In post 47, Xtoxm wrote:1. I think that from the larger perspective it's all about {final Victory points gained by an action, direct or indirect} vs the cost of the action.
Yep!
2. Always valuable to begin collecting Science cards in Age I, since the return on investment is +7 directly for just one tuple, and then +3,+5,+7 so on for *each* additional one collected just from the squares.
I don't think I played a single science card in the games I won. One set of science is only 10 points, which is ~3.3 per card which is...awful. You really gotta get 2 sets, or a big stack. Whether I try science depends on my early hands and which wonder I got dealt. Of course, if only one player is going for science and the other players keep passing those cards to him, he's going to run up the numbers and it'll look OP.
3.3 per card is pretty good if you've collected them early game though! And once you collect them early game you always can go +3,+5,+7 and the guild card too. My point is that you just set up a science base and then take later science cards as free points.
3. Military cards in Age I seem to be somewhat wasteful; the +8 and then +12 in Ages II and III are better targets. Again, only if your opponents aren't putting in too much effort into military as well - if they aren't focusing too hard, as time goes on you could throw in a +2/+3 military card.
The other early age cards are weak too. Way I see it, if I win military on both sides with 4 military cards, that one shield was the most valuable Age I card I played. Also, just getting a head start puts off your neighbors from even joining the war, which has unseen value.
That psychological factor is there, but I would focus more on quick-adding military at later points. Early age - the science cards seem to be best value to me, followed by commercial and resource, and perhaps even just filling up wonders.
4. Chain cards are pretty useful and I never paid attention to them, often got stuck in Age III because of that!
5. The Commercial structures allowing me to buy for 1 gold instead of 2 were very useful.
Still figuring these two categories out, I tend to value the caravansary and forum very highly, but have not found the other commercials too useful yet. I try to have at least enough resources to build a few Age III building without being reliant on chain/trade. I feel like chain strategies are particularly vulnerable to being blocked by other players.
Chain strategies, especially with larger numbers of players where there's a smaller chance you'll encounter the cards you want. But for 3-4 I'd think they're valuable?
6. I didn't factor in my neighbor's cards too much into my own decisions; I think there might have been a number of points where I took "meh" cards when I could've discarded to get +3 gold and not let my neighbor get good
cards. If everyone began factoring this in it'd be more interesting.
I'm always looking at the cards the neighbor i'm passing to wants, and factoring that into my decision.
If I hadn't already started Science in Age I I'd mostly just skip them later yup
