Notre Dame - Tips & Strategies

Notre Dame is a great action selection game that has a wonderful distracting element: the rats. It is hard to win if you don’t pay at least some attention to the rats – an influence marker or two in the hospital early in the game really pays off in the long run – but don’t spend too many actions trying to fight them. It is possible to play the game and never lose to the rats – but the actions required are actions that are not being used to get points.
The penalty of losing an influence token in your most populous neighborhood and two victory points must always be balanced against the number of points you are turning down! Most people who I have seen win this game tend to get hit by the rats a number of times – especially late in the game.
Notre Dame proves the point that the apparently in efficient move of ‘just taking the points’ in a well developed game is likely a strong action. Forget the rats (some of the time) and nab the points!