Board Game Arena

Hi
I wanted to ask other players' opinion.
I was playing against someone who took a tile which was not needed by them as their region was already completed.
It was purely to ensure me as the opponent could not complete my tile region.
Is that a common tactic? I thought it was quite distasteful form and almost against fair sportsmanship.
What do others think? I am fairly new to Castles of Burgundy so I don't know how this is perceived. Thanks

In most games, the purpose is to outscore your opponent using the available ruleset.

You can increase your chances of winning by either advancing your score, or reducing your opponent's score.

Especially in a 2 player game this is a great tactic if the available options won't get you many points, but you see a piece that can net your opponent a large number of points.

I'm not sure how common this move is (it would be more common in 2 player games as I mentioned above, and I don't play 2 player often), but it is certainly a fair and reasonable move.

Hey, blocking opponent options is a very important part of 1 vs 1 gameplay. It is very common in the late game (D and E phase).

That’s good strategy and fair gameplay. That’s how you win games

It is a tactic when winning is the opponent's sole focus rather than playing to optimize the experience for both players. Take note of the players who are only in it to win and avoid them. It would be nice to have a solo mode especially for learning the game's nuances.

It can be a nasty cynical game when played 2p especially, much the same as Carcassonne if played strictly by the rules. I've played IRL with the house rule that a player can ONLY select a tile IF they could actually use it themselves.

Hi-level competitive castles is typically 2p with identical boards. This reduces outside factors and minimized luck. Blocking is incredibly important and integral to the game. If i can reduce your final score by 20 by blocking a region, or I could gain 20 by taking and placing another tile, I will block every time as it only takes me 1 action vs 2.
It is not disrespectful, it is expected. If i allowed myself to become blocked and it's critical to my game, that was a game-losing error from me.

That's just good old-fashioned hate drafting. It can be effective, but it's also easy to overdo it...you're essentially hurting your own development a bit in the hopes of hurting your opponent's development more. If I can reduce your score by 30 while reducing mine by 10, I just got 20 points!

But if taking a bad tile ends up reducing my score by 40 instead....

This happens in a bunch of games, and I understand it's critical to strategy in CoB (I'm terrible at this game, so I can't comment on that specifically).