Near and Far - Tips & Strategies

For whatever reasons — probably because there’s so much to pay attention to while learning the game — most beginner players tend to forgo building camps on the trade route spots since they don’t provide any resources.

I’ve managed to eke out second or first place wins with very few resources and scraps of points elsewhere, simply by cornering the trade route points: 2 completed and 2 partial for 28 points one game and 24 the next.

I always go after quests first, but in our group, once the quests are gone, the trade routes are usually still up for grabs. If your group is like mine, I suggest bouncing from map to town just long enough to improve one ability or resource in town and then racing to those routes.

Until your game group gets kicked a few times by someone monopolizing these trade routes, they’re mainly going to forget about them in favour of getting coins and gems. Might as well use this strategy the first couple of games until everyone learns not to let you get away with it.

The rulebook says you can pass over the same threat space in one turn for as many times you:
A) successfully defeat the threat
B) still have movement left
C) have hearts left to pay for passing over the empty space on one or both sides of the threat

But many have witnessed that, with lucky die rolls and 5+ combat skill, a person could rack up 4+ wins in the same turn, thereby placing 4+ tents on winning threat cards in one turn, plus rack up many victory points, especially towards the last third of the threat deck. A person employing this strategy could also end the game very unexpectedly in that turn.

Thematically, well, it doesn’t really make sense to pass over one spot fighting bandits over and over again on the same day. If you beat them once, it should take a while for them to regroup in that spot, right?

Anyway, for the sake of the game play and the theme, I would either:

1) House rule that players can only move in one direction in one turn (which doesn’t rule out taking on multiple threats per turn, but only makes the threats further apart and thus less likely to stack as quickly) or

2) Discuss this strategy outright at the start of the game so everyone can decide if they want to house rule it or leave it as a viable strategy. At least once discussed, everyone can be vigilant about the potential for an overly armed player prematurely ending the game this way and thus build their own camps accordingly.