Thread: The Castles of Burgundy:: Strategy:: Pros of CoB: How do you approach board 1?

by doubleawilly

I have about 150+ games under my belt and I still feel completely uncomfortable with board 1. Just like board 8 is too strong, board 1 to me feels too weak. It rewards barely anything region-wise in the early game, and in the end-game a 5-pasture is only a reward with a homogenous animal which is easy to defend against, and the other 5-region building doesn't feel enough to pile on points in the end game. I usually start on the lower castle in the group of 3 in hopes to complete the single building and the single castle, but after that I'm usually lost for how to strategize.

One could say it should leverage building bonuses with 4 unique building areas, but one of those areas is a single building space that needs to be filled early for points (since it's practically the only early region point snag) before much of, if any building bonus tiles are known. A board that's littered with 3-space areas evenly spread out throughout the board just kills region points.

I regularly lose to less experienced players when I have board 1. So for those who don't view board 1 as badly as I do, why? And what's your approach?