Cyclades - Tips & Strategies

Don’t be afraid to play offensively. From the first round start attacking enemies fleets and islands. Especially in first tour if you have opportunity destroy his fleet with Poseidon and take his “gold – giving” fields on game board.

Rule: Pegasus can only carry half the troops in an army(rounded up) from one island to another island.

Reason:Even with this nerf Pegasus is still a highly sought after card that is incredibly useful for taking undefended or lightly defended islands, but it is not game ending where it allows one player to take another’s Metro as soon as it shows.

The main paths to victory are fairly clear to most players, either build up your metropolises, or conquer them with Ares (military). There is an option that often goes ignored by newer players, until they see it in action.

Zeus Cycling, which is what I call using Zeus’ power to pay and go through the mythological creatures until you one you need, and grab a surprise victory.

To do this, you generally will need a good amount of money stored up. After winning Zeus’ favor, on your turn, you discard existing cards and replace them with a new one. You can continue doing this until the card that you need comes up.

Cards that are often helpful are:

Pegasus (probably the most often used, allowing you a surprise attack)

Cyclops (replace one building of yours with another type, especially strong when remembering you can buy multiple buildings of your god’s type in one turn, thus you can turn a temple bought this turn into anything)

Griffon (allows for more cycling by stealing cash from other players)

Sphinx (probably my favorite, if I’m going for a Zeus Cycle win, I plan on winning this turn, so I sell off every fleet I have, as well as some soldiers and all priest cards)

Satyr (especially if you’re sitting at 3 Philosophers, people tend to forget about Satyr).

Chimera (the most important, and also possibly the most dangerous)

The Chimera lets you use a creature again before reshuffling. If you were two Philosophers from a new metropolis, you can go for Satyr, steal one, and then keep going until you hit Chimera to use again. The same can be done with Cyclops.

If you use Chimera, it will reshuffle the deck. This means if you haven’t gotten the creature you need yet, you need a spot to keep Chimera on the card row. If you get down to only one card slot left, pulling Chimera can end your chances.

The main thing to be aware of when attempting this: only three total creatues (at most) can be used in a turn. Ideally, you’ll grab Zeus as ther first god, and hit people when they’re not expecting it (and before they can use creatures to limit the number of slots available to you).

If you’re not aiming to set up a Zeus Cycle, be on the lookout for an opponent doing so. There are a number of possible ways to win if using Zeus, your goal is to make it difficult on someone to pull this off. Towards the end of the game, if the god I’m using goes before Zeus, I’ll tend to use creatures a bit more, even if I don’t get a major benefit from them. By using a creature, that “slot” won’t be available to a Zeus player to cycle from later.

Having one major turn where you are cycling cards can be a lot of fun for you, and a bit of a letdown for your opponents. If you attempt this form of victory, prepare for your vanquished foes to potentially be less happy at their loss than usual.

When i choose to go for zeus for many rounds i win the game because i can bid for any god that i want and i don;t leave the other players to chooce the god that they want.