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[Music]
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the most notable feature of Nomads is
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that they start with three dwellings I
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know that sounds underwhelming probably
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but it turns out that starting with a
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third dwelling on the board is super
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super consequential and actually makes
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them really fun to play um if you think
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about having an extra dwelling on the
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board means that you're going to get an
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extra worker production now they adjust
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the starting resources so you still
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start with six workers but even still
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the rest of the game you're going to
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have that advantage of an extra dwelling
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out on the board um and we'll come back
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to why that then makes them really
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versatile the other notable thing about
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um Nomads is they strong hold Now new
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players often tend to think of Nomads
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like as a stronghold faction the
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stronghold that you have to build um and
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it's a it can be good but it's
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definitely not a stronghold that you
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have to build it's also a little bit
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extra expensive um but basically it
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gives you an action space that you can
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um use once per round to turn any um hex
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to Yellow but it needs to be right next
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to one of your structures it can't be
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across a bridge and it can't be via
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shipping and so this can be a way to uh
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help expansion so those are the two
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things that make nomads
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distinct standard starting placements
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for Nomads are on
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F3
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D3 um I would say like 90% plus of games
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Nomads will start on those two and
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because they're they're special Nomads
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they get a third starting placement and
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the most common um spots for that are
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either E8 B4 or
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G4 um every once a while you might want
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to consider A5 but most people don't do
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that right now um so let's think about
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this why might you go E8 if you think
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there's going to be upgrading on D5 and
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E7 in round one E8 is a way to get that
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extra power and flux um and then on two
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ship you could access B4 and G4
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potentially um why might you want to
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start on B4 well B4 is nice because it
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um sort of blocks the northern passage
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so black often likes to come through B4
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and so by starting there you're sort of
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get you know mucking up the area for
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people you also green or blue might come
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to C4 pretty quickly so you can get
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power that way there's also some
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opportunity if you want to in the mid
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game then to um beat people to B5
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potentially with a if you build your
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stronghold in the mid game G4 is is a
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little bit risky you would do this if
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Brown's in the game to sort of get in
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their way because Brown will probably um
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dig down from F5 down to H7 round one
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and so you're going to get power as they
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build down and you're kind of getting in
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their way Brown would like to take G4
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the risk of G4 is that brown might then
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get two ship and beat you to E8 and if
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Brown beats you to E8 that becomes a
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little bit problematic um but this can
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work if you think you can um get to E8
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before them
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so looking here at Clo's opening slide
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for Nomads um let's let's walk through
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this a little bit um the the default
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opening for Nomads should be opening
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with a temple um and and possibly
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getting an extra dwelling or two down um
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and when they Temple they uh will almost
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always take one of two things so
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option one is fire one which gives you
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three coins per round and option two is
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Earth One the reason um Earth one can
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make more sense for Nomads round one
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than other factions is they don't have a
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a way to score points inside their
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faction like some of the other ones like
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that get points for digging and things
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like that um and also because they start
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with an extra dwelling on the board they
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have this they have extra production
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going already and so they can kind of
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get away with focusing on acre points a
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little bit more quickly um and have less
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risk of sort of stalling out um in terms
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of not having enough production so Earth
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one can make sense for them fire one
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makes a lot of sense for them and I
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think probably you should default to
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fire one being the pick partly because
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it's fun and it'll help you learn but
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also um one thing that's important is
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because they have the extra worker
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production from starting with the extra
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dwelling out those coins will help
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balance yourself you know everything
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takes workers and coins so having an ex
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extra uh workers means that those three
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coins every round will be particular cly
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useful
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um so uh you know with like a temp ship
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you know uh Nomads can go temple two new
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dwellings with like a single dig power
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action on base map that's that's
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something you could do if you want to
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open temple two new dwellings and that
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they'd have a really big economy in that
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kind of situation um you could also just
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you know go Temple not build any new
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dwellings and you know put a priest to
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cult
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um via either starting on priest or um
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taking the priest action you could
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Temple take a coins action and pass or
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something like that or some people will
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even if you start on you know you could
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even Temple and then pass for double dig
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round two so you have some different
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options um you know if you're on dig
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scroll you could Al still take the
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single dig action to get two new
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dwellings down that way or you could
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take a coins action priest things like
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that so the the other thing now um air2
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and earth2 are less common with them the
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uh these um favors are less common with
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them Earth 2 is less common particularly
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because they have extra worker
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production already so most people have a
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hard time turning Earth two income into
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extra points the exception would be if
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you want to build tons of trading posts
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in rounds 2 three which reduces your
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worker production then it's kind of nice
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to have the Earth two bonus but that
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that's a bit difficult for beginner to
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pull
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off now a couple more thoughts here so
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uh one is opening with two temples so
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you need eight workers to do that and
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the reason that's nice for nomad so I
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would say I don't I don't even
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necessarily think that's shaky or I
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think shaky is too harsh I think it can
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be totally fine and part of the reason
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it can be decent for them is they on
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base map like to get to two shipping and
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so having two temples out produ now you
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have two priest production and so
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getting to two shipping is a bit easy
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easier it also lets you take Earth one
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and fire one potentially um and part of
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the reason two Temple is good for Nomads
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is they still have that extra dwelling
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on the board to produce workers so even
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if you take Earth One fire one with your
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two temples you're still producing two
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workers um with the base income of
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worker and then the the one from the
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dwelling out on the board and so that's
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that's really nice you have balance you
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have priest
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production um likewise you could open
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sanctuary and do the same thing but now
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you only have the one priest production
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so I think this is a little bit worse
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the exception would be if it's big
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building scoring round one you're on the
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big building
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scroll and you don't want to go
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stronghold you could go Sanctuary take
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Earth One fire one and go from
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there so
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um these these openings on the right
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that are listed situational I think
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they're pretty they'll be very rare for
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beginners mostly don't do these they'll
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be you you could start experimenting
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with these once you get a Little Bit
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Stronger but they're they're very very
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situational the other one is opening
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stronghold and I think it's I I would
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encourage you to start by working on
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Temple openings with um with Nomads the
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way clo is here but um Stronghold
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opening can work and again if you're on
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like big building scroll what's really
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nice is to go stronghold it takes two
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workers for the Trading Post four
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workers to go stronghold right so that's
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all your workers but the two workers on
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this scroll then means you have an extra
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worker to build down a dwelling on the
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sandstorm spot the one that you do with
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your stronghold the issue is it's super
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coin intensive it takes like a lot of
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money to build the stronghold so you're
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going to be producing a lot of workers
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but might be out of money so if you're
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going to open stronghold you really want
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to make sure you're getting the coins
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power action early or passing on to a
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coin you know coin scroll um when
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possible and um the other issue is on
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base map it's quite helpful for Nomads
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to have two shipping and stronghold
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doesn't you know that it's more about
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building you know in a very like uh
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clumpy way and it doesn't lend itself um
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quite nicely the base map doesn't lend
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itself to to that kind of buildup for
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yellow as opposed to a map like fjords
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where the stronghold is really really
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important for Nomads so you can do it um
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but you just you want to be really
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worried about coins if you're going to
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go stronghold and then um and then you
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know and then ideally go Temple for
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Earth One in round two so that's mostly
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how we'd think about um openings for
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Nomads as
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beginners so the big things we need to
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figure out um as Nomads is how are we
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going to score points and so maybe that
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involves taking Earth one round one or
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or round two and then also when are we
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going to try to spray dwellings out if
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we open stronghold we're going to be
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kind of plotting along building a little
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bit of dwellings each round but um
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otherwise we're going to be looking for
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a dwelling scoring round and say round
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two or round three um so if it's you
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know dwelling scoring round two you can
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dig you know G2 and B2 so you could be
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on temp shipping or get you know uh to a
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ship and if you can do that you can
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build G2 and get down to i7 and um B2 to
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get to A5 so that's like that's
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something you can do round two as Nomad
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so for example if you can pass on to
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Temporary shipping and then uh be first
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to move in round two then you can dig
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those two hexes and get four new
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dwellings down so that's nice um often a
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hex that you want to worry about is this
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one E2 if black is on C1 black would
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like to do that town but um but Nomads
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would often like to Sanctuary town here
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so sometimes trying to get to E2 quickly
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before black gets there is um is is
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important so that's something to keep an
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eye out for
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um the um the other thing then is uh
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there might be a dwelling round three
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and if you see dwelling touring round
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three that's a little bit more of a cue
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of a two shipping game where you want to
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make sure you get to two ship in round
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three maybe even three ship and you see
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like B4 EA G4 are are two ship away B1
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you can get to with three ship from from
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uh D3 you can get to H1 with three ship
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from E3 uh and from D6 you can be
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reaching B6 so there's um what that's
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it's hard to you can't really do that
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with round two but round three dwellings
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you want to try to hit that really hard
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with probably two or three
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shipping um the other thing that I'll
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say about mid game is on base map
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stronghold in like round four can be
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really nice because let's say you've
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you've done a good job of you know
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getting uh some digs and expansion but
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maybe there's a couple hex's now that
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you would really like to Sandstorm to be
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able to town so like let's say you got
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F3 G2 but you're not able to get on
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E6 so that's that's occupied well you
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might want to Sandstorm either H4 I6 and
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then be able to Bridgetown um that way
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so that's an example of where you kind
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of want that stronghold in round four
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five or six to get those key hexes to
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finish out a couple towns so I think
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that's the other thing to look out uh
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look for as you think about developing
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your game plan for
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Nomads Nomads are medium strength and
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flexible okay some of the bigger things
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to look out for when trying to assess
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how good Nomads are so the first is
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because they produce more workers right
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because they have three structures down
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they like setups with a lot of coins in
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it so you you know you'd like to see
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coin Scrolls in the game with Nomads um
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but in general they're really flexible
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right we talked about all the different
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kinds of openings they can do it's a lot
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of different directions so you know the
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absence of big building will push you
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away from opening stronghold and
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Sanctuary but they have lots of other
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options ship scoring you know that will
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push them towards a two early two ship
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strategy or away from it um but they can
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work with a lot of different um
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setups big things to look out for so
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they want to be on D3 and so one big
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thing is is blue in the game you want
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either swarmlings on D2 or mermaids on
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e4 that gives you neighbors for this
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West digging and they'll feed you lots
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of power when they're doing their
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digging in the west so is blue in the
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game that's a big plus for Nomads um the
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other thing that I like to look out for
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is if I'm on F3 as Nomads is this E6 hex
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can I get that e6x if darklings are on
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E5 they will often dig E6 before I can
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get there or maybe I move before them
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and I'm able to to snag it before them
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but that's a big swing because if I can
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get that I could Sanctuary town here
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without a bridge um and maybe even get
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to D4 in certain situations if I can get
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E6 so can I get that hex Alchemist tend
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to get that less but darklings in
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particular are a threat on that hex um
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now let's think about the color
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Neighbors in
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short cm and and Giants are not that bad
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for for Nomads right they they'll you
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know threaten the north a little bit
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they might threaten before if you're not
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starting on it but mostly they're not
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going to hurt you too too bad of course
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you'd rather have no color Neighbors in
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terms of factions but neither of them
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particularly cm are the end of the world
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you have a lot of um control over CM
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because they only start in one spot and
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Nomads start in three the faction that I
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think is the trickiest is actually um
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cultist if cultist are in as a color
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neighbor so first of all Nomads it's
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very risky against cultist to start on
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G4 with cultist on F5 because cultist
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like to get their shipping up quickly
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and they very well may beat you to E8
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and now it's actually really hard to
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connect the G4 hex to your other
00:15:24
structures for from a network
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perspective um the other thing that I
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think is interesting so cultist will
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almost always start F5 E6 but halflings
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will sometimes start F5 F7 cultist might
00:15:39
do this occasionally but it's more
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common with halflings and they do that
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to get these hexes the reason that's so
00:15:45
significant is if halflings are in and
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they're going to start double East
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Nomads now have easier access to this
00:15:52
middle area in E6 in particular that we
00:15:54
already said is so critical so um trying
00:15:57
to read that if halfling would like to
00:15:59
you know dwelling rush or do early towns
00:16:01
in the East they might leave that middle
00:16:03
hex which is good for you so it could be
00:16:05
win-win in which case halflings won't be
00:16:07
too bad for
00:16:12
you when you're ready to get funky with
00:16:14
Nomads you can try couple things so for
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example you could try starting on temp
00:16:18
shipping and see if you can uh angle for
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double dig and then do a dwelling rush
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or semi- dwelling rush so either like
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just new dwellings or one tra Post in
00:16:29
four new dwellings that's really fun and
00:16:31
then go into either a temple or
00:16:33
stronghold round two off of that trading
00:16:35
post that you're leaving up um another
00:16:37
sort of common fun way um kind of
00:16:41
popularized by zoc would be going Earth
00:16:44
to with your temple which seems
00:16:45
counterintuitive because you produce so
00:16:47
many workers um but the plan then
00:16:50
involves going really heavy on building
00:16:52
out trading posts in round two and three
00:16:54
so get as like maybe even all four of
00:16:56
your trading posts out you know in
00:16:58
rounds two or three but you still have
00:17:01
Earth two producing workers for you um
00:17:03
and so you stay up flat that way that's
00:17:05
pretty cool um last one that I'll say
00:17:09
that zorus made a video about is um you
00:17:11
start on Trading Post scroll and you
00:17:14
single dig down a dwelling round one and
00:17:17
then you build three trading posts and
00:17:20
so it's a 3tp opening 3tp is one um
00:17:24
dwelling and that's just like super
00:17:26
Bonkers you do that in a trading post so
00:17:28
you basically Rush points and then from
00:17:31
there you can figure out what you want
00:17:32
to do with your Trading Post in terms of
00:17:34
turning them into temples strong holds
00:17:36
building out from there but that's
00:17:38
that's a pretty crazy one and could be
00:17:40
fun to experiment
00:17:43
[Music]
00:17:56
with