Strategy guides for more than 3 players?

[Cos-]

I've seen some really good, detailed, well thought out 7 Wonders strategy guides for 3 player games.
Is there anything like that for 4, 5, and 6 player games? They're so very very different.
I feel like I'm pretty good at 3, 4, and 5 player games now, but I'm still terrible at 6-player, so especially interested in a guide for that for new edition.

[ElThoesen]

You have a good win percentage and ELO. If you want actual material, try WonderfulPlays on Youtube (he also has a profile here on BGA). Here are two other links:

https://strategygamegeeks.com/2020/01/2 ... r-victory/

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/691370 ... -7-wonders

That second link in particular breaks down some interesting dynamics which occur in 3 and 4 player which are the most common for competitive. Note that it's for the old edition, but many of the principles still apply in terms of probabilities (I think the number of reds per player count changed a bit though).

You're better than me by win percentage so I dunno how much I can help lol.

[Cos-]

Well, my ELO is a bit misleading for the reason I gave: I actually suck at 6 player games. I'm much better at 3 and 4 player games, and reasonably okay at 5 player. Since I keep playing some 6 player games - and lose most of them - it brings my ELO down below where it would be for 3 and 4 player games, but when I play 3 and 4 player games and often win, that brings my ELO well above where it would be if I only played the larger games. I think at this point if I only played 6 player games my ELO would be around 100.

I read that post by Red Porper a while back, and I agree, it's great - but it focuses on the 3 player game, like most other 7 wonders guides and analysis I've seen that get detailed and specific.

[ElThoesen]

Most competitive 7 Wonders players consider 3P the "purest" form of the game and concentrate on that. They tolerate 4P when Arena switches to it, and complain about 5p. If you're that good at 3P/4P and want to challenge yourself, you could become one of the best at 6P and write a guide yourself lol.

[Cos-]

Heh. Since I keep losing 6 player games, someone else out there is clearly better than I am, so I wanna see what they wrote to help me get better

[Cos-]

One thing I have noticed keeps happening in 5 and 6 player games for me is that I do beat the players on either side of me most of the time, but often end up losing to someone across the table from me. For example in this recent game: https://boardgamearena.com/10/sevenwond ... =439026064

I think this may be a caused in part by my having 3-player game strategies in mind even though I know they're not necessarily good for games with more players? Maybe some of the things I am used to doing to stay ahead of my neighbors, are actually hurting me in larger games.

Unfortunately as far as I can tell nobody who's really good at 5 or 6 player games has posted a solid strategy guide for those.

[BluDrake]

May I have the links to the guides you are referring to, for 3-4 players games?
I feel like I could win almost always with A METHOD, but I’m really not getting that method. Thank you

[NBZ]

Wonderful Plays' channel has several videos where he is playing in 5-player and 6-player videos. There is good strategy advice sprinkled within those videos.

Back when I was playing a lot, I had decent results in 5p and 6p games. Compared to 3p/4p, these games are inherently more messy, and it is harder to come up with concrete guidelines. But a few ideas to keep in mind:
- The players across from you (there are 2 of them) are potential allies. If they go red and you go red, you can sandwich the players in between, and earn some easy military points. I like to keep this in mind when thinking of which cards to pass. For example, I would sometimes pass a red card that my neighbour cannot build but the player following the neighbour can.
- What you don't want is to get stuck in a red corner of the board (where both you and your neighbour are going heavy on red). This is usually disastrous for everyone on your side of the board, and excellent for the player opposite you. The easiest way to lose in 5p/6p is to be stuck in a red corner. By contrast, it is not such a disaster in 4p to be fighting for red with your neighbour, since every other player is hurt by the war.
- Green seems more viable in 5p/6p than 4p.

[joltman]

As Wonderful Plays will often advise, you need to be flexible in your strategy and adapt to the game and how all of your opponents are playing. In general, you should know that the reds are less valuable in games with more players. You mentioned that you tend to do well against the players next to you in larger games, so my first thought is that you could be overvaluing red cards relative to their value in 3p and 4p games where your results are better. That's not to say that you should ignore red in larger games. There is still plenty of value there, but you want to be more careful how much you invest in red and your neighbors will somewhat dictate that to you. You never want to be in an arms race (even in 3p), but that's even more true in games with more players where there is less reward for winning the arms race. In games of all sizes, the value of greens is going to depend on what the other players are doing, so paying attention to their early build choices (not just what they build, but also what they chose not to build).

I think the need for flexibility in strategy is what makes it difficult to design a set strategy for 5p+ games and why there isn't a lot out there. In two games with the same wonder for you and all of your opponents (and even the same positions around the board), the best strategy in one can very easily be completely different from the other and that's just one set of fixed variables (your wonder, opponent wonders, and placement).

Perhaps more focused strategy guides (like playing a specific wonder in a 7p game) might be more feasible, but I don't think it's likely you're going to find any magic formula to play and win 6p/7p games, in general.