New England Strategy Tips

[RobEng]

More than any of our other games, I think strategies for New England will differ, which to me is always a sign of a good game. With that in mind, I welcome your debate over how to play this game.

Bid Low & Buy Two Items
Whenever possible, bid low enough so that you can get two auction items. Because the starting money is only 4 coins and the game has a minimum of 3 players, at least one person is always getting short-changed on the first turn and that cannot be helped. Taking this point one step further, you should try to ensure that on next turn you will have enough money to make 2 purchases on the next turn.

Pilgrims
As the primary mechanic of the game is bidding, increasing your income through the purchase of Pilgrims can be a key to victory. Getting them early in the game will increase their income output.

Many players will adopt a "Pilgrim Heavy Strategy" as they also give you a Victory Point (VP), a 4 VP bonus if you have the most Pilgrims at the end of the game, and in addition to the boost your income each turn. The shortcoming of this, and also going heavy on Ships or Barns, is that Pilgrims take up a plot of land that cannot be developed with a Land Development Card. As the Development Cards earn 3 VPs for a 2-land development, 6 for a 3-land, and 10 for a 4-land, each plot of land can earn, respectively, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 VPs. This makes the Pilgrim Strategy a weaker return when you consider that without the bonus, Pilgrims only earn you 1 VP per land occupied. Even with the bonus, 3 pieces of land tied up by a Pilgrims with the Most Pilgrims Bonus only gets you 1 VP more than if you used the land for a 3- land Development Cards and the VP to land used ratio gets smaller as you invest more in it. This is not to say that Pilgrims are bad but they will not necessarily net you the most VPs.

Settlements, Pastures, & Farmlands
If you are going to favor a land type go with the brown Settlement lands. The fastest way to gain VPs is through the 4-land Development Cards and they come only in Settlements. Giving 10 VPs, they are valued and using two is even better but challenging to do. There are only 4 of them in the deck so keep a count on them. Should the first turn bring up one or more of them, this will increase the competition for them as it is unlikely they will get used because the only way to get one would be to bid 1 or 2 on a barn, place it on one of your starter tiles, and put the card in the barn for future use; A questionable and land-wise an expensive play on turn 1. Once you get in get the 4 Settlement Lands in a 2x2 square for the 10 VP Development Cards, you will want to conserve your income so that when it comes out you have the ability to seize it. Between purchasing Pastures (Green) and Farmlands (Black) I advocate balance instead of favoring one or the other.

Space Management
Managing the board so you have space is not so much an issue with a 3 player game but can be crucial in a 4 player game. If you are doing manual board set-up, you will have to place starting tiles one at a time and compete for starting places. My only advice is to give yourself enough space and make sure you have reasonable access to the ocean for your Ships. I like to be 1 off the edges of the board so you will be off to the side but still have a secure corridor for growth that will unlikely be squeezed.

Family Notes when using the standard board set-up: Annible can have a tough time getting shore land for Ships as they are kind of squeezed in the middle, even in the 3 player game. Howe, only used in 4 player games, needs to expand its Settlement quickly lest it have a big challenge setting up a 2x2 square for the 10 point Development Card. Palmer needs to manage the left side of the board effectively as the starting Pasture and Settlement pieces are close together. Winslow I think is the best off with the standard set-up but has the disadvantage of moving last.

Watching the Scores
As the game progresses, watch the score carefully. In particular watch the bonuses for the Most Ships, Pilgrims and Barns at the end game. Knowing who is benefitting from which bonuses can enable you to protect your lead or cut down an opponent’s lead. As the bonus is friendly (shared between all who have the most), keeping up with the leader can be good points. As the game end is near, think about making a break to take the sole lead for a bonus from either the game leader or if you are the leader, 2nd place. Even if you are 1 behind for a bonus, it keeps you within striking distance to buy 2 of the same token in a turn and take the lead which can be a significant swing of points as you not only go up but decrease the previous bonus holder. If it is in the Pilgrim category, it can be 10 point swing with 2 points for the Pilgrims themselves, 4 for your bonus, and another 4 taking away a bonus!

Auction Selection
When making the selection for the auction block, take your time to review the whole game. What do I need more: land or development cards? What do my opponent’s need more? Do I want the game to end because I am in the lead or do I want to prolong the game to give me a chance? The last question can also sway the decision to use the Most Ships Ability to add additional items to the auction pool as it will speed up the end of the game.

[Lseelba]

As applies to a TON of Euros, a good overall strategy is "Income first, victory points last"

In this game in particular, you want to be able to control the bidding order so that you can take the choicest tiles. To do this, you need income. The earlier you get settlers, the more income over the life of the game they will provide you. Buying a settler on the last turn of play is a weak move. Buying a settler on the first turn of play is a great move.

An early settler monopoly can almost guarantee a win in this game. If take the first settler, you have a better chance of taking the second settler. If you take the second settler, you have a REALLY good chance of taking the third settler. If you take the third settler, good luck to the other players in outbidding you and catching up. This is a 'runaway' leader situation of sorts.

The key tile in the early game IMHO is the settler. I try to fill up my available land with settlers before even buying extra land. Remember they can be moved at any time so you don't have to worry about putting them on your 2-tiles. The next key tile to buy early is a barn. If you have a settler monopoly, and you manage to buy the first barn, you are in a great position to win. REMEMBER TO PUT BARNS ON SINGLE TILES! The advantage of being the only person with a barn is that when one of those juicy 4 land settlement tiles comes up, you might be the ONLY person who has use for it. Regardless, you probably have more settlers than other people so you can outbid them for it. Even consider it being the only tile you take this turn so you can REALLY outbid them for it. Then leave it in the barn until near the end of the game.

My advice with the barns, is 1) try to have one more barn than anyone else, and 2) fill them with development tiles to give you a goal for how to build your land. Remember to use your development tiles on your starting two-tile spaces before the end of the game.

If I have a steady income stream and I know I can win the bid, I almost always draw three development cards and six land tiles. Then you can win the bid and leave your opponents with land tiles that they have to fill, while you take your choice of the development cards. Do this enough times and your opponents will have LOTS of land and nothing to put on it. This strategy is much more viable in a 3 player game than a 4 player game. My goal is to have my land being used when it is on the board, either by settlers or barns, then towards the end of the game go on a land building spree to fill exactly what I have in my barns. At the end of the game you don't want any empty lands, because that means you wasted that land, some of your income, and part of one of your turns.

I'm not a big fan of ships, but I'll buy one if it looks like no one else is interested in ships. I won't get into a ship building war though. I get into barn and settler building wars though.

Most important advice that hasn't been mentioned is pay STRICT attention to how many cards are left in the deck. Hover over the deck to know what phase of the game you are in, and play accordingly. When it says "There are very few cards left" or something similar, just assume that the turn you on could be your last. Get everything out there on the board because the game really is about to end. If you are in the lead and you get the choice of tiles, choose 6 development cards because it is very likely that it will end the game immediately.

There's lots more strategy but this is some basic points I wanted to get out there.

[wonderer]

I'm pretty new at this game but something that happened to me once and that I try to take advantage of, is squeezing my opponent. I had a 4 land development card in my barn all ready to go when my opponent laid a tile in such a way that I was completely unable to ever make a square out of that settlement and play that 4. Costing my the money I bid on it and a barn. Needless to say, I lost that game quite badly.

Again, I'm new at this and I play basically newbies but I use a different strategy with the pilgrims then Lseeba mentioned. (Although I'm going to try that next time i play.) I bid as low as possible for much of the beginning of the game. I try to increase my land and most of the time folks are fighting over developments so there's always land to go around. So, I can bid low and pay low and still get what I want. When something quite tasty does show up, I've saved enough money by bidding low that I can now bid high. I try to get the settlement to a square as fast as possible so I'm prepared for the 4 score. Other then that, land is land and since I've bought a bunch early I'm ready and flexible for any tiles that show up.

Thanks for the strategy tips Rob and Lseeba!

[RobEng]

I'm pretty new at this game but something that happened to me once and that I try to take advantage of, is squeezing my opponent. I had a 4 land development card in my barn all ready to go when my opponent laid a tile in such a way that I was completely unable to ever make a square out of that settlement and play that 4. Costing my the money I bid on it and a barn. Needless to say, I lost that game quite badly.

You point out a good idea of keying in on barned cards as you know your opponent probably wants to place it, unless they barned it just to deny it from other players.

[deanht]

As Rob alluded to, there is another strategy that you can take advantage of if you happen to be Barn heavy.

1. Near the end of the game, if your early strategies worked out using all of the above and you happen to have a plethora of empty Barns and you are already comfortably in the lead, you can start bidding and winning on development cards that you may not be able to place but would deny the points to someone else that might have the correct Land Tile configuration.

I.e. you have an empty Barn or two and a 10 pointer or even a 6 pointer becomes available. You can't use it, but you can see that with the Land Tiles already in play or available to bid on, your closest competitor may be able to use and possibly take the lead. Out bid them and Barn it! You can't use it, but then they can't either.

2. Squeeze play - If you are having problems getting ahead of the bidding, just sit back, bid as low as possible and build up land tiles. If you place them, not necessarily for the best for you but the worst possible for your competitors, then you may prevent them from playing 10 and 6 pointers in the game. Remember you can't place a tile of 1 type, i.e. a Settlement next to someone else's Settlement Land Tiles. They must maintain a 1 space separation. It doesn’t mean you can’t place one of your Pasture or Farm Tiles right next to the place where they would likely try to expand there Settlement or if you get to place your Settlements first, you can prevent them from expanding theirs because it would get too close!