base strategy to maximize or accommodate the variations. It's an interesting study, but I'm usually more interested in figuring out the next game on my shelf.

I really should! I often find myself bringing this out with new gamers, and we never quite get to the next level.