Strategy and guides for your favourite games by critic Erik Twice. Learn how to improve as a player and how to beat even the toughest competitors.
Stefan Feld is known for his tight euro games which focus on precision and efficiency. One might think this would make his games impervious to issues of balance, but that hasn’t been the case. Over several editions, Castles of Burgundy had to be tweaked several times, strengthening some of its weaker pieces and toning down the strongest. But one small mistake gave way to the most broken tile in the game.
Ark Nova‘s scoring is a strange one. We count two sets of points, each from a different end of the board. When their markers meet, the remaining players take an extra turn and then the game ends. This unusual setup, as well as the final calculation involving “target numbers” left many baffled, giving ground to all sorts of misconceptions and theories. But, surprising even myself, these twists are a disguise for one of the simplest scoring mechanisms.
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan is one of the best and most accessible wargames in the market. However, that doesn’t mean we’ll do well in our first try! If we are new to the genre, we might struggle to keep our samurai in place. In order to make that transition easier, I have written this beginner strategy guide, with the best tips to take over Japan.
Food Chain Magnate is known for the importance placed on its openings. Following Splotter’s philosophy that the first turn is pointless if it can’t make us lose, no mistake goes unpunished. Thankfully, learning to avoid them is quite easy. All we need to know are the differences between three employees: Recruiting Girl, Trainer and Marketing Trainee.
Most logical deduction games get less interesting after a few plays. Faced with the same puzzle every time, strategy quickly becomes repetitive. The Search for Planet X, however, is one of the few that has actually gotten better the more I play it. With two difficulty modes and plenty of opportunities to lean on your opponent’s research, there’s room to play better. It all starts with a little survey, some wild theories and ends with a scientific breakthrough.
