Azul Strategy Guide
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2022
- Azul is one of my top three board games, probably even my most played board game. Behind a simple and elegant tile drafting game is a ton of strategic depth which I love. Hopefully these tips can help you!
Some Azul Gameplay
Live Play: • I played Arena Mode fo...
Live Play: • BGA Gameplay | Azul, S...
Replay Analysis: • Why I lost this Azul t...
Azul on Board Game Geek: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2...
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My peak rank on BGA: Top 10
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Clear and to the point. Exactly what I needed in order to stop my wife's two-weeks-long reign of terror since we got the game. Thank you kindly :)
Is she still kicking your butt?
5:19 - By placing the blue tile in the 4th row instead of the 1st row my opponent was trying to bait me into taking the last blue tile to deny their 1st row. If I had done so their next move would have been to take the yellow tile, leaving a centre of 1 black, 3 white, and 6 red. Any combination of tiles I take from that point on would lead to me discarding my whole floor and losing.
These Azul videos are my great! It’s my favorite game and I enjoy seeing how other people play it
Really good video that helped address some weaknesses in my play. I really appreciated you bringing in stats from BGA, real game examples, and nice visuals. Thanks!
Nice tips! Just so when I thought this game doesn’t do much competitiveness but just meanness I’m totally wrong. The first tip is such good way to stack up points by not randomly completing whatever colored tiles you like. Nice.
The best azul strategy video I ever seen!
Thanks Eduardo!
These tips are so helpful! Thank you for this video!❤
Great format of the video and awesome tips! Thanks
Great video for beginners as it gives a very clear explanation to some basic principles in Azul:)
Here are something to mention about this video:
1) Actually, the maximum points that one will take from top 3 rows is 70 but not 68 theoriotically.
2) I totally agree with you that the color achievement is the least important. And actually Kndr is a player that makes comparatively MORE color achievements than other top players, many of whom scores less than 1 from it.
Thank you for this!
You are indeed correct about the top 3 rows. I only discovered this recently and it blew my mind when I realised the optimal tile placement is more like a staircase than straight lines.
I hadn't been keeping track of the top players and it appears Kndr has been overtaken by a few other people. That's very interesting information about their scores from colours. I'm not surprised it's lower, but I am surprised it's quite significantly lower!
@@NoWondersTVIf you have time, would you be able to do a video explaining the staircase method. I read about it but it’s always much better to see a visual of it. Thank you!
@@G--do8ro sure that’s a good idea for a short video!
This helped a lot! Your explanation was super clear. Please make more videos analyzing critical positions! :)
Subbed!
Thanks for the video and for the tips! Very useful!
Thank you for this video, Sam, I like very much this format especially when you summarize the main tips making a list of 4 in this case 😉. Your recent buddy on BGA, Antoine aka Corps_d_Apollon 😄
Bonjour! This is the only video that has a summary so it's not something I usually do. It sounds like I should include it more
Great guide. Thanks!
Thanks for those great tips! What are those beautiful tiles i see? There's an orange and a light blue with patterns i don't recognise. You show it a few times.
I'm pretty sure they were promo tiles people could get if they attend/fulfilled something. I'm not sure what but probably a convention or KS campaign of some sort. I think to remember (so hopefully I'm not misremembering) that you were just meant to swap them with the preexisting white and orange tiles if you wished. I just found the picture very pretty with the added tiles that I thought it'd look good in the video so that's why it was one of the pictures Sam pickes. 😊
Last round is easy. Single blue first as it threatens the scoring with yellow and takes away blue for them. Also you're ahead in points you just need to score well with yellow or avoid getting a big dump to not lose the game. The single yellow is a mistake of him, after that you should just take 3 yellow on middle as you're guaranteed to finish the column with two separate groups of white and guaranteed to end the game with 3 groups of blacks. You take yellows. If he takes 2 whites you just take single white, game guaranteed over this round. If he groups the whites by taking 2 red for example you just grab 3 whites discarding 2. Even though after that he can and should force you to take 5 blacks to fill just a single one the four you have to discard won't matter much compared to the big scoring you get, he's scoring practically nothing for the round.
In general going first in the last round is often huge as there is often a colour both need.
Great video overall, like these short strategy video's.
Few additional tips:
1. Plan the last round, generally the 5th.
You only need to count the colours that have been discarded. Everything else is easily retraceable from the board. For example 3 blues discarded and both players have blue in first 3 rows? Then there are 12 + 3 blues out so the last round will feature 5. Some probabilities about how they will be distributed can also be useful, with 5 blues it's not likely a factory will have 3 but most likely 2-1-1-1-0 or 2-2-1-0-0. Either way first player can take 3 if he wants, second player 2. It's quite crucial to know in the 4th round if you need to be first or not in the last round to complete a colour.
2. Spot early if a round is about greed or avoiding tiles. The first round and second round you typically want to get as many tiles as possible. In later rounds, the name of the game is often avoiding a big colour dump though. For example if you know the last round will feature say 7 reds and both players have the first three rows locked for red you might want to be weary going into the last round with your 4th and 5th already committed to another colour. Sometimes it's better to just dump tiles now in the current round to have flexibility for the next. For example you get to pick 2 yellows at the end of round 4 to place in your bottom row but there are only a few yellow left and completing yellow on the bottom row is not even relevant for you (1 point). Perhaps better to dump so your bottom row can be used to absorb the colour that's coming in high amount last round.
3. Finish your columns early. Typically you want 1 or 2 columns as you will only fill the bottom two times during a game typically. Getting the 4th and 5th in same column completed quickly can be very nice to have flexibility on the bottom rows, ie use to hatepick or avoid dumps.
One last question, how many points you think player 2 should be compensated for not starting the game? I always feel it would be most fair to start the game with an auction for player 1 after first tiles are revealed or using the 'pie rule' (player 1 starts but player 2 can choose to swap positions after first move so player 1 is forced to do a mediocre opening move). With the rules as it is I feel player 1 typically has like ~2-3 point advantage just for starting round 1.
In hindsight taking the 3 yellow tiles would have been the best move after his blunder. In the limited time I over-estimated the value of his row and under-estimated the value of my own column and additional adjacency bonuses. Would have been much cleaner play albeit with the same end result. Azul is an extremely punishing game in that a lot of moves look similar but some are far superior. The ability to calculate those moves quickly is what gives the very best people a 90% win rate.
The additional tips are great. Keeping track of the discarded tiles is an easy way to get an exact distribution of the last round. For games with a shorter time control I'm still not sold on the practicality of it but for any turn-based or untimed games it will absolutely be an advantage. It's always ideal to be first pick in the last round anyway, I usually won't pass up an opportunity to be if given one.
Committing to your 4th and 5th rows is an interesting debate, highly situational. Ideally they would be open for the last round. If those 2 yellow tiles are going to cost you -2 and -3 each for discarding this round then it's not so clear. It may be better to spread the load even if it means discarding a few more later. Hard to say. For most rounds dumping them is the answer as those random yellow tiles on row 5 will hurt your column production.
It's a tough question. The pie rule works for 2 player games but then how would that translate to 3 or 4 player games? The first player advantage is also important in those player counts so do you instead give each other player flat points to compensate? Maybe. I don't have a solution. 2 flat points may not be enough in a situation where there are 4 white tiles in the same factory but may be too many points where there isn't a clear advantage.
good duck
🪵🦆
Do you have a heuristic for an upper limit of tiles in incompleted rows that you can comfortably take into the next round?
Well, your board can hold 15 tiles and you should get 10 assuming a fair round, so carrying more than 5 will probably lead to discarding. Carrying is fine if it's for a tile that will be part of one of your columns, otherwise discarding is probably the better choice.
What if you have archeologist in your opening hand, should you still commit to the middle?
Depends on your map