Tokaido - Tips & Strategies

While all of the travelers have interesting and unique abilities, there is some overlap, and the blind picks can really bite you in the butt or allow you to do the booty-biting yourself. Case in point: Chuubei.

Chuubei’s ability (At each of the three intermediate Inn spaces, draw and score an Encounter card) acts as a hard counter to Umegae and Yoshiyasu, who both have abilities that activate when landing on Encounter spaces. By the end of the game, Chuubei will naturally wind up with 3 Encounter cards. By landing on two Encounter spaces over the course of the game, he can bump that to 5 and guarantee the Chatterbox Achievement, plus deny the other characters the chance to use their abilities.

Would you like to introduce a small thematic mini-game as part of your visits to the inns for meals?

Grab Sushi Go. Play Round 1 before beginning Tokaido, Round 2 when everyone is at the middle inn and Round 3 after everyone arrives at the Edo inn.

The winner of Sushi Go scores 5 extra Tokaido points, 2nd place gets 3 points, 3rd place gets 1 point.

The addition should not extend the game by more than 10 minutes and the themes of the two games mesh flawlessly. Enjoy!

Most of the time, those who come in last in the game are those who spread themselves too thin among the locations and hasn’t specialized in anything. In order to win, try to focus on a few key areas like most expensive food ate and souveneirs. Most people will try to just collect as much as possible no matter the category, but the points accumulate rather quickly if you decide to stay with 2 or 3 main categories. Also, make sure you have a couple of coins at every inn. Skipping meals can be a huge blow as they are 6 pts a pop. Most of the time those who win are those who ate every meal.

The “gourmand” award is given at the end of the game to the player who has bought the most expensive meals at the inns along the way, so don’t pay for the one- or two-coin meals if you have the money. You’ll reap the benefits in the end.

A tip, if you use this strategy: play as the Ronin character, who gets the one-coin discount for meals, or as the Orphan character, who gets a free meal at each inn. This will allow you to get more expensive, or just more, meals along the way.

The nearly-obvious strategy of all players is to take as many turns as possible by lagging behind while still getting the key stops you want. But what often happens is that players jump to souvenir shopping, temple, or somewhere specific they want. This means you can often get the leftover stops of visiting the vistas and collect panorama cards. If you can monopolize one of these early (the short 3-card summer one is best), get the 5 pt bonus, and then still use it late in the game to help you finish the other panoramas that others at this point are likely heavily competing for – this takes advantage of the often-forgotten rule that visiting a vista you’ve finished means you can choose any other panorama card. Has helped me win a few times!

Buy souvenirs! These sets add up quickly into point-scoring machines. This is especially true of the merchant who gets to use his bonus to save his coins.