Tips madeira

Worker Placement

You need at least one worker in Regions 2 and 3 most of the time, as the building actions here are vital to winning; and in the forest. Whether you wish to keep one or more workers in Region 1 will depend in part on how heavily you plan to invest in colonists, since it has only one building to activate.

Region 1:

Alfândega (Customs): By having colonists, you save yourself having to take harvest actions; in addition, it is a steady source of PP if you have ships in the colonies. This strategy works well with the Expeditions Crown Request, but requires that you have fewer workers in the fields or cities, so try to pick up compensating guild favors (Engineer, Diplomat).

Region 2:

Moinho (Mill): A reliable end-of-round source of 5 bread, if you have 3 workers in this region.

Capitania (Captaincy): The main way to move workers into the city. If you have 3 workers in the region, you can earn an easy 15 points over 5 rounds.

Region 3:

Casa da Coroa (Guild Palace): Important once you have accumulated guild favours.

Fortaleza (Watch Tower): The most powerful building on the board; it is a rare round that you will not want to place a guild die here. Placing one or two workers in the City Watch accomplishes 3 things simultaneously: discarding pirates, enabling you to use pirate die, and scoring 4 VPs if you have a majority in the Honor phase.

Getting and Losing Pirates

There are two main approaches to pirates: (1) try to avoid having any by game-end (thus handing your opponent a large point penalty if they did not discard their own pirates); (2) try to score so much without paying building/maintenance costs that the 16-point penalty for having most pirates is of little concern. (Try to avoid the extra penalty for having more than 20 pirates, in any case.)

It is quite possible to discard all pirates by game-end. To play optimally, however, you will need to take pirates in opening rounds in order to conserve money, bread or wood, then discard them later. It is rarely possible to achieve much in the game while paying everything as you go.

The main way of discarding pirates is placing workers in the City Watch, via Fortaleza or other means (Scout, the 3rd passing favour, the King's favour). All these actions discard 3 pirates (or 6 if you activate Fortaleza's stronger ability). Therefore, as you approach the endgame, make sure you have an even multiple of 3 pirates. (Constable allows you to discard half your pirates; it is the only exception to the rule of 3. If you are going for a pirate-heavy strategy, grab this favour.)

Putting a guild die on Fortaleza (if you have workers in Region 3) lets you skip paying for earlier building actions, then discard the resulting pirates at Fortaleza: an efficient way to conserve money if you don't need some earlier building actions.

Picking Up Points Along the Way

It is important to pick up a few points every round, not just rounds 1/3/5. There are 3 buildings that potentially give you points, one per region: 4 points for majority in the watch; 1 point per ship for sending a worker to a colony; 1 or 3 points for the cities. Those points will stack up across 5 rounds, if you can consistently snag one or two of these per round. There are also a few guild favours that help, notably the Scout and Lady (plus passing areas II and III, plus some King's Favors).

Wood and Bread

Never start a round without bread, as you need it to modify dice. Take a few pirates if necessary to hang on to some bread.

Never discard wood in the first few rounds of the game when maintaining your ships: take a few pirates instead. It is simply too precious to waste, as you need it for guild favors. Unlike bread, small quantities of wood may be purchased as long as you have access, so make sure you have enough reals on hand to make up the difference (or use the Windmill).

The Windmill

Do not neglect to use the Windmill to trade goods, gain bread, etc. Whenever you can, especially early in the game, move up the Windmill to conserve bread. (The Miller guild favour is especially useful for this.)

Guild Favors

Obtaining these is crucial to your game: do not neglect to collect and use them. Let them shape your strategy--for instance, if you get Diplomat or Engineer, you can leave more workers in the colonies while still being able to take powerful building actions or make decent harvests. If you get Lord, you'll be able to save money on building actions, so Wealth of Nations becomes easy to fulfill.

Passing

More actions is not necessarily better: try to pass early, once you've completed all actions you absolutely must do. Unless you urgently need an action lower on the passing column, grab as high a spot as possible. Consider taking the 2 reals to guarantee first pick of dice, request, and guild to unflip.

Crown Requests

When selecting crown requests, consider whether they work well together, what round you will fulfill them in, and what requests will be left unclaimed for future rounds. In general, avoid ending up with multiple copies of the same request in Round 5, as the 2nd copy will usually score little or nothing; the exception is Wealth of Nations if you're rolling in cash.

Urbanization (city workers) is the most useful request, in Round 1 especially, as you are guaranteed to score some points with no effort, and scoring 12 or 15 points is relatively easy.

Wealth of the Nations (money) is easy to fulfill, but keep in mind in Round 5 it effectively nets only 12 points maximum (since 15 reals = 3 points in final scoring). However, it is handy in later rounds because unlike all other requests, duplicates are easy to fulfill for a full 15 points, as long as you have a good source of money.

Influence of the Guilds can yield 15 or 20 points in Rounds 3 and 5, the highest potential return on a single request.

Market Routes and Expeditions both score up to 18 points. Avoid having to fulfill them simultaneously in Rounds 3 or 5; the wood/money upkeep on 6 ships simultaneously in play is onerous.

It is helpful to have complementary requests in hand: Market Routes + Wealth of the Nations (trade routes get you money); Influence of the Guilds + Urbanization (claiming Guild favours clears space for urbanization).

Endgame

Keep in mind that you need to marshal your resources carefully in endgame--hopefully by this point you have an engine for making money while also discarding pirates. Depending on your setup, you want a max of 3 or 6 pirates by the time you reach Fortaleza. Keep in mind that if you don't have enough wood and bread on hand at game-end, you will take a lot of last-minute pirates: a small shortfall in wood is not fatal (as you can pay for it), but a shortfall in bread cannot be made up, so make sure your position on the windmill + available bread is sufficient. (Also: start moving workers off the board to conserve bread in the last round: use Watch dice, or obtain a Watch majority and remove a worker for 4 PP).