by Newsman77
My family and I are trying out Seafall. I'll admit, I'm a little lost on what my overall strategy should be.We're in a 5 player game and recently finished the Prologue & Game 1. We also opened the 1st box. We're using the house rules that a year is 5 rounds (instead of 6) and all glory is halved (except treasure). From my research, those appear to be pretty solid rules for making the game more enjoyable. I was saddled with the prince title in the Prologue, which carried over to Game 1. I also won Game 1, which keeps me as the prince. All scores were within 1 point, except Player 1, who is 6 points behind.
Here are my questions:
1) What should my overall strategy be?
Players 1 & 2 are heavy explorers. They like reading passages out of the book and they took an exploration upgrade for their large ship at the end of Game 1. Player 3 likes to explore but also has expressed an interest in raiding. He took a raid upgrade for his large ship. Player 4 wants to be the builder of the group, and nearly won by building ship upgrades/structures.
As player 5... I went with a buy/sell goods focus (since those were the only advisors left for me to take). It felt weak. Other players were getting glory every turn and lots of gold and other resources from exploring/raiding. I was behind most of the game and only won because I was able to get the milestone for 3 treasures and the raid a 6 spot.
I think I'm in an ok spot. I was able to get 2 reputation bumps from the milestones and winning the game secured me the Lucky appellation. Every other player was awared an appellation from their background. I was awarded a field improvement. I'm lost on direction though and what to do, since I'm going to be last again in Game 2. Going last makes it hard to compete with the heavy explorers/raiders.
2) When selecting my first ship upgrade, which upgrade is best?
My initial thought is to take +1 Sail (movement) for the large ship, brining both of them to 3 Sail. The reasoning being I can move both ships together and the smaller ship could serve as a support ship in all endeavors essentially getting +1 Explore, +1 Raid and +2 Hold. Movement seems important, now that we're headed to the open seas. I could also see the value in +1 Explore or +1 Raid for the smaller, faster ship.
I'm a little concerned about making a wrong choice here, especially since I'm going last in Game 2, and likely close to last in Game 3.
Any thoughts or helpful tips would be greatly appreciated. Please avoid spoilers if possible. Thank you and have a great day!