Qualgar

When you would like to begin a planned conflict with another player attacking them directly can give you the appearance of being an “aggressor” to the others at the table. Players may band together to defeat you simply based on this impression of your gameplay style. Instead, try to leave a “soft spot” in your defensive lines by gradually building up other territories instead. The key here is GRADUALLY. Then (hopefully) the opponent you wish to engage with will attack what they perceive to be a misstep on your part. You will then draw sympathy from the other players at the table, and possible treaties so you may “defend yourself” from the invading force. When you then crush your enemy without mercy, the other players will view this as a justified action against an aggressive opponent. This has been a standard practice in real life diplomacy for centuries.

When we play this at my house each player has 60 seconds to complete their turn, or they suffer one ‘disaster’. We use a chess timer to measure this. It works REALLY well at both keeping the pace of the game at a nice clip, and adds an element of stress/pressure to each turn. I wouldn’t play it any other way, now.

The best way I have found to win is to get ‘Quarrying’ and ‘Engineering’ as quickly as possible, then build monuments till they are all completed, thus ending the game. You may take a few starvation hits, but the monument bonuses should easily cover that. Also, the other players will see the monuments going fast and hopefully abandon their original plans.