Survive: Escape from Atlantis! - Tips & Strategies

Many players will start their meeples on mountains, even if they are inland… swearing off the beach. However, at the beginning of the game, it’s best to be close to the boats, even if it means being on the beach. Why? Because you don’t want to waste movements just to get to the edge. It’s best to jump right on board.

Anyway, falling in the water early on is better than later. There are only 3 instant sharks in 15 tiles and the serpent is far away (only ones serpent move tile). The odds are on your side. If your beach tile is removed, you can move the boat to the meeple.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t place or move meeples to mountains next to the water. Just don’t avoid the beach at the expense of moves.

Happy Gaming!

Hey!
I played this game with my wife and my father–both of whom are not “gamers”, but they loved this game! (I was both shocked and elated to see just how much they loved this game).

We played a few times, and we found that sometimes one person would be out of meeples before the other two. Rather than sitting back and watching the end, we let the eliminated player still take a tile from the board (and use any tiles they still could–i.e. move a monster to any empty sea space); and roll the die for movement.

This kept a person who was out engaged still, and they had fun going after the other players.

Get your meeple onto ships occupied by others. This will serve you in two main ways
1. The other player(s) on the ship will not sink/destroy the ship.
2. The other player(s) may move the ship to land for you! If they do and have ran out of moves before they could get their people off. Get your people off then pray you can destroy it. (oh the joy when you go “Thanks, and goodbye.”)

Last game I played I never had full control of a single boat, nor did I move one. Yet I won, making others waste their valuable moves on moving the boats to land. Then sunk them soon as I was off…

I love variants, and this one adds a devious touch to an already evil little game. A gun.

Each 1 point meeple is considered to be carrying a gun (to remember this, you can put a dot on the bottom with a pen or pencil). Each person tries to keep track of his/her gun toting meeple. At the beginning of your turn, if you think you know your gun meeple is on a boat, you can show the bottom and use it to kick the others off the boat. You do not have to kick both off (if say,you have two meeples on the boat). If you are wrong, the gun-less meeple is kicked overboard.

This can only be used once per game per person. Again, it is an action… played before the rest of your turn.

We’ve used this several times, and it works quite well. Give it a “shot.” 🙂

Happy Gaming!

Try to jump into boats with two pawns of the same color. You know that player will do his best to reach safety.

When a player runs out of meeples, we adapt the movement actions used for survivors for the creatures.

When it’s the turn of a player who is out, rather than taking a tile and rolling the creature die, they are given three movement actions to use on any creatures on the board. The creatures can move their maximum amount of spaces and it can still be considered one action.

For instance, with three actions, I could move a Sea Serpent (Max Movement 1 space) twice, and a Shark (Max Movement 2 spaces) once, both able to cover two spaces.

The reason why we use this variant is that we occasionally have players that are very swiftly eliminated and have a minimal chance to exact revenge with the original rules. Here, those that are killed off quickly can swiftly level the playing field, and it also gives veterans an incentive to get their meeples to safety as fast as possible, thanks to this powerful benefit.

If you feel this is too overpowered, simply take away the element of choice. Players can still have three actions, but before each move, they must roll the creature die as standard.

Do not put all your big points (6,5,4 meeples) in one area of the board. Split them up to the corners. Do not put all your meeples on one boat! Split them up as best you can.

Many copies from the original run of the game have a printing problem with the rocky portion of the island. The printing on the back is misaligned, leaving white strips along one side of the tiles. It is possible to distinguish the tiles this way, possibly even noting which one is the volcano.

Stronghold games will gladly swap these bad pieces with you if you contact them. The overall quality of the rest of the components is outstanding, and they want to maintain a good image in this area.

They also include an entirely new set of rocky tiles with the 6-player expansion. It’s the exact same set, but without the printing problem.

Meeples are worth different amounts of points. Place your high-valued meeples somewhere where they’ll be safe for a while and have a quick escape route. Be patient though, and wait for the monsters to get far enough out of the way or distracted with other survivors that it won’t go for you when you make a run for it (my first mistake). Once there’s a clear opening, make a run for it as fast as you can and save those meeples! Even if you only save a few, if you get the high-point ones, you could win the game.

If you sic sharks, whales and seamonsters on a player for no clear reason, they’ll obviously consider retaliating. I use a simple technique to soften the blow.

I play defensively first. If I can move a shark away from me, even if there is an obvious play to eat another player, I’ll protect my guys.

In the early stages of the game, I will attack other players in order, rotating around to my left. If I attacked you last round, I’m attacking the next player this round. Period. Even if I could eat 3 of your swimmers vs 1 of his, I’m going for him. I let the other players know that I’m doing this from the outset. It’s predictable, and democratic. No skipping players.

Once players start getting people to safety, the rule changes. I go after the person with the most people safe. If two players are tied, I alternate between them. Again, logical and democratic.

Obviously, many players like to be more chaotic and opportunistic. Even I don’t always play the way I’ve described, but I found that it works very well with my kids and their cousins. No one ever feels that Uncle Corey is ganging up on them.