Castles of Mad King Ludwig - Tips & Strategies

When it’s your turn to be Master Builder, it’s easy to want to let greed take over and try to place all the desirable tiles in the more expensive places, while leaving the lesser junk in the lower price range… while also trying to insure you leave yourself a choice selection in a low- to medium-priced spot.

Instinctively, you will want to deny the other players’ the tiles you think they might want, or force them to pay a hefty sum for them… money that will go into your pocket, but this may not be the best strategy.

Player’s will naturally balk at handing 10,000 or 15,000 coins your way, so are actually encouraged to buy a lesser tile, which lowers your potential income.

It may be more prudent to entice the players to buy in the 6,000 – 8,000 by placing desirable tiles while placing the particular tile that you want in the 15,000 spot. In this manner, you should get a decent income for future rounds, prevent too many players passing or going for stairs and hallways, and position yourself to get a desirable tile.

By paying full price for the tile you spend more than you might otherwise, but while you are Master Builder your money will go to the bank rather than another player’s pocket, so this is the best time to be a big spender. and if someone snags that tile you covet, at least you will get 15,000 in recompense for your loss.

If you’re relatively new to board gaming and it’s your first couple times playing, just focus on your own castle to get a feel for the game and various tiles involved.

Don’t focus on blocking other players certain tiles or arranging the tiles based on how you think others will buy when you’re the Master Builder. It may actually hurt you in the long run if you miss something else that’s more beneficial.

Some basement rooms give bonus points the number of specific rooms you have. We wait until the end of the game to score those bonuses so that when you place new rooms of that type the bonus doesn’t get overlooked.