how to get a score of 85+

[water_mad]

Im wondering if anyone wants to share some tips with me on improving your score?

I am new to this game and play with friends for fun. The game designer reckons if you are getting a score of 100 you are doing well. Ive played 10 games in training mode and my score when playing well sits at 82/83. What is the trick to some more points?

So far...
I can cover all the -1 squares on the main board,
know that you need to cows to make baby cows and in the last round you can upgrade to green/blue to make them fully worth while
Can emigrate a knar early to make it cheap
you can make use of red/orange tiles in additional buildings

im not really understanding the strategy on hunting and if it pays off, if so snares, bows or spears?
The strategies around having specific items to exchange for a larger one
Why you would want the crown (other than for bragging rights)

[Ranior]

You can watch some replays of high level players to get an insight of what they are doing.

You can find some good strategy threads over on BoardGameGeek that discuss some things.

My general advice for scoring high in this game though is to "Maximize your income and bonuses". Do that and you can be on the path to 150's.

[KeithHendricks]

As covering negatives will only take you to 0 points plus your silver stash, remember to score points whenever you can. Think of covering negatives as playing defense. Playing offense is grabbing positive points, like houses, islands, and emigrations, as well as playing cards.

When you take islands and houses, activate the bonuses asap.

Don’t let your houses sit empty for round after round. The food bonuses are particularly important if you want to take multiple houses. You want all the orange and red food rolling in that you can with a heavy house strategy. You want to use the beans for your feast so you can save the skinny tiles for your longhouses. Cattle synergize great with longhouses due to the extreme efficiency of the milking action. And milk, like beans, can go in your feast, letting you save skinny red tiles for your houses. Then you can upgrade your cattle in endgame to cover your homeboard negatives. Good islands to synergize with a house strategy are the ones with fish bonuses so you have free skinny red food coming in. TDF is great too due to the meat bonus (plus stone)-

If you have a heavy exploration strategy, you likewise want to use green and blue bonuses to shortcut your filling of these islands. So activate all the green and blue bonuses that you can as fast as you can. Don’t let your islands sit empty for round after round as you’re fretting over your homeboard. If you take Shetland and fill it by round three, that’s four silverware, four oil barrels, four cabbages, four game meats, and four beans, tons of tiles to fill islands and houses. And you don’t have to spend Vikings on getting any of those bonus goods, so it’s like having free vikings. So don’t let your islands sit idle.

Stone houses are generally underestimated. An early stone house can feed into an exploration strategy, as getting four or five bonus pelts can help in filling your islands. So if you like buying the longship / stone house bundle, make sure you fill the stone house or at least activate that useful bonus.

It’s good that you’re able to cover all the negatives on your homeboard. This will only get easier once you have tons of bonus goods rolling in from exploiting your exploration board and house assets.

[water_mad]

thank you keith hendricks