Things You'll Need:
- Aladdin's Dragons board game
- 2 to 4 opponents
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Step 1
Grab an early powerhouse. By the end of the game, everyone will have a powerful artifact. But the player who gets one at the beginning has a huge advantage. The Flying Carpet, the Doubling Artifact, or even the Key will all allow you to essentially have one more bidding token than your opponents in the early game, which you can use to your advantage.
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Step 2
Learn to share. When a dragon's cave has five, four and three treasures, the difference between first and third is not that much. Dropping a lowly two into that cave, if only three players compete for it, is a guaranteed three treasures for practically no expenditure. If you can get some good out of a cave, don't worry about being first.
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Step 3
Conversely, in caves with a single treasure, or town spaces with a single winner (Djinn's house, Market square), you'll need to win if you want any benefit. If you know you really need to win a certain space, drop multiple bidding tokens on it. If your tokens add up to 10 or more, you know you've definitely outbid anyone with only a single token down.
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Step 4
Bluff. Putting down a 2 and then a 4 facedown on a single-benefit space implies heavy investment and will often ward off other players, allowing you a strong claim with low expenditure. Likewise, if you are the last player, you can wait until the very last round to unexpectedly drop your 9 on a space someone else thought they had uncontested with a single face-down chip. Just be aware that bluffing doesn't always work, especially if your opponents have seen you do so before.
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Step 5
Appreciate the power of spells. Not all spells are powerful, but many of them can easily change the winner of any one space on the board. For this reason, it is worth both investing in spells early, and in acquiring the Counterspell artifact to foil the spells of your opponents. Each spell also has its own strategy. Taboo should be played by the camel player on a wealthy dragon's cave, after you drop a 2 there. First Shall Be The Last can be played mid-way through a round, after your 9 has already been revealed to win a cave, but before your 1 has arrived.
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Step 6
Don't let too much go uncontested. Any time a single player's chip lies alone on a space, that chip could be a 2. If you don't want to let your opponents potentially get benefits far too cheaply--especially artifacts--then put up some token resistance.
