I am Sean Growley and I have won six Castles of Burgundy tourneys at Strategicon, a local convention. With these tips, you might be the next Sean Growley. Yay? My specialty is in 4 player games so that is what most of the article will concentrate on. I will give tips on 3 player and 2 player games at the end. The strategy changes somewhat with each player count.
Completing Areas - You should concentrate on completing the small areas of 1 or 2, especially in the first 2 phases. Most of your placements should be towards filling in those areas in the first two phases. Work on the bigger areas later in the game.
Mines and Castles - You should get these early, mines will give you more silverings which will let you buy more from the black market which will give you the opportunity to get more tiles to fill up more spaces. The earlier you get them the better. Castles are also somewhat important early as they give you extra actions. Extra actions will allow you to fill in those small areas earlier faster. Plus getting the end game bonus for finishing these colors first is easiest with these 2.
Turn Order - Turn order is very important in this game. Very very important. I mentioned how mines and castles are important. Most experienced players know this and they are the first tiles that are scooped up, especially early. You should try and make it so you go first in most rounds, or at least until you get the tiles you need ( such as mines, castles, high scoring yellow tiles). You want to say just ahead of everyone on the turn order track.
You should strategically wait to place your ship tile in a round until someone passes you in turn order, then place the ship tile after they pass you so now you are on top and thus ahead of them in turn order. Always let them go ahead first. Being first player is most important on the very first turn of a phase. It matters less during the rest of the phase, just by the end of the phase you should try to be back on top.
Storage Area - Your storage area should be empty at the start of each phase. You want to be able to get 2 tiles from the main depot and 1 from the black market at the start of each phase, especially if you are start player. If you have to spend that first turn moving a tile into your estate you just missed out on an opportunity to get one of the best tiles on the board and now it might get taken before your next turn.
Yellow ( Knowledge ) Tiles - There are two types of knowledge tiles, end game point ones and technologies(non end game points, but help you with the game). The tech tiles you should get in round 1 or round 2. Past that, they are not really worth it. They might save you some workers along the way, but there are better moves to make. But if you get them early enough they will save you enough to be worth it.
~ I will go through some important tiles ~
Tile 1- The tile the allows you to ignore the rule that only one of each type of building is allowed in each area. This might be by favorite of the tech tiles. It is a MUST if you have a huge building area to fill in. Board 2 and 7 especially. With those boards you should make sure you are start player until that finally pops up. It fills in those huge areas way easier plus you can totally spam multiple knowledge tiles that give you points for the brown buildings types. That’s one of the ways you can get the super high scores of 270+, where all of your brown buildings score you 4 points.
Tiles 16-23 - Speaking of the 4 point tiles for types of brown buildings, these should be part of your strategy. Either grab these tiles for ones you already a good number of or plan to score big on one and keep yourself ahead in turn order to snag it. Or get one first and then grab those building tiles as soon as you can. Board 5 is great for this as it has a lot of separate areas. These aren’t as great on the boards with only 2 different building areas.
Tile 15- The best end game point tile in the game. 3 points for each different color of sold good. For the most part it is at least a 9 point tile and most of the time a 15-18 point tile. I try and stay ahead on turn order until this pops up. Always good no matter what board you are playing.
Tile 12 - A +1/-1 for buying from the depot is pretty good, snag this early if you can.
And the rest - They are all just fine, there’s no knowledge tiles that are duds but the ones above are the best.
Animals - Don't bother with animals if you don't have at least a 4 area.. If you have an animal area of 4 or more, then you want to if possible fill that area with only that animal. Do not put another type on there unless it's near the end of the game and your animal is taken and you need to fill that area. The knowledge tile that gives you 4 points per animal is fine, but don't put different animals in one pasture just to max that out, it's better to have the same animal in one. Tile 7 that gives you extra points when placing animals is great if you get it early for an animal strategy.
Worker Tiles - Try and gain worker tiles from the boarding house building that way you aren't wasting an action to get 2 tiles. With those you get to place a building and get 4 tiles. So scoop those up if you can. Also the knowledge tile that gives you 4 workers when you turn in for worker's isn't bad. Most say try and not to spend workers too much but sometimes you have to get the stuff you want and sometimes it is worth it.
Buildings - Generally these are all good, you should use them to get the other stuff you want. If you are going to get a ship, for example, you might as well get a Market tile to get that ship that way you fill out the board. I myself like Carpenters Workshops( get you another building), City Halls( allow you to place anything) and Boarding Houses ( for previously said reasons) but it also depends on knowledge tiles you have or plan to get. The watchtowers ( 4 points) should be gotten later in the game since they don't speed up putting tiles on the board.
Player Boards - In general you always want to start on every board near small areas, especially near mines and ship areas.
Board 1 - The so called beginner board. Here is my issue with the board, it is just ok. It is good for an animal strategy due to the large animal area and one should try and do animals with this one. It just usually scores less on average than most of the other boards. Most people tell newbies to the game to play on this board and I don’t think that is needed. The other boards really don’t add that much complexity to the game. It’s actually the board I’m least experienced at, and the way to beat me in a tourney is to suggest to the organizer that “Hey, everyone should just play on board 1”.
Board 2 - Needs that knowledge tile that allows the same building in the same area otherwise it is going to be hard to complete that area, and to win with this board that area should be completed. This board is good if you get that tile.
Board 3 - Tricky board to maneuver but you should definitely concentrate on knowledge tiles.
Board 4 - No real tricks to this board, just standard strategy, board is just ok in my opinion.
Board 5 - Best of the boards, a lot of small areas, you should be getting knowledge tiles with end game points for buildings.
Board 6 - A good pick if you are start player, start in the middle of the board and hopefully try and get two mines on your first turn. For sure finish that 6 boat area. Fairly strong board.
Board 7 - Another board that needs the knowledge tile that lets you place the same building in one area. It’s alright.
Board 8 - Usually banned in tourneys, and whoever plays it has a big advantage. Should be taken out, it is OP, it scores 20 more points on average. So many small areas and a huge animal area. If you can’t convince your group to not use it, then I guess take this board for sure. Then when you beat them they will be like “Oh, maybe you were on to something”
Board 9 - It’s also just OK, my issue is that there is only 2 building areas so getting points on those endgame knowledge tiles is not that great of payoff as you will only get 8 points tops without that knowledge tile I keep mentioning
2 Player Games - The strategy is way different, while a 4 player game is a lot of positioning and waiting for tiles to pop up, a 2 player game is much more go with the flow. Since you cannot plan for a tile to come up you have to go with what comes out. Animals are kind of bad in 2 player as not enough of the same animal might come out during the game to fill up on area with the same animal. Some general strategies carry over, such as completing small areas first and the importance of mines.
3 Player Games- Kind of a mix of both, as you can’t plan for something to come out 100% but there is still planning you can do.
Hopefully with those tips you can win your next Castles of Burgundy game, maybe even defeat me!
-Sean
(A little background about Sean - Early 2018, Show Me How to Win was just an idea and we were trying to figure out what games should be featured on our play throughs. We considered Castles of Burgundy and asked Sean - the best CoB player we know - if he could come up with three distinctive strategies to approach this game. He shared tons of strategies with us but it ended up not being a good fit. However, his advice was just too good to be kept secret and that’s why we asked him to write this article for us. Follow him on instagram @crappypicsofboardgames for really crappy pictures and track his all time rankings + wins/losses.)
The Castles of Burgundy is designed by Stefan Feld and currently published by Ravensburger in USA.