Builder Orthodox
so lets look at the builder strategy, what is it about?
The point of this strategy is to prioritize building and have high building score with aiming for 2 or 3 large buildings and have them manned for bonus points.
The VP chips for shipping are being neglected as building is being prioritized.
This translates to 20+ score for buildings with another ~15 bonus points for manned large buildings. So you get about 38+ points for buildings and bonus points total without the VP chip points. That means with some VP chip points the total will be somewhere from ~40 to ~50 points.
So it is clear this will only be enough for victory if the game ends before the high shipping score by other players will be atained.
Therefore the goal is to be fast with ending the game and do so by building out or by depleting colonists. (with building out being the better option). Never by the 100 VP chips depletion, if that happens the strategy went very south and the loss is certain.
The island can by usually build out in somewhere from 11 to 14 rounds, you almost never want 15+ rounds to hit cause the point total will not be competitive then.
The most common is to have 2 large buildings which means 10 builder actions in about 14 rounds being the aim.
Your favorite role will be the Builder and want to setup so that you are in position to be able to pick it often and with never skipping any building action.
Sometimes it is possible to skip 1 or even 2 building actions but it usually spells doom for this strategy.
The worst role for you to pick is captain and then craftsman. (Though sometimes blocking a ship with high end good is necessary)
How to achieve building out fast with 2 large buildings?
- is what this strategy is all about,
there are endless possibilities how to tackle it so lets see a few ideas:
There are two ways to achieve a purchase: db and discount
Discount comes through 1, 2, 3, 4 Quarries and 1 with selecting Builder.
db come from Trades, Factory or role
As large building costs 10 db, with all 5 discount still 5 db are needed for the purchase.
So discount can help a lot, still a fair amount of db is needed. It is possible to build without discount but not without db in hand.
Role db will not be enough to carry the game through, so that means you need either Trade db or Factory db.
It is all about setting up a position to be able to build 2 large buildings and fill the island.
How?
1. obtaining Quarries helps to turn the builder round
Example: with a 3db form Factory and a Tobacco trade you get 7 db and lets say you had 3 db in hand so now you have 10 db
without any discount you can build one large building
with 4 Quarries you are able to double build by selecting builder twice
so as you can see discount is important to speed up the builder turning round, but db income is the important part
- getting Quarry is through Construction Hut or by choosing Settler
2. obtaining db income
- Trades: developing trade good is needed and then enhance through Markets/Office
- Factory: developin good variety, so Corn+Sugar/Indigo+high end good, to net 2,3,5 db income from craftsman
To progress fast through the game Hospice helps with colonist shortage and having discounts setup and University with the buidling with speed to be able to omit Mayor.
Hacienda and Construction Hut helps to deveop production and Quarries with speed.
Warehouses, Harbour and Wharf are of low priority, cause they dont help to build which is the priority.
So to develop income should play either towards Large Market or Factory or having Coffee in mind.
As of Large buildings, Customs House you almost never want,
with Hospice and University -> Fortress will be strong
with Hacienda -> Residence will be 6-7 points
with more Commercial -> City Hall which is the prime play
and for spam cheap production buildings -> Guild Hall
From start you should aim to setup the double build with mixture of Hacienda-Construction Hut-Hospice-University
and Small-Large Market-Office-Factory
with some production, but you never aim for large shipping production like 5 corn and such.
You want to reach the setup point the fastest to secure the neccesary income + discount and have it all manned, so your build order is very important how to progress from start.
Some early production is definitely needed so you dont crash and burn with heavy early craftsman which usually spell trouble.
First Corn/Indigo/Sugar trade is very important to help to develop, if able early Tobacco or Coffee is even better, but beware if you db starve and then dont get the trade or the trading house gets blocked, you want to turn the builder round so that is of paramount importance (aim discount),
also Hacienda-Construction Hut-Hospice-University allows to omit settler/mayor so that can be tremendous as well, but with these your early production and big trades will suffer.
After you are able to double build you pull the trigger but definitely need the support buildings so you get strong bonus from the large buildings.
And then build out and see where the strategy is worth at.