Silver mine strategy

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

Dear fellow castellans,

In my (limited) experience the person who rushes to quickly get 1, 2, 3 silver mines always wins. Is that still valid at higher skill levels?

[GeraldineMerida]

I usually rush to get at least 1 mine. Not that bothered about getting all 3 if I am getting money from selling goods.

And I have definitely beaten people with more mines.

[Pistol Star]

I usually rush to get at least 1 mine. Not that bothered about getting all 3 if I am getting money from selling goods.

And I have definitely beaten people with more mines.

I am both ranked 1 in arena and on the all time ranking list and I agree with this.

The first mine is usually crucial. Especially when you are nearby a single mine region. The latter mines aren't that crucial anymore but still usually great tiles if picked early. Let's don't forget the race to score the mines color completion bonus before anyone else for nice extra points and extra points denial and let's don't forget that each mine scores an additional 1 point at the end of the game + some of the best tiles in the game are only available in the black market.

If you can get your 2nd mine in phase A or B you should nearly always rush for that mine as well. If you then have the chance to get the 3rd mine in Phase B or C you should usually rush to get that mine as well. Then you scored a ton of points with all these early mines and completed this color first for extra points and you also denied your opponents from pretty much any mines at all because a Phase D and Phase E mine is usually not the greatest play. Then you can focus on any other color(s) later on in the game while you are rich and your opponents couldn't score mines and are usually poor.

The early mines are really strong. Also it really matters a lot how big the mine region is. If there is a single mine region and a double mine region then you ideally want the first mine to be in the single mine area because of scoring. The 2nd mine won't be THAT important anymore as it wouldn't score you any completion points.

If however all 3 mines are in single regions and are all well to be reached within the 2nd phase and 3rd phase then you should nearly always rush to get the 2nd and 3rd mine as well. Not only is a mine that early very strong but you simply score a ton of points on top of all the silver you get later in the game...PLUS you deny your opponent(s) an early high scoring mine which is another huge benefit in your favor.

[Kampfschwein Fjonda]

I'm happy about such an insightful post of a strong player.
But also sad, because that proves to me a design flaw of the game :\

[Pistol Star]

I'm happy about such an insightful post of a strong player.
But also sad, because that proves to me a design flaw of the game :\

That's not a design flaw in my opinion. I think it is very good and vital that certain tiles are stronger/weaker at different stages of the game. If all tiles would be always equally strong it wouldn't matter what your decisions are.

The game would play you/us and we would pretty much never have to take 2 workers.

Oh and it is not entirely necessary to get any mine.
It is good to have at least one early mine but you can definitely win with 0 mines as well. It's just usually harder to do.

There are 2 knowledge tiles which are in my humble opinion way better than a phase A mine when it comes to efficiency of the tile alone.
These are tiles 13 and 3. 13 let's you get a silver additionally to 2 workers when you take the 2 workers action. It's my favorite tile in the game.
Tile 3 let's you sell goods for an extra silver. So you will receive 2 silver instead of 1 whenever you sell goods. Both tiles give way more silver during the game and way earlier when placed during phase A in comparison to a phase A mine.
So once you have any of these 2 tiles early on and bad dice rolls for mines you can skip the mines even though that still hurts.
The best board to skip mines is board 1 where all 3 mines are in a single 3-sized region. The 3-sized mine regions score the lowest amount of points and are also hard to place cheaply.

[Mayor of Catan]

Auch ich habe bereits gegen Spieler gewonnen die mehr Minen gebaut hatten als ich. Sowohl hier auf BGA wie auch im Spiel gegen Freunde direkt Zuhause am Tisch beim brettspiel.