Post by baire on May 7, 2010 23:11:07 GMT -5
I'll start off the "puzzling tips" with some thoughts about rigging.
The general strategy that I've found most effective is to make small to medium size clears (say 5-10 pieces) every 2-3 turns, always aiming to clear the least common color on the board (as is possible). After enough rounds of this, the board will likely have one or two colors that dominate the board. Clearing all or almost all of one of these dominating colors should now be easy as there as a lot of these pieces around to establish connections. Repeat.
The approach of "only clearing a color if you can eliminate all of it" tends to produce a lot of oil. If you clear two oil tokens at the same time, they both drop the same color, so it's often a good idea to wait before using the first one you get.
Also, while time is a very large factor in score, it is sometimes worthwhile to "test" a few ideas for making connections, as in physically moving the pieces in several directions before making a decision. Right clicking releases the pieces very quickly, so it's not such a big drain.
The general strategy that I've found most effective is to make small to medium size clears (say 5-10 pieces) every 2-3 turns, always aiming to clear the least common color on the board (as is possible). After enough rounds of this, the board will likely have one or two colors that dominate the board. Clearing all or almost all of one of these dominating colors should now be easy as there as a lot of these pieces around to establish connections. Repeat.
The approach of "only clearing a color if you can eliminate all of it" tends to produce a lot of oil. If you clear two oil tokens at the same time, they both drop the same color, so it's often a good idea to wait before using the first one you get.
Also, while time is a very large factor in score, it is sometimes worthwhile to "test" a few ideas for making connections, as in physically moving the pieces in several directions before making a decision. Right clicking releases the pieces very quickly, so it's not such a big drain.