Drop Duchy Strategy

[dra379]

I'm making this thread to discuss what skills and tricks helped in winning the demo! Please comment your findings below. Here's what I found:

Tricks:
- You can reset the dropping piece by putting it aside in the reserve and bringing it back out again
- This one's tricky, but you can squeeze the pieces into tight turns by holding the W key or D key while pressing one of the swap buttons. It doesn't work perfectly, but the lock-in timer resets when you rotate the piece so you can keep trying until it goes. I haven't tested this on every piece, but I've been able to manage it a couple times
-You can save an enemy building in the reserve and you won't have to play it. Additionally, if you play the enemy piece so that it extends past the board, it also doesn't count. (This also means if you play a terrain or building that extends past, it also will not count toward exploration or building interactions)
- If you accidentally drop a piece and ruin a match, you can quit to main menu and start the encounter over. This will change the seed and the deck will draw differently
- If you forgot to upgrade your cards before entering an encounter, there is still one last chance in the Preparation Phase to look at your deck and upgrade any cards

Game Strategy:
- Scroll up on the map at the beginning and see if there will be water encounters early on. I typically take as many encounters as possible to minimize boss buffs. Water encounters may mean I pick up a Sawmill or Watermill to make the most of the new tile.
- Aim for at least 100 wood and 100 wheat after the first encounter
- At the Guild, if I don't have two different types of combat units, I will pick up a Military card. Otherwise, I'll see if there is a Production card that matches the terrain of my next match
- Look ahead at the encounters to see if you will be missing out on a resource you need for a certain upgrade

Tile Strategy:
- Look at the units that the enemy is going to make and figure out what buildings you will have on the field. Keep in mine the best requirements for them and snuff them out! I usually place their Training Camps in the corner near the bottom to prevent them from aligning with enemy buildings.
- Keep track of what's upcoming in the tile queue and imagine how they will fit together optimally. Water tiles like to be clumped up in the middle or on the edges of the map
- I like to leave space on the edges for a J tetronimo so that an I tetronimo could even fit there. This helps maximize multi-explorations. If push comes to shove, I can put a two tile building in there or even a one tile building to allow most of the tetronimos to complete the row
- Do NOT leave hanging edges. They will come back to haunt you as you climb the board. If you have to, keep them at the top or use the squeezing technique I mentioned earlier
- I find O tetronimos the most difficult to place, but are complimented by a J tetronimo or two opposing S and Z tetronimos
- I typically build up the center first to create a good space for my buildings in the middle of the board. Enemy buildings go to the sides and corners
- Multi-explorations are the best way to go, but don't leave a space open waiting for the perfect piece that inevitably gets filled with the wrong one. Any exploration is better than none, especially if it has Fields (or Rivers when using a Shipyard). I wonder if it can be strategically used on rows with many buildings as they don't contribute to the exploration bonus

The Wall Tips:
- I find that a deck that makes good use of the Farm and Wood Clearer can usually do well at The Wall because it can manipulate any poorly placed Forests into useful Plains
- Forest decks can get snuffed out by awkward tile placement that cuts off a Ranger Base from the rest of the Forest and Water decks do a little better, but a Shipyard focus is almost certainly too difficult to pull of reliably
- The match ends when a tile is placed that extends into the red silhouette of The Wall. Then, the wall is placed on top and any unfilled spaces count as 3 extra units to the nearest enemy building to that space. Keep in mind the topmost enemy building as that will likely have the most units.
- I will strategically allow some gaps to fill because explorations are useless at this point. If it will make more units without exploration, then so be it. This also hinders a Shipyard deck

Trading Fair Tips:
- For the Trading Fair before the boss, I always sell my resource only tiles like the Road House or Water Mill and look to upgrade my existing deck. Pay attention to the resource requirements and you might be able to upgrade one and use the Trading Fair logic to convert enough wood or wheat for another upgrade. I believe the first two trades take your highest quantity resource and will convert half of it for double that quantity of the other two. The third trade is for half of your second highest resource and gives double that of your lowest resource.
- If you cannot manage to squeeze another upgrade from the Fair, then invest in gold and heal as much health as you can. Be sure to heal BEFORE you enter Preparation Phase.
- Make sure you upgrade the cards you want to keep when using the Trade Card option. It will only take level 1 cards.

Plains Tips:
- The small tiles like the Farm, Wood Clearer, and Watchtower are useful for correcting poorly placed tiles and can fill in awkward gaps
- Upgrading the Farm is one of my first priorities if I'm running a Plains deck, the additional units for the Watchtower on Fields is better than a strict Watchtower upgrade at the beginning
- I like placing the Watchtower at least three tiles from the bottom of the board and then the Farm two tiles up and one diagonally to try to maximize Field coverage. Better yet, get two Fields and put a Second Watch Tower above them
- The Rally Point hasn't proved too useful in my runs because you need two Farms or good planning with the Clearing passive to maximize the benefits
- A well placed Wood Clearer can make or break a match depending on when you get the building or the Forest tiles. It can also hinder enemy Ranger Bases; although, it cannot take away units that the enemy building has already gained, even if you remove it's connection from the Forest. It will only stop getting more units when new tiles are placed.

Forest Tips:
- The Forest Buildings can synergize with either Plains or Water Buildings.
- Specifically, the Wooden Fortress goes well with the Plains buildings to clear any final sections of forest that the Wood Clearer doesn't reach because you got it too early. It can also break off an enemy Ranger Base from the rest of the forest. I do recommend upgrading it as soon as possible to create enough units
- The connected forest keyword is very useful for accommodating river tiles. This allows you to place the river tiles right next to Forest buildings like the Ranger Base or the Hunting Lodge without losing precious tile like you would with a Farm or Watchtower. In fact, I have typically replaced the Watchtower with the many archer units from these buildings. The Hunting Lodge and Lumber Camp can replace the Farm and Wood Clearer, respectively.
- I haven't had good luck with a majority Forest deck because the wheat generation is not near as good as a Farm when the map is less than 75% Forest

Water Tips:
- Because many of the water buildings require gold to upgrade, it may come down to a tough decision before the boss to heal or upgrade your unit. For example, I was debating if I should upgrade my Shipyard or my Wooden Fortress and heal; I chose to enter the Preparation Phase to see what would have been better against The Wall's units and went without healing.
- The River Castle does not count toward Minimum Flow and I would assume other water buildings do not count as well. Be sure to connect actual water tiles together to achieve Minimum Flow. I am curious if putting a building in the middle of water tiles will achieve Minimum Flow for that tile while breaking it for the others.
- The Shipyard has been a difficult building to win with due to low reward and high base skill requirement and I recommend finding axe units from other buildings
- The high gold cost means that the Road House, Tax Office, and Bridge are useful to pick up for a few matches. It also means that military units should be optimized to yield as much gold after battle as possible
- Because the river tiles can easily jut into places that would be perfect for farms or other local tile strategies, I found that pairing it with a Hunting Lodge or two can increase your army and wheat supplies without relying on the farm much. The Ranger Base is also a good source of archers for the same reason

Passive Tips:
- The Militia passive is not worth the squeeze in my opinion. It synergizes well with many buildings (Farm and Watchtower, Lumber Camp and Ranger Base, River Castle and Sawmill), but it only works when you already have the pair of buildings.
- I hesitate to take Lucky Finds because if encourages multi-exploration to double a bigger number, but you are already doing well because you are achieving multi-explorations. If feels like a "winning more" situation when the card slot could be used on another more useful building
- Strong Defender may be useful for people who have saved up a lot of gold or ended up with a lot by selling cards. Although if I'm losing to The Wall, it's often by way more than 10 and when I win it's usually pretty comfy
- Optimizer is good early, and with it's cheap upgrade it definitely is worth it. Sell it later on to upgrade your last card
- Clearing is very good against enemy forest synergies and helps with plains strategies. I recommend upgrading it early if you are running a plains deck. It can be awkward to manage if you get the two tiles early, but it's still beneficial even just for exploration

Misc. Tips:
- I used to think Training Camp was amazing and it definitely helped me clear matches with up to 16 extra units. Unfortunately, it's very costly to upgrade with wheat that could be spend on slots or other upgrades and The Wall usually only allowed for one building to be affected
- The Road House should always be positioned vertically for maximum yield
- The Tax Office pales in comparison to the Road House, but I do wonder if it counts enemy buildings toward the building count. Even though it is only one tile big, it's rare that the best place to put it to make an exploration is the same place to maximize building alignment.
- Always take a card even if you don't want any of the cards offered. You don't have to use them and you can sell it for 50g right away
- The Depots are a useful stop to gather materials for upgrades, just be wary of what path they may send you down. It may lead to an unfavorable fight. The extra resources for health are not really worth it to do every time, but taking one hit to the HP can usually be regained with enough gold at the end

Phew, I think I covered everything. Please tell me about your strategies in the comments and let me know what your favorite build is! Mine is the River Castle with Forest support!

[Blancer]

*heh* Nerd