A Practice Plan for Tournament Castles of Burgundy

You know the rules, the strategy, the tracking, and how tournaments score. The last step is practice that matches what you will face: four players, an assigned duchy, a time limit, and a heat that rewards wins. This lesson gives you six weeks to get there.

The plan assumes about four hours a week, since four-player games are long. Scale it to your life, but keep all four parts.

Choose your event first

A plan needs a date. The tournaments lesson covers the main options:

• The World Boardgaming Championships in Pennsylvania, with a Castles of Burgundy event marked as welcoming beginning players.
• The World Series of Board Gaming in Las Vegas, if the game is on its ring list that year.
• A local or online tournament. Game stores, clubs, and online communities run them too. Our guide to running a board game tournament helps if you end up organizing one yourself.

Put the date on your calendar. Then count back six weeks.

The four parts of every week

1. Volume. Play four-player games under the 2019 edition rules, ideally on duchies you did not choose. Board Game Arena makes this easy. Aim for three to five games a week, and record your score, the winner’s score, and your finish.

2. Time. At least one game a week should run against the clock budget from the playing on a clock lesson: about 30 minutes per phase at four players. Across a real table if you can; a timed online table if not.

3. Drills. Ten minutes, two or three times a week:

• Duchy drill. Lay out a random duchy, or look at one online, and run the five-step routine from the random duchies lesson in five minutes or less.
• Region table drill. Recite the region values by size, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, and the phase bonus, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, until you can price any region in any phase instantly.
• Tracking drill. During one game, keep the castle and mine counts from the tile tracking lesson in your head, and check them against the board at the end.

4. Review. After every loss, write the three-line review from the online study lesson: where the points went, the turning point, and one change.

The six weeks

Weeks 1 and 2: foundations. Volume and review, plus the region table drill every session. Focus on phase A: how many regions you close, and what income you build. Compare with the winner each game.

Weeks 3 and 4: the table and the clock. Add timed games. Practice the round routine from the reading the table lesson, so your thinking happens on other turns. Watch one strong player’s replay each week.

Week 5: event rules. Play every game as your event plays it: four players, assigned boards, its expansion tiles in or out, and its tiebreakers. At the start of each phase E, run the count from the playing to win lesson and choose your line on purpose.

Week 6: sharpen and rest. Fewer games, more review. Play a few timed games early in the week, then ease off. Arrive rested.

What to measure

Keep four numbers from week to week:

• Your score as a share of the winner’s. Rising is the clearest sign of progress.
• Regions closed in phase A.
• Leftovers at the end: unsold goods, silver, and workers. Lower is usually better.
• Minutes per phase in timed games.

If your share of the winner’s score is climbing, the plan is working, whatever your wins say.

The people across the table

Tournaments can make a game feel like work. Keep one thing in view. Every heat is three other people who love this game enough to travel for it. Learn their names. Talk through the interesting endings afterward. If you are near Indianapolis, join the Indianapolis list for first word on local learn-to-play nights as The Ludarium grows.

That is the end of the course. You can play, teach, and run a clean round; price a roll in workers; open phase A, use every building, and run a midgame engine; choose monasteries, herds, and sales; read a random duchy, track the tiles, and win color races; and walk into a tournament knowing how it scores. The game is the reason. The people across the table are the point.