Game play strategies.

[HoneycombTx]

I have only played 4 games but figures there are strategies I should be aware of so I might have a fighting chance at winning a game.
Does anyone care to share theirs?

Thanks from HoneycombTX

[RCorr]

I'm still a new player, but here are my thoughts on the game. Note that I refer to house/watchtower/castle as buildings, sheep/tree/axe/gold as resources, and tiles as the combination of the two.

There are two main goals in the game:
1- Getting the buildings needed to complete your port/altar/palace.
2- Getting ~3 high scoring tile types

For the first goal, you should look at your board at the start and see which buildings you need the most of. 5 houses, 3 watchtowers, or 2 castles are all notably high amounts that will require a specific focus on getting them. Really, you'll need to focus on getting the exact amount of buildings you need. Don't be afraid to grab them away from other players or spend your shields to get them. At the end of the game, nearly all buildings should be taken and you should have your exact amount plus maybe 2 more.

For the second goal, you want to maximize the multiplicative scoring to get big returns. You should aim to have around 7-8 longships for about 2-3 per type, with a total of ~25 points per tile type for ~3 tile types. This can be a number of methods, such as 5 sheep for 5 points each, or 2 castles for 11 points each, or 4 gold for 6 points each. Of course, don't be afraid to get more tiles or longships that are already high scoring. The main limit here is the lack of good tiles to place on and same tile scoring longships.

Speaking of longships, you might be wondering which ones to get at the start. Simple: You should get longships for buildings you will have a lot of (see above), or barring that, just whatever longships that other people aren't getting. Early on, you have the flexibility to pivot to whatever resources you need, so any longship is fine. Even a single black longship is good enough. Additionally, don't worry too much about what resources it needs. You should look to overlap as much as possible, especially later on, but the point scoring is far more important in general.

Finally, a note on axes. 5-6 axes can replace a high scoring tile, but you'll want to still to get the same amount of longships to make up the point difference. Your points will still end up the same, but will be more spread out.

Tallying the above, we get 21 + 25x3 = 96 points. Add in miscellaneous extra points from other tiles and you can easily crack 100. A particularly high score is 120, which requires maximizing your gains but is still possible to achieve.

[samueliscute]

Great post!

Here are some of my thoughts if you'd like to play the game competitively (2-player games):

1. Fight for black longhships/ gold: small things add up.
2. Blocking your opponent's goals (port/ altar/ palace/ longships) is almost always better than focusing on you own ones.
3. Resource placement is important, plan ahead for combos. Place golds in middle spot so it could be shared by longships.
4. Use the x2 shield for Gold most of the time. Maybe use it for axes in the case where you are competing axes with your opponent.
5. Use the +1 Viking shield to fight for middle position, connect watch towers or grab houses ( in some cases you can get 3 houses with 2 moves). Again, try to block your opponent's target aggressively.
6. Use the place in occupied shield only if it is absolutely necessary. You may start blocking your opponent's resource after they use it since they looses flexibility. A common case is to block all the gold.
7. In late game situations, it is ok to wait for a turn or two to get longships (unless one of them fits your opponent perfectly) to increase your flexibility.

Have fun guys

[RagnarLT]

Some other considerations:

1 - When using the +1 tile, it is better to block paths of your opponent a lot of times than just going for the tower/houses/castle first. That way you force them to spend the shared placement tile earlier in the game. When doing this, be sure to let lanes open for you as well.
2 - Study the map to place longships. As a rule, minimum you should be placing is 7. 8 is average, but aim to put 9 or 10 of them. The exception is when you get black longships for towers/ houses / castles and then you should try to grab more of those instead of putting more longships.
3 - Focus on your main resource. When starting the match, look for what you need to use on your goals and focus on getting points for your most used resource. Try to focus only on one of the basic ones (trees or sheeps) and/or gold or buildings. If you go for gold, try to put more on your map, even on the expanse of new longships. If you go for houses / towers / castles, the same applies, sacrifice some longships for them. Sometimes, your best last viking is just getting resources or buildings.
4 - Focusing on 6 combat is usually not worth it, do it only when you can't get good positioning on the map or good longships. You will need some anyway, 3 or 4 to fill longships spots, so go for these most of the time. Watch your opponent, sometimes is good to grab the 3 combat tile in advance to force your opponent to lose one turn and go for 4 (losing important resource they would need otherwise.
5 - When you are the start player, it is often wise to "waste" your first viking on a far away position to avoid giving your opponent the advantage to get houses/towers/center control early on. Sometimes you will need to do the same in the middle of the game, to stall your opponent.
6 - Skip longships. Sometimes it is good to skip and let your opponent refresh the pool. Do that when there is no good tile for you (but avoid skipping black ones, but that can be done very situationally). Sometimes, you need to change your strategy and go for resources you don't want, but only do that if there are 3+ longships sharing/scoring that new rosource.
7 - Leave your double resource tile for end game. That way, you can judge what you need most to complete longships or what resource will give you more points.
8 - Plan ahead for using the shared placement tile. Usually you want to use it in a way to connect your vikings to steal castles completing 8 or 12 in a big group.

With those tips in mind, you will often score 110+, sometimes 120+. My maximum so far was 132, but you will need some luck on longships to achieve that, however 130+ is possible.

[RagnarLT]

Here are screenshots of a match using those strategy tips above, where I scored 132 points, while having 1 unused viking at the end and without using the double resource tile.