CHANGELOG

If you are a new player, this guide will show you the basics of calculating the points you get for placing hexes on the map. To frame the topic well, let's start...... from the end !!

First, a recap of how the final score is composed:



HEX COUNT
“51 HEX” are the tiles you have placed from your stack. No matter if it reveals a single tile or several (due to water ‘petals’). Any combination you place, not matter the number of tiles it reveals, count “1”. Therefore we could consider them “moves”, not tiles in strict meaning because you often actually reveal many more tiles than the hex-moves that you place.

BORDERS MATCHED
Are the number of sides you place side-by-side with other tiles. No matter how many hex your “move” reveals (1, 2, 3,…etc) the sides are counted for the main tile you place only, not for other “towed” tiles. We’ll see this later a bit more in depth.

TILES SURROUNDED
This is simple to explain, fortunately: each hex with all the sides enclosed.
That is called “surrounded” and gives you 6 fixed points. Remember, points for the border matches if that tile was the main tile when placed, are counted in "BORDERS MATCHED".
This is a sort of extra bonus, very useful in terms of points because on average is between 60% and 75% of your final score.

TOWNS BUILT & ENEMY CAMPS DESTROYED
Is quite obvious, and you get 10 pts for each.

OTHER
Are points got from TechTree (100, 60, 50, 40) and from Towers used to remove clouds around your map. To be exact, towers score points in 2 ways:

• 1) By matching type with the map composition (7 tiles of plain, forest or water with more or less density of each element, so score can change).
  Note - Water scores half points.
  
• 2) By mountains revealed when the game modifier ‘3pts for mountains revealed’ is active. This modifier can be active sometimes in Daily Challenge and Adventure.

Okay, interesting, but regarding matched and surrounded,
how do we match those scores with what the game reports at the end?
How are points earned during the game in the map?

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This is how more or less a game start



but for simplicity of calculation, let's assume that the map is empty, and we do the 1st move placing the first hex. Furthermore, we assume that all the hex we place are single regular tiles.

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So, let's place the 1st hex in the map:



Progress: 1 move, 0 matches, 0 surrounded. Total : 0

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Now let's attach one more hex



Progress: 2 moves, 1 matches, 0 surrounded. Total : 1

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Let's complete the 1st row with 3 hex, and the 2nd with 4 hex



Progress: 7 moves, 11 matches, 0 surrounded. Total : 11

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Now place 3 hex on the 3rd row, and we face something new for score:



we have 7 matched more, plus, since in the 2nd row we have created a "surrounded" tile,
that brings 6 points extra.
Progress: 10 moves, 18 matches, 1 surrounded x 6 = 6, Total : 24

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Let's complete the 3rd row and see the total



Progress: 12 moves, 23 matches, 2 surrounded x 6 = 12, Total : 35

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Now let's continue with 4th and 5th row, scaling down the number of hex and check the total



Progress: 19 moves, 42 matches, 7 surrounded x 6 = 42, Total : 84

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All this should be quite clear at this point and, to avoid doubts,
the fact that they both have 42 is coincidental, there is no relationship.

IMPORTANT

It doesn't matter the sequence, i.e. the order in which the tiles are placed, because the final score will always be the same !

Suppose that for some reasons, you have not been able to place a hex in the center of our hypothetical map. Which would be the difference in terms of points?



In this case you don't have anymore the 7 surrounded that give 42 points,
and not even the 6 matches of the tile in the center. Total 48 less points.

Progress: 18 moves, 36 matches, 0 surrounded x 6 = 0, Total : 36

However, if you don't have a tile that fits in the center you could use the MAGIC TILE,
a jolly tile that can be placed everywhere at your convenience.

The downside of using the MAGIC TILE is that it is not considered a REGULAR TILE,
therefore sides matched around it are not counted. It also does not count as a "move".

Therefore, the MAGIC TILES placed in the center provide only 6 points as SURROUNDED",
no points for matches.



Progress: 18 moves, 36 matches, 7 surrounded x 6 = 42, Total : 78

REMEMBER: only regular main tiles (those that you take from your stack, move and connect to the map) count for "matches" they create.

All the extra tiles generated using these actions or tech below, don't give you points for matches,
but only for tiles surrounded. To be precise, if you take from stack a tile with an expander (1st tech) or that reveals a flag (4th tech) that tile counts for matches, the extra tiles generated no.



This must be clear when you play, so to explain in another way:

This is to demonstrate the theory we have learned before.



So pay attention :) because it return points ONLY when it is surrounded or a tile in touch becomes surrounded.



This is just to give to you an idea of the mechanic of the game regarding points, hard to show all the cases, but you can easily test by yourself different combinations.

Now, let’s try to figure out where are Surrounded and Matched in a real example.



For convenience I have marked in black the hexes of this map. Even if there is a sort of distorsion, hexes are 100% correct.

So, regarding SURROUNDED, it is quite clear: if you exclude the tiles on the outline of the shape, all the hex in this “container” are necessarily surrounded, and count is possible and easy, and is the number “SURROUNDED” in the report.

But,
1) Where are the Matched ?
2) Shouldn’t the “matched” be much higher considering 119 surrounded plus all the tiles in the outline?

Good questions 😊 Answers are:
1) Don’t know
2) No.

It is not possible at sight to identify the matches, because, if you remember, matches are calculated only for the main tiles not the other tiles revealed from the petals or “towed”, basically as explained before, when you place multi-tiles.

The wellknown “main tiles”, that we call also “moves”, is the number at the top of the report shown at the end of the game (51 in this case).

Therefore (unless you you have a memory that can remember all the prime numbers till 1 trilion) we don’t know where they are, they could be wherever, a sort of chaos.

A move could have revealed 3 tiles, another 5, another 6…… The matches are spread across the map as the main tiles are placed, so all the related matches are there, in between all the tiles in the map.

They could be everywhere more or less equally distributed in your map.

Think of them like a sort of obscure energy that keep your map together and allows you to expand.

Let's have a look to some calculation examples that normally occur during a game.

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This is the start of the map. It is composed by 1 town, 1 surrounded and 12 matches that obviously are not counted

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This counts 1 pt

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2 pts

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Now let us place the yellow X (let's call it "Cross-Expander") and see what happens.



It is not a move, so what will happen?
Since the tiles generated with the X does not count for matches, we have just made two tiles surrounded = 12 pts
NOTE: the blue hex with red circle were already on the map, and now are the new SURROUNDED promoted by your "Cross-Expander" action.
The rest of red hexes are tiles generated by the Cross-Expander that have no effect in terms of points for matches count.

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In the below screen I place a town on the left, 9 pts: 1 surrounded on the right + 3 matches from the tile with the flag (additional 10 points will arrive later when town is built).
To be clear: the blue hex with red circle now has been promoted to SURROUNDED.

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Another eXpander: It is not a Main-Tile, so no points from matches, but as side effect you have got 4 surrounded = 24 pts.
The SURROUNDED are those with red circles, the blue hexes were already on the map.

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At this point, these basics should be quite clear.

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Let’s see other particular cases.

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This "Multi-Tile" earns 1 point for 1 match of the main tiles + thanks to a "water-petal" of the multi-tile, promotes a tile already on the map to SURROUNDED, means 6 points.

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This Multi-Tile composed by the main tile + 3 waters petal earns 2 points only from the matches of the main tile. Note that, two of the three water petals, used for connections to the map, are absorbed from the map with no effects at all.

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Expansion of this town generates 8 surrounded, 48 pts
The red hexes are the tiles generated by the expansion, those with red circles, are now SURROUNDED.

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This is interesting: The placed tile count 2 matches, but nothing against mountain !

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This is also interesting: this move generate 4+1 surr + 5 matches because mountain is not counted = 35 pts. NOTE that the water petals that come together with the main tile are not relevant in this example, and, btw, they have no effect at all. I want just test only that hole near the mountain.

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Remember, gold tiles does not generate “matched” points, this generates 3 surrounded = 18 pts

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Another example with a slightly different kind of tile:

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One more example with this kind of tile:

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SACRIFICE:
Sometimes, depending on the dynamics of the situation, you might think to use a drastic way to solve the issue of the holes still pending in your map.
This is an example. It's up to you to decide if it is worth the sacrifice you are doing with the "Cross-Expander".

Thank you for taking time to read this guide, we hope it was useful.