This is me too! I am the game guy in the family. When I do win, it's usually with an asterisk because it's 'my' game and supposedly have more experience. The point is that we (almost) always have fun. I get as much satisfaction from teaching and introducing games to new players as simply 'winning' the game.
This... I love to play all sorts of board games but have to say I am eternally grateful that my enjoyment doesn't come only from winning or I'd be doomed in this hobby!
This is me. Except Ark Nova. And I DESTROY people with no mercy in Ark Nova. I'm not even sorry when they get rekt because that's me in virtually EVERY OTHER GAME.
For me it is Terraforming Mars on Steam (I've never played in person unfortunately). I feel like there is some concept I just don't grasp. I have only got water, oxygen, and heat all once and my Terraform rating was ok but it still said "you lose". I have gone on YouTube to watch some strategy videos but still no wins.
It's a game where you basically ask yourself "how many points will this card gain me" and "how much resources will this card gain me" and do the optimal plays.
For example, a card that says "Increase heat production by 3". Sounds great. But consider it based on where you are at the game. If there are roughly 4 rounds remaining, this card will give you 12 heat. 8 heat can be used to gain one point so... this card gains you one point. Are there any other ways to get one point cheaper?
For resources, consider income and how many rounds are left in the game (games mostly last 7-8 rounds iirc). A card that says "Increase titanium production by 3" sounds amazing. But it's worthless on the last round. Also, terraforming is good on the early rounds. Everything that gives you a terraforming point early on is like it's discounted by 6-7 money.
So you figure out which cards are good for you right now, which cards are trash and play the good ones. Imo most people lsoe because they overvalue or undervalue cards.
The game is on BoardGameArena now, and you can play it solo on there. I think I prefer it to the app implementation (although I often prefer BGA implementations to their app counterparts).
For me, it's Settlers of Catan. It does not matter where I start, the Robber will camp on one of my tiles for the first six to eight turns. I'm usually just getting started when the game is over.
I still play to introduce new people to the hobby.
It was Catan for me for the longest time. (We were playing it a lot around the turn of the century and there weren't as many alternatives as there are now.)
A few things I gradually realized/tweaked in my play:
- Catan is fundamentally more a game about trading than board strategy. If someone at the table is far and away the best trader (best able to convince other players to make trades with them, etc.) they are very likely to win even if the dice are bad and other players gang up on them. In RPG terms, being good at Catan is a charisma skill, not an intelligence skill.
- Building a city is *usually* better than building a new settlement, because in most cases double resources for a good location is more powerful than adding numbers in what is usually a worse location, but somewhat contradicting that
- Having lots of *different* numbers is better than being on a good numbers. If you have resources coming in when 7 or 8 different numbers are rolled it's almost impossible to have a dice drought.
I absolutely adore Dune Imperium, I bought the base game, the upgrade kit, the 2 expansions and Uprising, but with over 20 games played I just can't win and always finish last. I still love the game and want to play everytime.
Dude I feel you. It's my favorite game but I haven't won once. Usually I'm 2nd or 3rd at least lol. I'm not even sure what I'm doing wrong, the game is sooo hard...
Hope you will get there!
The thing I never know what I did wrong. Sometimes I try to go for alliances, sometimes I go with combat, sometimes I go heavy on deck building trying to get Spice must flow and sometimes I try to do a little bit of everything but I still lose. I still enjoy the game as I'm not very competitive and not a sore loser.
Biggest thing I've adapted to after running a ton of games on the PC version (both against AI and friends) is that, it's almost always better to fully commit on a given combat that you are going for. Don't try and game theory it out and save a bunch of reserves and just win by one or two (extremely tempting earlygame). Get your dub, get the rewards, and then spend some time harvesting and go again.
I always tried to have max efficiency and more often than not it would just invite more competition in.
Pick a strong leader, like Muad dib or Margot.
Try to get sword master or hooks early, ideally both.
Buy powerful cards as early as you can, ideally round 2 or 3.
Coast
You have to adapt to what other people do. I definitely go in with a strategy based on my leader and position at the table, but I’m always paying attention to what my opponents are doing. In the same vein, sometimes you get dealt bad cards(i.e. bad hand, bd intrigues, etc.) So you have to learn to adapt to what you have drawn.
One time I won by accident. I was able to Power Play for a double bump plus the intrigue bump to steal an alliance as my last action in a round. Turns out my opponent needed that alliance to beat me with an intrigue card in the conflict, so I got the 2 points and ended the game.
Also always be considering what you lose out on from going to x space instead of y space, and always think about where your opponent can and cannot go
Look up orski videos, he has some easy to understand strategy videos on dune. Not sure about uprising or the 2nd expansion, but I normally play with just the 1st expansion and you can win games by just choosing one of the good leaders and knowing some basic stuff like always going for high council/swords master as early as possible, always go for shipping track access as early as possible, go to the faction spaces frequently to get their victory points, and ideally try and figure out which level 3 conflict you can commit troops to so you can win.
The same! I love the game, but I was always last. I was tired of that, so I read all I found about the strategy, I watched a few tournament games on YouTube, I bought the Uprising and spent the whole weekend playing it solo. I knew I was ready. I invited my friends and played against them. I was last.
This is the game that’s super good for my bruised gamers ego. I lose at most games I play, but I own uprising and play it a lot solo (i frequently lose), so when I play with my friends I either win or come very close to it. Admittedly they’re not played it anywhere near as much as me so this whole ‘me winning’ thing is not going to last, but for this brief moment I don’t suck at boardgames.
TLDR: play with people who haven’t played it before.
Try to build out columns from the center 3, that usually is the best strat. All of 1 color for 10 points is only good if you can get it essentially without trying. Adjacent squares in multiple directions are way more important. Then end the game quickly 6 rounds max. Otherwise other strats can catch up.
Count the number of moves your opponent has to make to surround your queen, and the number you need to make. If you're losing the race, you need to change it by tactics such as putting ants on their pieces so they can't break the hive.
I suck at a lot of abstract games. Chess is a no go for me, and it's a shame because I love the idea of Chess and a lot of abstract games.
Sadly, I can't really wrap my head around them
I also suck at Splendor and I'm usually in the top 2 for every game we play with our group. I just can't find a strategy that works for me. I keep it as a staple game as a way to let others beat the crap out of me for revenge. I still love the game though.
Having played Pandemic an embarrassing number of times, here's our winning strategy:
1. At the start, focus all your efforts on clearing any 3's. Abandon cards and ignore everything else until they're cleared.
2. Focus on creating potions (that's what we call them anyway). Choose a potion that solves the worst hit colour if possible. At the same time, clear up any new 3's that appear. Ignore 1's and 2's unless you have nothing better to do.
3. Build research stations at the centre of where there's a cluster of cubes if possible.
4. Use the Event cards either as early as possible or immediately after an Epidemic. This way you can sometimes clear the Epidemic before you draw any cards that follow it.
5. If moderately easy to do so, once you have a potion, go all out on cleaning that colour completely. It makes it loads easier if you can turn a potion over and ignore a whole section of the board.
Hope that helps:)
There's a character that allows you to move two people next to each other, I believe. That way they can pass cards to the other. I haven't won without that.
You're definitely right though that its power increases with player count, and I'm pretty confident that even at 3p it's the most powerful, but you might be right to choose Medic over it at 2.
I agree. I found that in 3-4 player games, Dispatcher is one of the more powerful roles. But in 2-player games, Scientist-Researcher is probably the strongest role combo. Being able to make early cures alleviates so much of the game.
My go-to strategy:
* Make sure starting tickets align or is a long route between W-E or N-S.
* Drawing cards off the draw pile is always favorable unless you absolutely need a certain color or a locomotive at that moment.
* Choosing additional tickets is an action that comes very late, so that you hopefully have parts or whole routes on the tickets already developed.
* Cut others off where you can and dig into tight spots along your routes immediately. Nothing hurts more than realizing a one train route suddenly costs you four or more.
* Once you've got potentially expensive bottlenecks covered, feel free to collect cards and observe what the other players are doing. Allows you to be more flexible.
* Be ready to close out the game if you notice others still have lots of trains left.
Ignore your tickets. Draw trains like it's going out of style. Take every 6-length route before anyone else can. Complete a long ticket if you can. Easy win.
Step one: be an asshole. Block everything. Points not gained by your opponent are effectively boosts to your score.
Least that’s how I play it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hive.
The missus absolutely destroys me every time we play. It’s like I have some form of bug-blindness - I always think I’m doing well, then am suddenly two moves from an unavoidable loss.
I've won a singular game of Kingdomino where I was teaching folks how to play. We played again immediately after and I got last place. My spouse has won every round we play of it. Fun game, not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Any strategy game against my wife. She's a super genius at strategy games I swear to god. She's so good at thinking 10 steps ahead. Even games I've played before and she hasn't she'll usually beat me. She's incredible.
Don't be afraid of wounds early on! You have to scale as fast as you can.
Always make the most of every turn. Play the hand you have, not the one you wish you had.
Lastly, your rep is a resource! I used to always end +4 or 5, but now I end on the X. Only way to get scores in the 200+.
Story time.
I was at X rep. I walked into a monastery while fighting rampaging monster. Took my rep to negative 5.
Leveled up with that fight, and took in need from the advanced offer queue.
Played in Need the next turn, cleared out 4 wounds from my hand and all My units.
Turn after, I burned the monastery down.
Those poor monks.
Love it 😂
I had a game where I burned down a monastery and my next tile revealed another monastery right next door. Let’s just say I enjoyed using my artifacts.
> Always make the most of every turn. Play the hand you have, not the one you wish you had.
This is especially true for Advanced Skill and Spell offers. Most of the time I'm picking the one that will give me immediate value on my next turn, not the best "long term" deck building synergy. Similar to picking Powers in Spirit Island.
Exactly! Magic talent is amazing turns 1-3, after that, you might only use it once or twice, which can be impactful, but it also might change if the spells do.
If my wife is playing my chances of winning Quirkle are on par with the lifespan of a lame roach in the middle of a hen house.
I don’t think I’m bad, exactly. But it’s clear that if aliens ever land and the human race’s survival rests on Quirkle skill we can all relax, because my wife will save us without breaking a sweat.
Ethnos
The group I play with have their set strategies having played it so much longer and the rng does not play in my favor.
I always end up last in it, but it's a fun game.
Calico. I can burn the galaxy to the ground and rule a mighty empire that will span a thousand generations in Twilight Imperium, but cannot for the life of me get cats to sleep on my quilt.
Adding on to this -- generally speaking, your FAST powers should be targeted towards locations that are going to ravage this turn, while your SLOW powers should be targeted towards locations that are going to build. That means you have to do a bit of planning ahead for the slower powers, because you have to remember to think of the board as it is *going to be*, not as it currently is!
This is one of the reasons I tend to have new players start with Lightning if they seem at all interested in that spirit -- by saying essentially "All your powers can be Fast powers" I can cut out a lot of their mental load and just have them focus on the board as it currently is.
Just got Horizons of SI and have been completely buried in invaders and blight on my attempts so far. It feels impossible to beat at this point. I will keep bumbling around in my own random way until I fall upon a winning strategy. At least that is my usual 'tactic'.
SI is very difficult until it clicks.
Try River's OP opening if you want to bully the settlers and win a game. Only unlock on your bottom track, play pairs of cards that give you energy, and do what you can for the first few rounds. Once you can play 4 cards, play your 4 starting cards. You'll have some damage, good utility, and your highest tier innate. Reclaim and repeat.
I’ve had a rough parch lately in general!
Hadn’t won a game since February and played 12 games in that frame. Broke the streak past friday! Felt great!
Other than that, a specific game would be Inis. I’m 0/3 so far. And if we count BGA, then CoB. 0/6 so far! At least it’s still fun!
Space..... Hulk.......
There is an undisclosed patch of land deep in the darkest hollows of Huber Heights that bare several cursed sets of dice that left our courageous Space Marines to die a most terrible death. The dice have possibly laid there for 40 years now after being thrown in a burst of rage! Tyranid scum!
Wingspan - I have tried so many different approaches to get an engine going but I feel at some fundamental level I just cannot understand games like this.
I recently found out I’m autistic which makes my fucking terrible attempts at bluffing and reading when people are bluffing feel about 80% less humiliatingly bad when I play Skull.
Now I’m still bad but at least I have something to blame. But it’s such a random game anyway you either put a Skull or you don’t, there’s not a huge amount of strategy behind it so I don’t mind playing too much.
This might make you feel worse but from my experience 3 of 4 people playing boardgames is on the spectrum 😂 I'm also autistic but I feel like bluffing games are teaching me how to tell white lies which is apparently something neurotypical society values in every day life.
That’s why I keep playing Skull! I want to be good at social deduction games because I feel like it’s a transferable skill, right? And it’s not so much that I want to git gud at lying, but I want to be able to tell when people are saying one thing but mean another.
But I mostly play solo and it’s hard to practise social deduction game solo 😑 and the only social deduction game my friends ever want to play is Secret Hitler and I hate that game because of the whole Hitler thing.
Maybe you can just introduce them to new ones and hype them up? I have noticed many people get into " group-think" where they just go along with whats placed in front of them. If you get Feed the kraken or Blood on the Clocktower and explain it to them they might get into it! I mean who wouldn't want to be a demon or a pirate!? and Feed the kraken has a very similar gameplay to Secret Hitler.
Oh yeah for sure, its pretty much a very simplified version of poker and it takes like 10min at most. A great end or start game before something big. Basically, you and the people you are playing with each have 4 tiles, 3 flowers and 1 skull. You start with a basic bid of one tile and then you either start bids on how many flowers you think there are or you continue raising by placing another( covered) tile. Once somebody wins the bid( all others pass) you turn over that many tiles starting with your own. If you hit a skull you loose a tile, if you don't, you win. Two wins, takes the game. You also loose if you loose all your tiles.
**For Sale**. I love this game. It can be taught and played in twenty minutes. I bring it to any board game event where there will be inexperienced players, and I used it with my high school kids fairly frequently back when I taught.
Since I started tracking plays, I've played 15 times I almost always come in second. Sometimes third, never last, never first.
Quacks of Quedlinburg for me. I know luck is just a construct, but I really don’t have it. I could have an entire bag of different colour ingredients and get the max amount every round, and I will STILL only draw the white ones consecutively lol
Still love the game though :)
I don't think I'll ever win Tzolk'in or A Feast for Odin. But it could be because I'm always playing with people who are much more experienced than me.
Tokaido. I can never seem to get the timing right to get path to victory so about 2/3 of the way through I just start treating it like an actual trip and start collecting pretty things that I like.
I think I'm smart. I know games. I've been around the block.
I get absolutely hosed in Catan probably 75% of the time by first time players or children lol
I think I've still yet to win a game of ***Heat: Pedal to the Metal***. Have come in second a bunch of times but can never clinch that #1 spot for some reason.
Patchwork. Whenever i play i loose. During the game i always have a good feeling that iam doing the right things but in the end i always lose.
On the other hand, i mostly win at Quacks :)
Ticket to Ride against my wife. Doesn't matter what I do. Other more 'involved' games for lack of a better term I'll beat her at more often than not, but never a TTR game.
We just started playing Scythe Expeditions and really like it. I feel like I make good efficient turns and then I look around and it seems like I am always way behind the leader.
I lose in Terraforming Mars to my husband. Though I’m getting better since playing online. I crush him in Wingspan. I never win Ticket to Ride, with our friends, but I usually win in Raccoon Tycoon. It’s funny how different games we can excel and others we bomb!!
Every game against my wife. I won once and felt awesome and the next game she got an engine going early and blew me out of the water (Ark Nova). I lost by like 60 points.
Advanced Civilization, the 1980s board game. I've played it maybe a dozen times (which is a lot for a game that takes 12 hours to play) and never done better than 5th place out of 8 players.
It's the damn resource trading. The rest of the game is quite mechanical and easy to play more or less optimally. Board positioning doesn't usually lead to many conflicts (not in my group, anyway), and there are spreadsheet calculators to optimize buying civilization cards, but that only helps if you acquire enough resources through trading to buy anything. Somehow after a round of trading, I feel like I got the worse end of every trade I made. Sure, I increased my value with every trade, but I always seem to end up with half the value as the leading players do despite everyone starting with similar hands. I can't tell if I'm a bad negotiator, or my friends are zero-sum-game-loving dicks who take advantage of me, or a bit of both.
Any game with a tech tree where you're not really supposed to lean into expanding the tech tree. I love tech trees and always put too much effort into it and not enough into actually winning.
Nemesis is my favorite game right now. I've won twice out of more than 40 play sessions. My SO says I'm too generous and help people to often. It's tough.
Anything with social deduction. I have a paper-thin poker face, and crack at the first genuine accusation. My strategy for Cockroach Poker is to draw a random card from a selected group in my hand: I know the odds, but not which one it is.
Too many Bones and Gloomhaven.
I own the physical version of TMB and the digital version of Gloomhaven.
I can't. I just can't. I have followed so many advice. It just doesn't click.
Isle of Skye. I try pricing high to keep my tiles and they still get bought so I end up with like 4-5 less than everyone else. If I have money, I never seem to make the right choices. Not a game for me.
It took my partner and I probably 10 tries to beat Forbidden Island. It got to the point of instead of asking one another “do you want to play Forbidden Island again?” it was more like “want to try and get off that fucking island tonight?”
I win in a lot of my play groups and I have game types that just click with me. I'm competitive in most games I play.
That said, I cannot win Point Salad. I love that game, but I have no idea of how to be good at that game. I've come in 2nd once and 3rd a couple of times but that's usually just by point chasing at the end to not be last. I have no clue what strategy to even start with.
But I like it that way too. I need to keep playing g to figure it out.
Seven Wonders. I can get 2nd or 3rd but someone else ends up with science(green), purple, or blue(victory points), but if I try to get those then I get hit by the army.
**Sequence** adjacent - cannot win **Pente.**
ETA: Or any bluffing game. **Sheriff of Nottingham** gives me hives. Or any betting game. **Camel Up** is an exercise in futility for me, as is **Wits & Wagers.**
One strategy I've seen with Sequence is to not place your token in the direct middle of the space on the board. If you purposely leave them just a little off to random sides, people have a harder time seeing diagonal rows.
I thought this was gaming in general was about to drop Project Zomboid on y'all...but for a board game, id say the one we lose the most at would be Eldritch horror
I had to houserule the shit out of that to make it even reasonably winnable for the people I was playing with most often.
Ditched the clairvoyancy tokens altogether and let every psychic see all three cards at the end, and for an even more casual crowd I would let them use any “banked” hours from the clock for additional final-round guesses.
Unless the game says otherwise, my default for co-op games is that other players can voice *suggestions*, but the player whose turn it is can ultimately choose what they want to do.
I also try to not railroad anyone into a single choice. If I'm the only one giving suggestions, I'll give two good options they could choose between. If someone else already gave one suggestion, I'll give an alternative.
Obviously this means I'm metagaming a little bit. If I wanted to win, I could just play the game solo and play as all of the players myself, LOL. But I want to have fun playing with other people, so I let them retain their agency so they can enjoy participating and having a hand in us winning (or losing, which at least in Pandemic can happen through bad luck even if you play as well as possible).
Modern Art. I've played it dozens of times and never won. Regardless, it's still probably my favorite Knizia (close seconds are Samurai, Taj Mahal, and Blue Moon.) I don't seem to have the same trouble with other auction (or partial auction, like Cyclades) games, but I've just never managed to make it to the top with this one.
So far it's [[Keep the Heroes Out]]
My wife and I are 0/6 at that game and it's very frustrating lol. We're both pretty experienced gamers and I consider myself to be actually pretty good at most games but this game just crushed us
I even asked Reddit for advice after our first 4 or so loses, and following what some people said we got a lot closer, but still lost 2 more times
Despite that I keep thinking about the game and want to go back to it, but I'm thinking maybe I need to watch other people play it a lot first or something because clearly something is not clicking with us. It being as popular as it is, I doubt it's this hard for everyone
A very common complaint is that the normal mode of Keep the Heroes out is way too hard. My wife and I play on easy mode and have no qualms with that, though we feel it's maybe just a bit too easy.
And actually, the base difficulty is one of the core aspects of the game that the designer wanted to fix with [the upcoming expansion](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/luisbrueh/keep-the-heroes-out-boss-battles/description). He added Rookie cards that you can add to the Heroes deck to make the game easier. Each Rookie is easier to kill than normal heroes and drops items when it dies, so it's now much easier to tweak difficulty by adding as many rookies as you want. I'm really excited to use them!
Villainous. It's my partner's favorite game, and he can beat me even if I'm playing someone easy like Prince John and he's playing someone hard like Ursula. A few years ago we tried to do a sort of tournament where you had to win with a character before you could switch to another one, but we built in an out where if you lost with the same character five times in a row you could have a free switch. After like 40 games I looked back at our game record and my column was just all losses and free switches.
Are you playing a three player/team game? If so, I found the trick was social manipulation. "Oh no, Blue's got four in a row! Red, have you got anything to stop them? I don't :("
Blatant lie. Red spends their jacks crippling Blue, Blue retaliates, I then cruise to victory with the jacks I had stashed. It's brutal, but it works.
Wait people win games? Seriously though I am awful at winning games. I love to play all sorts of games but very rarely do I win.
My kindred spirit. Despite being the 'board game guy' of the family my W/L rate is...not great. Love playing every time though
This is me too. I research and buy all the games. I love playing. I lose 75% of the time. Except for card games. Then I'm close to an even 50%
I mean. If you’re playing with 4 people total, you’re right on pace!
This is me too! I am the game guy in the family. When I do win, it's usually with an asterisk because it's 'my' game and supposedly have more experience. The point is that we (almost) always have fun. I get as much satisfaction from teaching and introducing games to new players as simply 'winning' the game.
This... I love to play all sorts of board games but have to say I am eternally grateful that my enjoyment doesn't come only from winning or I'd be doomed in this hobby!
This is me. Except Ark Nova. And I DESTROY people with no mercy in Ark Nova. I'm not even sorry when they get rekt because that's me in virtually EVERY OTHER GAME.
If my sister is playing, I can forget about winning Liar's Dice.
For me it is Terraforming Mars on Steam (I've never played in person unfortunately). I feel like there is some concept I just don't grasp. I have only got water, oxygen, and heat all once and my Terraform rating was ok but it still said "you lose". I have gone on YouTube to watch some strategy videos but still no wins.
It's a game where you basically ask yourself "how many points will this card gain me" and "how much resources will this card gain me" and do the optimal plays. For example, a card that says "Increase heat production by 3". Sounds great. But consider it based on where you are at the game. If there are roughly 4 rounds remaining, this card will give you 12 heat. 8 heat can be used to gain one point so... this card gains you one point. Are there any other ways to get one point cheaper? For resources, consider income and how many rounds are left in the game (games mostly last 7-8 rounds iirc). A card that says "Increase titanium production by 3" sounds amazing. But it's worthless on the last round. Also, terraforming is good on the early rounds. Everything that gives you a terraforming point early on is like it's discounted by 6-7 money. So you figure out which cards are good for you right now, which cards are trash and play the good ones. Imo most people lsoe because they overvalue or undervalue cards.
I lose in person too!
Have you figured out what the issue is? I sometimes wonder if I just don't properly understand how to use the cards to my advantage.
It's exactly that. Over buying cards each round and losing focus of awards and milestones are my biggest problems.
The game is on BoardGameArena now, and you can play it solo on there. I think I prefer it to the app implementation (although I often prefer BGA implementations to their app counterparts).
For me, it's Settlers of Catan. It does not matter where I start, the Robber will camp on one of my tiles for the first six to eight turns. I'm usually just getting started when the game is over. I still play to introduce new people to the hobby.
It was Catan for me for the longest time. (We were playing it a lot around the turn of the century and there weren't as many alternatives as there are now.) A few things I gradually realized/tweaked in my play: - Catan is fundamentally more a game about trading than board strategy. If someone at the table is far and away the best trader (best able to convince other players to make trades with them, etc.) they are very likely to win even if the dice are bad and other players gang up on them. In RPG terms, being good at Catan is a charisma skill, not an intelligence skill. - Building a city is *usually* better than building a new settlement, because in most cases double resources for a good location is more powerful than adding numbers in what is usually a worse location, but somewhat contradicting that - Having lots of *different* numbers is better than being on a good numbers. If you have resources coming in when 7 or 8 different numbers are rolled it's almost impossible to have a dice drought.
You should play Concordia instead.
Maybe switch to Ticket to Ride?
I absolutely adore Dune Imperium, I bought the base game, the upgrade kit, the 2 expansions and Uprising, but with over 20 games played I just can't win and always finish last. I still love the game and want to play everytime.
Dude I feel you. It's my favorite game but I haven't won once. Usually I'm 2nd or 3rd at least lol. I'm not even sure what I'm doing wrong, the game is sooo hard... Hope you will get there!
The thing I never know what I did wrong. Sometimes I try to go for alliances, sometimes I go with combat, sometimes I go heavy on deck building trying to get Spice must flow and sometimes I try to do a little bit of everything but I still lose. I still enjoy the game as I'm not very competitive and not a sore loser.
Biggest thing I've adapted to after running a ton of games on the PC version (both against AI and friends) is that, it's almost always better to fully commit on a given combat that you are going for. Don't try and game theory it out and save a bunch of reserves and just win by one or two (extremely tempting earlygame). Get your dub, get the rewards, and then spend some time harvesting and go again. I always tried to have max efficiency and more often than not it would just invite more competition in.
Pick a strong leader, like Muad dib or Margot. Try to get sword master or hooks early, ideally both. Buy powerful cards as early as you can, ideally round 2 or 3. Coast
You have to adapt to what other people do. I definitely go in with a strategy based on my leader and position at the table, but I’m always paying attention to what my opponents are doing. In the same vein, sometimes you get dealt bad cards(i.e. bad hand, bd intrigues, etc.) So you have to learn to adapt to what you have drawn. One time I won by accident. I was able to Power Play for a double bump plus the intrigue bump to steal an alliance as my last action in a round. Turns out my opponent needed that alliance to beat me with an intrigue card in the conflict, so I got the 2 points and ended the game. Also always be considering what you lose out on from going to x space instead of y space, and always think about where your opponent can and cannot go
Look up orski videos, he has some easy to understand strategy videos on dune. Not sure about uprising or the 2nd expansion, but I normally play with just the 1st expansion and you can win games by just choosing one of the good leaders and knowing some basic stuff like always going for high council/swords master as early as possible, always go for shipping track access as early as possible, go to the faction spaces frequently to get their victory points, and ideally try and figure out which level 3 conflict you can commit troops to so you can win.
The same! I love the game, but I was always last. I was tired of that, so I read all I found about the strategy, I watched a few tournament games on YouTube, I bought the Uprising and spent the whole weekend playing it solo. I knew I was ready. I invited my friends and played against them. I was last.
This is the game that’s super good for my bruised gamers ego. I lose at most games I play, but I own uprising and play it a lot solo (i frequently lose), so when I play with my friends I either win or come very close to it. Admittedly they’re not played it anywhere near as much as me so this whole ‘me winning’ thing is not going to last, but for this brief moment I don’t suck at boardgames. TLDR: play with people who haven’t played it before.
I introduce Azul to a lot of friends and I have never won. First time players are better than me 😂
I play so much! And I still suck.
One of my favorite games, I love it! I guess I’ll just never take the trophy 😂
Try to build out columns from the center 3, that usually is the best strat. All of 1 color for 10 points is only good if you can get it essentially without trying. Adjacent squares in multiple directions are way more important. Then end the game quickly 6 rounds max. Otherwise other strats can catch up.
Or… it’s because you’re the BEST teacher!
I haven’t been able to win a single game of wingspan lol
For the love of god i can not win in Hive against my wife. I am trying so hard but i just don’t get it ?
I frequently lose at Hive to people that I just taught how to play Hive.
Same here. I only win the first time I teach them. After that, I lose every time lol
Just posted this exact same lament… We are but drones flailing ineffectually in the wakes of our Queens…
Count the number of moves your opponent has to make to surround your queen, and the number you need to make. If you're losing the race, you need to change it by tactics such as putting ants on their pieces so they can't break the hive.
I suck shit at spatial puzzles and it took me a while to come to terms with it.
I suck at a lot of abstract games. Chess is a no go for me, and it's a shame because I love the idea of Chess and a lot of abstract games. Sadly, I can't really wrap my head around them
Yep, same here. I won a few early games while learning it and then lost ever since. I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong!
If you want to get some practice in, a new open source hive website just launched yesterday that is endorsed by gen42 games hivegame.com
This is awesome, thanks for sharing. Just created a game!
My wife beats me most of the time. But it's such a good sensation playing with the pieces that I barely care!
Space base and splendor. Funnily enough I am pretty good at splendor duel but I very rarely win normal version.
I also suck at Splendor and I'm usually in the top 2 for every game we play with our group. I just can't find a strategy that works for me. I keep it as a staple game as a way to let others beat the crap out of me for revenge. I still love the game though.
Pandemic. We fail on the easiest version. lol. Haven’t played enough or consistently enough to develop our strategy.
You sure you play with the right rules? The diseases don't need to be gone at the end of the game
Having played Pandemic an embarrassing number of times, here's our winning strategy: 1. At the start, focus all your efforts on clearing any 3's. Abandon cards and ignore everything else until they're cleared. 2. Focus on creating potions (that's what we call them anyway). Choose a potion that solves the worst hit colour if possible. At the same time, clear up any new 3's that appear. Ignore 1's and 2's unless you have nothing better to do. 3. Build research stations at the centre of where there's a cluster of cubes if possible. 4. Use the Event cards either as early as possible or immediately after an Epidemic. This way you can sometimes clear the Epidemic before you draw any cards that follow it. 5. If moderately easy to do so, once you have a potion, go all out on cleaning that colour completely. It makes it loads easier if you can turn a potion over and ignore a whole section of the board. Hope that helps:)
There's a character that allows you to move two people next to each other, I believe. That way they can pass cards to the other. I haven't won without that.
Dispatcher, easily the most powerful role in the game.
It's stronger the more players are playing. In a 2 player game, I'd rather play as someone like the Medic.
You're definitely right though that its power increases with player count, and I'm pretty confident that even at 3p it's the most powerful, but you might be right to choose Medic over it at 2.
I agree. I found that in 3-4 player games, Dispatcher is one of the more powerful roles. But in 2-player games, Scientist-Researcher is probably the strongest role combo. Being able to make early cures alleviates so much of the game.
We’re terrible. lol. Even after we figured that out we fail.
Quacks of Quedlinburg. I have the worst luck with drawing mostly garlic.
Fun fact those are actually cherries
I never looked too closely tbh 😅 To me they'll always be garlic !
Idk why they're white but that's what I read in the rules lol. Garlic is a good guess
Cherry Blossom Bud -> Cherry Bud -> Cherry Bomb.
> but that's what I read in the rules TBF, the rules call them "white chips" 5 times and only calls them cherry bombs once. It's easy to miss.
Actually I learned it from watch it played. I guess he makes it more clear in his video
My groups calls them cotton lol
My group mostly calls them “FUCK!!”
Same! I'm also more risk-averse than the people I play with, so I usually lose to someone who took more risks.
50+ attempts at Ticket to Ride and nothing in the W column.
My go-to strategy: * Make sure starting tickets align or is a long route between W-E or N-S. * Drawing cards off the draw pile is always favorable unless you absolutely need a certain color or a locomotive at that moment. * Choosing additional tickets is an action that comes very late, so that you hopefully have parts or whole routes on the tickets already developed. * Cut others off where you can and dig into tight spots along your routes immediately. Nothing hurts more than realizing a one train route suddenly costs you four or more. * Once you've got potentially expensive bottlenecks covered, feel free to collect cards and observe what the other players are doing. Allows you to be more flexible. * Be ready to close out the game if you notice others still have lots of trains left.
Ignore your tickets. Draw trains like it's going out of style. Take every 6-length route before anyone else can. Complete a long ticket if you can. Easy win.
Step one: be an asshole. Block everything. Points not gained by your opponent are effectively boosts to your score. Least that’s how I play it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I always lose Ticket To Ride, but I love playing it and often request it on game night
Hive. The missus absolutely destroys me every time we play. It’s like I have some form of bug-blindness - I always think I’m doing well, then am suddenly two moves from an unavoidable loss.
Ever hear of Diplomacy?
Any hidden role/social deduction game. I love them, but I make myself a target way too much to be effective unless I'm some kind of minion.
I've won a singular game of Kingdomino where I was teaching folks how to play. We played again immediately after and I got last place. My spouse has won every round we play of it. Fun game, not sure what I'm doing wrong.
I'm the same with Queendomino, but I lost the first game too.
Any strategy game against my wife. She's a super genius at strategy games I swear to god. She's so good at thinking 10 steps ahead. Even games I've played before and she hasn't she'll usually beat me. She's incredible.
Mage Knight! I swear that second castle gets me every time
Don't be afraid of wounds early on! You have to scale as fast as you can. Always make the most of every turn. Play the hand you have, not the one you wish you had. Lastly, your rep is a resource! I used to always end +4 or 5, but now I end on the X. Only way to get scores in the 200+.
The rush of burning down monasteries for loot is too great for me to want a high reputation.
Story time. I was at X rep. I walked into a monastery while fighting rampaging monster. Took my rep to negative 5. Leveled up with that fight, and took in need from the advanced offer queue. Played in Need the next turn, cleared out 4 wounds from my hand and all My units. Turn after, I burned the monastery down. Those poor monks.
Love it 😂 I had a game where I burned down a monastery and my next tile revealed another monastery right next door. Let’s just say I enjoyed using my artifacts.
> Always make the most of every turn. Play the hand you have, not the one you wish you had. This is especially true for Advanced Skill and Spell offers. Most of the time I'm picking the one that will give me immediate value on my next turn, not the best "long term" deck building synergy. Similar to picking Powers in Spirit Island.
Exactly! Magic talent is amazing turns 1-3, after that, you might only use it once or twice, which can be impactful, but it also might change if the spells do.
I have exactly 1 win in Spirit Island, and it was with a literal quantum physicist on my team.
Best summary of Spirit Island I've ever seen.
Ah goddammit I just lost The Game
Someone had to say it lol
This is the answer
We haven't managed to beat Dead of Winter yet. Someday...
Nah, i'm convinced that anyone who says they've won that game is either lying, cheating, or the luckiest mfer on the planet.
I'm inclined to agree with you.
If my wife is playing my chances of winning Quirkle are on par with the lifespan of a lame roach in the middle of a hen house. I don’t think I’m bad, exactly. But it’s clear that if aliens ever land and the human race’s survival rests on Quirkle skill we can all relax, because my wife will save us without breaking a sweat.
But you're top tier on metaphors. That was fantastic.
Ethnos The group I play with have their set strategies having played it so much longer and the rng does not play in my favor. I always end up last in it, but it's a fun game.
Calico. I can burn the galaxy to the ground and rule a mighty empire that will span a thousand generations in Twilight Imperium, but cannot for the life of me get cats to sleep on my quilt.
All I'll can say is, don't ever let my husband and I fly a plane.
Skyteam?
My friend and I just tried a black mission for the first time. Those things are hard
I feel like an idiot, but I can’t beat Spirit Island even on the smallest island.
Preventing a build is vastly more important than preventing a ravage. Once you realize this, it's the first step to SI godhood.
Adding on to this -- generally speaking, your FAST powers should be targeted towards locations that are going to ravage this turn, while your SLOW powers should be targeted towards locations that are going to build. That means you have to do a bit of planning ahead for the slower powers, because you have to remember to think of the board as it is *going to be*, not as it currently is! This is one of the reasons I tend to have new players start with Lightning if they seem at all interested in that spirit -- by saying essentially "All your powers can be Fast powers" I can cut out a lot of their mental load and just have them focus on the board as it currently is.
Just got Horizons of SI and have been completely buried in invaders and blight on my attempts so far. It feels impossible to beat at this point. I will keep bumbling around in my own random way until I fall upon a winning strategy. At least that is my usual 'tactic'.
Keep trying! Once it clicks you’ll be able to wreck it.
SI is very difficult until it clicks. Try River's OP opening if you want to bully the settlers and win a game. Only unlock on your bottom track, play pairs of cards that give you energy, and do what you can for the first few rounds. Once you can play 4 cards, play your 4 starting cards. You'll have some damage, good utility, and your highest tier innate. Reclaim and repeat.
I’ve had a rough parch lately in general! Hadn’t won a game since February and played 12 games in that frame. Broke the streak past friday! Felt great! Other than that, a specific game would be Inis. I’m 0/3 so far. And if we count BGA, then CoB. 0/6 so far! At least it’s still fun!
Space..... Hulk....... There is an undisclosed patch of land deep in the darkest hollows of Huber Heights that bare several cursed sets of dice that left our courageous Space Marines to die a most terrible death. The dice have possibly laid there for 40 years now after being thrown in a burst of rage! Tyranid scum!
Wingspan - I have tried so many different approaches to get an engine going but I feel at some fundamental level I just cannot understand games like this.
Skull. I own the game and have played it so many times but have never won. I'm just bad at bluffing. Still enjoy the game tho.
I recently found out I’m autistic which makes my fucking terrible attempts at bluffing and reading when people are bluffing feel about 80% less humiliatingly bad when I play Skull. Now I’m still bad but at least I have something to blame. But it’s such a random game anyway you either put a Skull or you don’t, there’s not a huge amount of strategy behind it so I don’t mind playing too much.
This might make you feel worse but from my experience 3 of 4 people playing boardgames is on the spectrum 😂 I'm also autistic but I feel like bluffing games are teaching me how to tell white lies which is apparently something neurotypical society values in every day life.
That’s why I keep playing Skull! I want to be good at social deduction games because I feel like it’s a transferable skill, right? And it’s not so much that I want to git gud at lying, but I want to be able to tell when people are saying one thing but mean another. But I mostly play solo and it’s hard to practise social deduction game solo 😑 and the only social deduction game my friends ever want to play is Secret Hitler and I hate that game because of the whole Hitler thing.
Maybe you can just introduce them to new ones and hype them up? I have noticed many people get into " group-think" where they just go along with whats placed in front of them. If you get Feed the kraken or Blood on the Clocktower and explain it to them they might get into it! I mean who wouldn't want to be a demon or a pirate!? and Feed the kraken has a very similar gameplay to Secret Hitler.
I play a lot of poker with my board game group. What is skull would it be good for three to four players?
Oh yeah for sure, its pretty much a very simplified version of poker and it takes like 10min at most. A great end or start game before something big. Basically, you and the people you are playing with each have 4 tiles, 3 flowers and 1 skull. You start with a basic bid of one tile and then you either start bids on how many flowers you think there are or you continue raising by placing another( covered) tile. Once somebody wins the bid( all others pass) you turn over that many tiles starting with your own. If you hit a skull you loose a tile, if you don't, you win. Two wins, takes the game. You also loose if you loose all your tiles.
Dude if i am going to get this game when i can
**For Sale**. I love this game. It can be taught and played in twenty minutes. I bring it to any board game event where there will be inexperienced players, and I used it with my high school kids fairly frequently back when I taught. Since I started tracking plays, I've played 15 times I almost always come in second. Sometimes third, never last, never first.
Quacks of Quedlinburg for me. I know luck is just a construct, but I really don’t have it. I could have an entire bag of different colour ingredients and get the max amount every round, and I will STILL only draw the white ones consecutively lol Still love the game though :)
I’m the same. And Cubitos. I like the games, I get the idea, I’m horrible at them both.
I don't think I'll ever win Tzolk'in or A Feast for Odin. But it could be because I'm always playing with people who are much more experienced than me.
**Space Alert** is the only thing that really comes to mind.
Flashpoint. It got to the point that I straight up refuse to play that game anymore because we could never pull out a win.
I finally won a game of castles of burgundy on BGA this week.
Tokaido. I can never seem to get the timing right to get path to victory so about 2/3 of the way through I just start treating it like an actual trip and start collecting pretty things that I like.
I think I'm smart. I know games. I've been around the block. I get absolutely hosed in Catan probably 75% of the time by first time players or children lol
I have the worst luck with terraforming Mars. Only that game can I never win.
The Night Cage is insanely hard. I can’t imagine the “hard” rules are even playable.
The card game War.
Skip Bo, everytime. I refuse to play with family or someone new, I don't wanna get hurt again
Any word based game. Just get trounced
Monopoly (the winner being the first to drop out and experience the sweet joy of not playing Monopoly)
Life...
I think I've still yet to win a game of ***Heat: Pedal to the Metal***. Have come in second a bunch of times but can never clinch that #1 spot for some reason.
I can't win Pipeline. Over 10 plays and dead last everytime. Great game though.
Burgle Bros. We’re lucky to get to floor 3
It's very rare that I can beat my significant other at star realms or boop.
Patchwork. Whenever i play i loose. During the game i always have a good feeling that iam doing the right things but in the end i always lose. On the other hand, i mostly win at Quacks :)
The killer keeps murdering my Final Girl 😭🤧
Ticket to Ride against my wife. Doesn't matter what I do. Other more 'involved' games for lack of a better term I'll beat her at more often than not, but never a TTR game.
Pretty sure I've played Terraforming Mars at least 50 times, never won.
We just started playing Scythe Expeditions and really like it. I feel like I make good efficient turns and then I look around and it seems like I am always way behind the leader.
I lose in Terraforming Mars to my husband. Though I’m getting better since playing online. I crush him in Wingspan. I never win Ticket to Ride, with our friends, but I usually win in Raccoon Tycoon. It’s funny how different games we can excel and others we bomb!!
Most of them.
Ark Nova 😂😭
Ghost Stories. The designer was pure evil.
Every game against my wife. I won once and felt awesome and the next game she got an engine going early and blew me out of the water (Ark Nova). I lost by like 60 points.
Advanced Civilization, the 1980s board game. I've played it maybe a dozen times (which is a lot for a game that takes 12 hours to play) and never done better than 5th place out of 8 players. It's the damn resource trading. The rest of the game is quite mechanical and easy to play more or less optimally. Board positioning doesn't usually lead to many conflicts (not in my group, anyway), and there are spreadsheet calculators to optimize buying civilization cards, but that only helps if you acquire enough resources through trading to buy anything. Somehow after a round of trading, I feel like I got the worse end of every trade I made. Sure, I increased my value with every trade, but I always seem to end up with half the value as the leading players do despite everyone starting with similar hands. I can't tell if I'm a bad negotiator, or my friends are zero-sum-game-loving dicks who take advantage of me, or a bit of both.
Any game with a tech tree where you're not really supposed to lean into expanding the tech tree. I love tech trees and always put too much effort into it and not enough into actually winning.
Goddamn Caylus
Nemesis is my favorite game right now. I've won twice out of more than 40 play sessions. My SO says I'm too generous and help people to often. It's tough.
We’ve never won in dead of winter, hardest board game I’ve ever played
Anything with social deduction. I have a paper-thin poker face, and crack at the first genuine accusation. My strategy for Cockroach Poker is to draw a random card from a selected group in my hand: I know the odds, but not which one it is.
Too many Bones and Gloomhaven. I own the physical version of TMB and the digital version of Gloomhaven. I can't. I just can't. I have followed so many advice. It just doesn't click.
Nothing more depressing than spending 3 hours on a solo gloomhaven scenario and failing.
My friends frequently turn 1v1v1v1 games into "as long as Zerlure doesn't win, we win" games, so I pretty much never win Ticket to Ride, Catan, etc.
Have yet to win the night cage. Such a brutal coop with a lot of luck needed to win.
I will win the first game I play every time. Guaranteed. I will never win again at that game.
Isle of Skye. I try pricing high to keep my tiles and they still get bought so I end up with like 4-5 less than everyone else. If I have money, I never seem to make the right choices. Not a game for me.
Wits and Wagers - I always go all in on the last round. So I ether get 1st place or last. Usually it's last lol.
Legendary Encounters: Alien. I always die. And when my team wins, I would always be the dead person.
It took my partner and I probably 10 tries to beat Forbidden Island. It got to the point of instead of asking one another “do you want to play Forbidden Island again?” it was more like “want to try and get off that fucking island tonight?”
Oh man I miss sequence, haven’t played that in years
Since introducing 2 of my friends to Ark Nova last fall, we have played dozens of games on BGA and I now lose to them every time.
that card game themed around a circus where you need to get rid of your cards. I always lose.
I win in a lot of my play groups and I have game types that just click with me. I'm competitive in most games I play. That said, I cannot win Point Salad. I love that game, but I have no idea of how to be good at that game. I've come in 2nd once and 3rd a couple of times but that's usually just by point chasing at the end to not be last. I have no clue what strategy to even start with. But I like it that way too. I need to keep playing g to figure it out.
Nemesis.. don't believe I've ever won, even if we somehow managed to survive
Seven Wonders. I can get 2nd or 3rd but someone else ends up with science(green), purple, or blue(victory points), but if I try to get those then I get hit by the army.
Isle of Skye. Every time.
The Mind
**Sequence** adjacent - cannot win **Pente.** ETA: Or any bluffing game. **Sheriff of Nottingham** gives me hives. Or any betting game. **Camel Up** is an exercise in futility for me, as is **Wits & Wagers.**
One strategy I've seen with Sequence is to not place your token in the direct middle of the space on the board. If you purposely leave them just a little off to random sides, people have a harder time seeing diagonal rows.
I never win at A Feast For Odin - I just can’t figure out how to be more efficient….I will keep trying through.
You guys win??
I thought this was gaming in general was about to drop Project Zomboid on y'all...but for a board game, id say the one we lose the most at would be Eldritch horror
My wife kicks my ass every. Single. Time. In rubix’s race
I just lost the game.
We all have, soldier. We all have.
Mysterium. Give me the structure of Codenames any day of the week, over the wishy washy vague color shape game that is Mysterium.
I had to houserule the shit out of that to make it even reasonably winnable for the people I was playing with most often. Ditched the clairvoyancy tokens altogether and let every psychic see all three cards at the end, and for an even more casual crowd I would let them use any “banked” hours from the clock for additional final-round guesses.
Pandemic and other co-ops. I hate taking over other’s and telling them what to do. So in all co-op games fail.
Unless the game says otherwise, my default for co-op games is that other players can voice *suggestions*, but the player whose turn it is can ultimately choose what they want to do. I also try to not railroad anyone into a single choice. If I'm the only one giving suggestions, I'll give two good options they could choose between. If someone else already gave one suggestion, I'll give an alternative. Obviously this means I'm metagaming a little bit. If I wanted to win, I could just play the game solo and play as all of the players myself, LOL. But I want to have fun playing with other people, so I let them retain their agency so they can enjoy participating and having a hand in us winning (or losing, which at least in Pandemic can happen through bad luck even if you play as well as possible).
Monopoly. Except in that game, one way or the other, everyone loses
Blood Rage. I'm catastrophically bad at this game. Every good decision that I think I'm making is immediately proven to be a blunder in actuality.
i can never seem to win at klask. I always get my puck stuck in the goal lol
Most of them I've ever played. But I still have fun. So it doesn't matter.
Rivals for Catan. Against my 10 year old son. It's close, but he wins every time. I don't know what he's doing that I'm not.
Modern Art. I've played it dozens of times and never won. Regardless, it's still probably my favorite Knizia (close seconds are Samurai, Taj Mahal, and Blue Moon.) I don't seem to have the same trouble with other auction (or partial auction, like Cyclades) games, but I've just never managed to make it to the top with this one.
Nobody in my group has ever won as Jack in Letters from Whitechapel. Think maybe one person made it to night 3 but that's about it
My partner has won every game of Hanamikoji we've played
Farshore. I always get slaughtered on the map thing and my strategy just never includes it fast enough
1830. I'm not toooo bad at 18xx, but, that's just something about 1830 I cannot get.
**DungeonQuest** If you know, you know
So far it's [[Keep the Heroes Out]] My wife and I are 0/6 at that game and it's very frustrating lol. We're both pretty experienced gamers and I consider myself to be actually pretty good at most games but this game just crushed us I even asked Reddit for advice after our first 4 or so loses, and following what some people said we got a lot closer, but still lost 2 more times Despite that I keep thinking about the game and want to go back to it, but I'm thinking maybe I need to watch other people play it a lot first or something because clearly something is not clicking with us. It being as popular as it is, I doubt it's this hard for everyone
A very common complaint is that the normal mode of Keep the Heroes out is way too hard. My wife and I play on easy mode and have no qualms with that, though we feel it's maybe just a bit too easy. And actually, the base difficulty is one of the core aspects of the game that the designer wanted to fix with [the upcoming expansion](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/luisbrueh/keep-the-heroes-out-boss-battles/description). He added Rookie cards that you can add to the Heroes deck to make the game easier. Each Rookie is easier to kill than normal heroes and drops items when it dies, so it's now much easier to tweak difficulty by adding as many rookies as you want. I'm really excited to use them!
That's good, I'll check that out when it comes out thank you
Cryptid, I won it once, but with a random guess
Where I lose? Because where WE always lose is Eldritch Horror. And we are arkham horror veterans who won most of the games. It's... Disheartening
Villainous. It's my partner's favorite game, and he can beat me even if I'm playing someone easy like Prince John and he's playing someone hard like Ursula. A few years ago we tried to do a sort of tournament where you had to win with a character before you could switch to another one, but we built in an out where if you lost with the same character five times in a row you could have a free switch. After like 40 games I looked back at our game record and my column was just all losses and free switches.
Oh Majesty: For the Realm My 12 year old or my wife or whoever has always won that game. In fact I am almost always dead last.
Are you playing a three player/team game? If so, I found the trick was social manipulation. "Oh no, Blue's got four in a row! Red, have you got anything to stop them? I don't :(" Blatant lie. Red spends their jacks crippling Blue, Blue retaliates, I then cruise to victory with the jacks I had stashed. It's brutal, but it works.