I know broad topics and things that are more "discussion" than "directly answerable" are discouraged on B&CG, but I really want to pull apart, exchange ideas, and learn about strategies pertaining to various games I play. My question is

Are there tips for structuring my general strategy questions to make them acceptable such as proposing my opinion on optimal play in various phases of the game?

This sounds like it's not what people are saying the site is meant to answer, unless the situation is extremely specific (i.e. "when this occurs, is this the best play?" versus "is X a strong strategy for the opening while doing Y for the endgame").

If anything but the most specific strategy questions don't have an easy place in B&CG, that would be my loss and has been frustrating as a new user to this site. I tend to use some advice I read somewhere in the B&CG faq for now, which is to post whatever questions I have anyway and let them be closed or discussed, but it's still frustrating to simply want to talk about strategy with the community and not fully understand which side of the fence my questions are on.

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    The lack of answers should not be taken to indicate that this was an inappropriate question to ask. I think it is that nobody really has this figured out yet. – bwarner Jun 11 '15 at 13:06

A mantra for this (and any Stack Exchange site) is that questions must be objectively answerable. Objectively evaluating strategies is something I only know how to do in the case of a "solved" game, or in rather limited contexts. So, I think it comes down to the scope of the question.

Limited Scope questions are definitively answerable, and an excellent fit for this site:

What is the advantage of "Complete Destruction" over "Extra Head" in King of Tokyo? 

This lends itself to a quantitative analysis, and can be addressed pretty straight forwardly for those of us mathematically or coding inclined.

Broader scope questions are fuzzier, they may or may not fit well:

When should I try and hold Tokyo in King of Tokyo?

So much of the answer to that, depends upon game context. How combative are your opponents? Are they trying to win by killing or victory points or card drawing? etc. etc. If these can be worded to limit their scope, they seem like they'd be excellent, but "fixing" these questions depends on the resolve of the original poster.

Open ended questions are just not going to fit:

What's the best strategy in King of Tokyo?

Too much depends upon your opponents, how they interact, what their motives are (my 7 year old always goes for energy cubes, so the strategies I use to defeat him are completely different than I use for my 10 year old who always focuses solely on victory points).

I would love to see more strategy questions here.


The more work you've done on your strategy question, the better it's likely to be.

A weak question is, "What are the best strategies for game X?"

A stronger question is, how does strategy X prevent bad outcomes in game Y if the opponents do Z? Here, you've thought about what your opponents are likely to do, and are asking if the solution X, prosed by you, is an adequate counter.

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