beagle

When using the ‘Ritual of Summoning’ Silver Twilight Lodge card, keep in mind that it does not require you to summon a character of a specific faction. It can be quite effective to stick a few ancient ones from other factions in your deck to summon as a nasty surprise for your opponent.

I know at least one, possibly more people have put forwards strategies for the chapel, and I mostly agree with them, however, I think that you should be more liberal with it. In my experience the best strategy is to buy one on the first or second turn. When you draw it, trash ALL other starting cards (copper/estates) in your hand, make sure you get silver when you do not draw it in your hand so you don’t get stuck moneyless. It will only be a few turns before you have a very sleek deck from which to build something deadly.

Unless (a) the game is nearing its close or (b) you really need to win a race for a specific route, do not use your wilds as part of a normal set. Wild cards are powerful for completing a last minute play, for crossing those confounded canals that require them and for insurance when attempting tunnels; have patience and don’t waste them.

When you are playing your trains, and you don’t have all of the cards you need to complete your route(s) yet, it’s generally a good idea to play on the routes that are confined to a single color first. All too many times you play on that grey route then get stuck drawing the color you just used up.

For use with the castle expansion (or some particularly advantageous terrain):
One player (defender) drafts their army (point value is up to you), the other (attacker) then drafts from remaining units. Initially, the attacker is weaker (with respect to points and terrain), but after each defeat, increase the points available for their draft until they overwhelm the defender (who uses the same army for each fight, it’s up to you if they recover losses in between battles), see how many waves the defender can defeat.

Sometimes its it can be more helpful to you, overall, to take an action that is essential to another player, even if it’s not the most profitable action with respect to yourself.
Example: you see that Player 1 only has 1 food of the 6 they need, and it is a harvest round. You also see that they have a clay oven and plenty of wheat. you should probably take the bake bread space to make trouble for them (assuming you will be able to meet your own feeding needs regardless).

Don’t get me wrong, this game is really fun with just the core set, I played a long time before I bought any expansions. Personally however, I think that the added variation that even just 1 or 2 expansions provide is a great bonus.

Some characters (such as ‘The Thing Behind You’ (not core set)) let you make some sort of payment other than the normal resource cost. Put one of these cards in a deck of a different faction and give the enemy a nasty surprise.

Interrogation Center + Old Sea Dog(s):

Interrogation center is a location support card that prevents all neutral characters from committing to stories. Old Sea Dog is a character whose ability lets you exhaust him to make any character lose their faction affiliation (i.e. become neutral). Once you have put interrogation center into play, Old Sea Dog(s) can exhaust to prevent opposing characters of your choice to be unable to commit that turn.

(Note: I don’t recall if these are core set or expansion cards)

Like a Moth + Tear Gas:

Like a Moth allows you to reduce a character’s skill to 0 until the end of the phase. Tear gas is attached to a character, that character gets -1 skill and is immediately destroyed if their skill is ever reduced to 0. This combination also allows you to destroy any character by attaching tear gas to them, then Playing Like a Moth on them, reducing their skill to 0 which causes tear gas to kill them.
Note: This one seems not as powerful as the previous combination because, rather than use an attachment then gain a character, you use an attachment then lose an event.

(Note: I don’t recall if these are core set or expansion cards)

Strange Delusions + Emerging deep one:

Strange Delusions is attached to a character and allows you to change their faction temporarily, Emerging deep one requires that you destroy a cthulhu faction character when you bring it out. This combination lets you choose and destroy ANY character your opponent has in play. simply use Strange Delusions to make them Cthulhu faction then play Emerging deep one and destroy them instead of one of your own characters.

(Note: I don’t recall if these are core set or expansion cards)

When building your deck, smaller is better, get as close to the 50 card minimum as you can. Think of it this way, the less cards you have, the more likely you are to draw the cards that you really need.

With this house rule, when a player declares an attack, before the dice are rolled, the defender may choose to retreat all of their remaining units into an adjacent territory that they control.

At the beginning of a game, look carefully at what cards are being used, and how they might work together. One thing in particular that I always note is: are there any cards that give more than one action? (i.e. Village and Festival) If there are not, then cards that give you lots of draws but no actions (i.e. Smithy and Council Room), should not be sought after, (generally only get one or two at most). Since these cards give no additional action, if they have no support from Village/Festivals, then they end your action playing, often drawing more actions that you are unable to play.

There are many powerful combinations in this game, but one that is pretty easy to use is to stock up on Smithies and Villages more heavily than other types of actions. This will let you (often, not always) lead with a village from your hand, then play a Smithy. This leaves 1 extra action to use if you pick up another action card in the three draws from the Smithy.

When you are playing as Mr. jack, be careful who you choose, if Jack is a weak character, Watson for instance, you choosing him over a strong character, Holmes for instance, will be very suspicious.

When playing Mr. Jack, wins by escaping are much less common, (especially against an experienced player). It is easier to keep characters in the light than in the dark, even in the end, try to keep suspects grouped with other characters to avoid discovery.

Getting a good tray that fits in Agricola’s box and has compartments for all of the resources saves lots of set up/clean up time, it also makes a bank that is easy to pass around between players.

Make sure to get rid of your square and square+1 parts before the board gets too crowded, they are some of the harder bits to play late in the game.

Think long and hard before playing a set, whoever plays last has the advantage. On the flip side, don’t horde yourself to death.

When in doubt, such as when you don’t know the judge very well, always play something funny rather than realistic, most people judge based on comedy value (in my experience anyway).

If you have a mixture of new and experienced players, it can be an interesting variant to put new players onto a team (of 2) while other players play alone as usual. Both players in a team win if either of them achieve a victory condition and they are encouraged to plan joint strategies. This can help balance the game somewhat until the new players are more acclimated.

As a general rule, never attack a hostile village in the beginning unless you have 3-3-2 unit cards or some sort of combat bonus. Even if your cards are 3-2-2 you stand a fair chance of losing.

When deciding where to settle my second city, I usually look for a place with the following attributes:
1) At least 5 trade on the surrounding tiles: this will boost your trade sufficiently without having to build any buildings.
2) At least one adjacent resource.
Spaces that fit this description will not have much production (if any), this does not matter, simply collect the resource every turn, and enjoy the large trade boost. In my experience, this strategy is very effective when possible, don’t ever underestimate the power of being supplied with resources.

We all know the feeling, there lies a face up wild, take it or not? If it is early in the game, it is almost never a smart play to take it, you will most likely use every color at some point, and thus ANY two cards are better than one, even if it is wild. Late in the game when time and remaining trains are concerns, sometimes taking the wild is a good play.

It is usually a good idea to build up a very large hand before laying down trains, but how do you know when to play? Just consider these things:
1) Is a route ‘key’? How long will a detour take you?
2) Is the route colored or wild? If possible, wait to play on wild (grey) roots, claim routes that are confined to one color first.
3) Are there cards you need face up in the draw area? If there are, take them, they are more likely to be taken by other players than the route you might otherwise play on.

Of course, each of these things has to be taken one case at a time, but generally they are sound.

Make sure to keep family growth in mind, even though it costs you more food, a new family member’s benefits far outweigh the negative effects, not to mention the points they are worth at the end.

Make sure not to underestimate the power of farmers, they’re often the deciding factor when determining the winner. On the flip side, don’t commit too many meeples to farming early on or you will be playing at a disadvantage for the rest of the game.

Make sure the players coordinate their character choices so as to have a wide range of abilities, try to avoid having multiple people with very similar characters.

When setting up a custom map, make sure not to let there be any 6’s or 8’s on gold hexes, it can really throw off the balance in one player’s favor. (personally I prefer to exclude 5’s and 9’s as well)

A fun variation (if you have enough expansions for it) is to play with only attack cards, especially ones that give curses, it makes for a very drawn out, low-scoring game, but it can be quite entertaining.

In the beginning, make sure to buy some silver (and gold if possible). In fact, it is often a good idea to buy silvers on both of your first two turns, this guarantees you 5 money in at least one of the two following hands, with a fair chance of 6 (for a gold).

In my (and everyone I play with as well) opinion, the game is much more enjoyable when you disregard the rule that prevents you from trashing a field containing only one bean.

It can be fun to play with the added option of ‘promising’ someone a card that you don’t have when trading. As soon as you receive the type of bean that you owe someone, you immediately give it to them to be planted, no matter whose turn or what phase it is (a player may forgive a debt, in which case, they are not given the bean).

While definitely not recommended for every battle, it can be quite fun to: instead of playing to the usual victory banner conditions, fight to the last man. Whichever side totally eliminates all of the other side’s units first is victorious.

(Note: to make this sync a little better with the command cards, it is helpful to add the rule: “Command cards for a section empty of your own units may be played as ‘Order any one unit’ instead of their normal effect.”)

My friends and I have a set of noises associated with different actions (i.e. ready to flip over chosen cards, or when you build a card).

boink = ready to flip chosen card
boo-du-li-oop = building a card
booum = building a card as a wonder stage
ka-ching = paying someone coins

It may sound silly, but it’s actually quite entertaining and helpful, an easy way to keep track of what’s happening and stay in sync.

I often find it a good idea to get the ‘Altar’ first age, if you can follow through, you get the pantheon free in the third age; also, if you are playing a wonder that has a commodity as its starting resource, getting the corresponding science card will potentially get a set of three symbols, free of charge. (assuming you manage to use the prerequisites in ages II and III)