Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Buy buildings that give you extra people every turn. Keep in mind that specialists can always be used as settlers, so a specialist building is always better than a settler building.
Pay attention to the initiative track. If you have been going last, you may wish to claim the 1-space midway through the round. If you have been first long enough and no longer care, grab the 6-space for free money.
Play your first settler on the building space if there is one building available that is better than the rest of the buildings. If there are as many desirable buildings as there are players, you can hold off until other players have placed there and still get a building.
Place settlers on the trade goods space if you need a particular trade good to complete a set of three or four. Otherwise, your settlers are often better spent elsewhere.
Bid on the merchant ship. This will help increase your income with trade goods, but only if you end up with the highest bid. You'll want to have a captain/merchant or two in reserve as your last pieces to make sure you can outbid all comers. If you can't guarantee yourself the win because someone else goes after you with more power, don't bid on the ship at all, or you may end up wasting people.
Claim Specialist spaces to get specialists in the following round. This is generally less important than the above steps, but more important than anything else you can do. Each of the types is always useful except for Missionaries, who become no better than settlers as soon as the colonist ship fills up. Claim missionaries only if you are willing to take some early turns to place them on the ship.
Try to build a few buildings in the same round when you can. Grabbing the 6 initiative space or placing a merchant on the colonist ship both give you some quick money. Taking the Inca Gold building in the first phase will also give you quick money for more building.
Place only Captains and Soldiers on the Discovery space. Since there's no limit of how many pieces can go there, you're generally better off using settlers for something else, and filling that space only with Captains and Soldiers.
Keep an eye on new world populations. If you have one figure in the same newly discovered territory as an opponent, the first missionary there will claim the good.
Send lots of soldiers to the new world. If they far outnumber soldiers of your opponents, you can use warfare to maintain dominance.