Small World - Tips & Strategies

It can often be beneficial to abandon a territory to gain long term benefit.
Sometimes losing a territory can help you gain another(one that works with your racial or power badge) or can give you the units you need to evict a peaty opponent.

Making use of the pillaging power to gain an extra point for each time you conquer a non-empty region you can play a particularly aggressive game.

At the beginning of each turn when you collect your tokens to begin conquest, abandon all of your territory and take all of your tokens in hand, then find the weakest race and begin to charge headlong into their territory. Each territory you capture from that race will be worth 2 points at the end of the turn rather than 1.

In addition to scoring 4, 6, or even 8 points a turn from your active race, you will still be scoring a few points from whatever race you have in decline.

This will also cause your opponents to consolidate their defenses in fewer territories in order to defend against you and thus score fewer points per turn. Once all of your opponents are closed up in small, well defended areas and you have reaped many points from your pillaging, feel free to go into decline.

For those with just the base game of SW, my best wins have been occurred when I incorporate the Amazons mid to late game then lock it up with the merchant ability. (I average 3 race changes a game.)

I’ll never start with Amazons (unless they are available for a first draft pick) but mid game works great to conquer lots of spaces and rake in the coins! Once you’ve got a lot s turf and you see Merchant ANYTHING come up, grab them and double your coins for at least 1-2 rounds. I’ve pulled in up to 26 coins in a round before. That will do huge things for your final total.

Throw in the Ghouls as a first round pick, which will allow you to have 2 races in decline, then the Merchant ability really becomes powerful in the late game.

Basically Merchants work great as a follow up to a big conquest run, either attached to or immediately following a big army you have (had) that grabbed a lot of territories. For example if you did a dominating conquest run with the Amazons and followed it with say MERCHANT RATMEN? Cha-ching!

Counter-picking races is a good way to win. Sometimes it is better to pick not the race that will win you the most points, but the race that will stop your opponents from going berserk on the map doing what ever they want to. For example when someone picks Elves you have to take the Sorcerers, if someone picks Trolls it will be better if you take a race that can beat them up and not let them spread their lairs.. and so on. The idea is not only to maximize your points but minimize the future points of you foes.

Getting those tokens out of the box is a nightmare. But it you make up some small strips of paper and lay them inside the partitions it makes life easier. Just tape one end in and leave the other poking out a bit. Then pull up the loose end to raise up all the tokens in that section.
This alone has increased the playability of a great game.

One of my gaming groups is a group of 6 people, which can sometimes limit which games hit the table when the group meets. Small World is probably one of my favourite games, so I like to introduce it to a lot of the new people I play games with. Since Small World usually only plays up to 5 players, the Necromancer Island expansion is a nice way to get in a 6 player game. I also like the fact that it gives the other players something else to watch out for, as the Necromancer can end, and win, the game early, if he manages to get all of his race tokens on the board at the end of his turn.

To add some additional decision making to the race/power combination, consider trying the following variant.

At the beginning of the game, give each player 10 coins instead of 5.

Set out 5 races (as normal) at the beginning of the game. Instead of pairing a power with each race, set the powers up separately (still 5 as normal, just not linked to a race).

When you normally would choose a race/power combination, you now choose the race and power separately. The rules for selection are the same as before, (if you bypass something put a coin on it), but you’re buying the race and power separately.

This variant allows people to better strategize their selections. Is it worth spending 3 coins to get the fourth ability, and another 2 to pair it with the third race to make a super combination? Or should you grab the less powerful first of each that have been accumulating coins? You’ll never feel like there are no good combinations again (but are they worth it?)

Note: this strategy has only been applied to 2 player games

I have often found that choosing races that start with many chits (such as the Ratmen) have contributed to a more successful game. Start with smaller races and finish with races that have a bunch of race tokens available at the beginning of that race.

A preferred preferred progression would be Amazons > Halflings > Ratmen.

A variety of game race specific rule questions can come up, the easiest and fastest place to find answers is on the Small World forums where the devs will often post their official rulings for various circumstances.

You can find the english forums here: http://www.daysofwonder.com/en/thread/?frm_id=61

The ‘Power Badge + Race Banner’ is what makes Small World the; Fun, Strategic, and re-playable game that it is! So what could be better?!

Now this isn’t new, and I didn’t originate the idea (even though the idea came to me prior to research).

The next time you play; lay out the 5 Race Banners, and beside them place 2 instead of 1 Power Badge. We always stack the two Power Badges on top of each other in order to keep the second badge secret. So, in deciding which race/power to pick you only see the top Power Badge and must make a decision based on it alone. Once you have made your decision the second Power Badge is revealed and both Powers are in play with your active race. Also in figuring out the amount of race tokens you will receive; use the higher number of the two Power Badges.

This has been great fun for our gaming group resulting in unique power combos, high scores, and mass destruction.

Happy Gaming…