Recovering from lost score

Quoting the Echoes manual:

One of the most frequent misunderstandings in Innovation is the belief that losing everything from your score pile early on takes you out of the game. Building your board infrastructure to be able to claim special achievements and execute powerful late game (Age 8-10) cards is a more effective plan than trying to rebuild your score pile once it is wiped out.

Achievements

Remember that the main goal of the game is to gain achievements, and one of the main ways to get achievements is by accumulating points in your score pile. For this reason, make sure you keep an eye on the prize and score points if you can. There are a few cards early on that are very good for that:

• 1: Clothing - assuming you have colors that your opponents do not have
• 1: Metalworking - a bit of a lottery, but can pay off well in ages 1-3
• 1: Oars - very powerful if you are able to demand the effect of an opponent with a lot of cards

Even a few points can make a difference, because some cards allow you to return cards from your score pile in exchange for more powerful cards (e.g. 3: Education and 4: Printing Press).

If you cannot score, be aware that a few cards give you achievements: 1: Masonry, for playing 4 cards with towers in one action, 2: Construction for being the only player with 5 colors, 3: Translation for all top cards having at least one crown, 4: Invention for having 5 piles splayed in any direction, and 5: Astronomy for having all non-purple cards age 6 or above.

There are also special achievements which can be obtained without having any points in your score pile.

If you are unlucky and do not draw scoring cards, try advancing in age, as this will give you an edge, with more powerful cards as the game progresses. Blue cards are good for that: 2: Mathematics / 4: Printing Press / 4: Experimentation / 5: Physics / 6: Atomic Theory / 7: Evolution. Or you can aim for cards with leaves (mostly yellow) which allow you to steal or return cards from an opponent’s score pile.

Even if you are way behind in achievements, not all hope is lost. Some dogma effects (especially from cards in the last few ages) have win conditions on them.

Splaying

Splaying is one of the most powerful actions you can do, but do not abuse it. The goal is to have more icons than your opponents for the purpose of executing dogma effects, not to have high icon counts just for the sake of it. It's still possible to win games while all your stacks are unsplayed.

Defense and Catch-Up

In terms of defense, always make sure you are not vulnerable to an attack. Every time the opponent places a card, check to see if it allows them to steal points or take cards from your board or your hand. To counter these attacks, try adjusting your icon counts so that you become immune to the dogma effect, or use the cards that could be stolen, or grab an achievement before your score drops.

If the opponent is a few ages behind, and you are able to get cards from the last few ages, you may be able to catch up scoring wise (and therefore grab achievements before the opponent), or simply finish the game by alternative conditions.

Card list

BGA now includes a "Browse all cards" button within the game, but for a searchable view of all the cards in one screen, see the Isotropic card list.

Dogma victories

The six dogmas that award victory directly in the base game are:

• 8: Empiricism "... If you have twenty or more [bulb] icons on your board, you win."
• 9: Collaboration " ... If you have ten or more green cards on your board, you win."
• 10: A.I. "... If Robotics and Software are top cards on any board, the single player with the lowest score wins."
• 10: Bioengineering "... If any player has fewer than three icons on their board, the single player with the most icons on their board wins."
• 10: Globalization "... If no player has more [leaf] icons than [factory] icons on their board, the single player with the most points wins."
• 10: Self Service "... If you have more achievements than each other player, you win."

Expansions

Artifacts of History

Generally, it is wise to dig as many artifacts as possible during the course of the game. The artifacts cards are stronger than the cards in the base set providing avenues for winning the game in earlier ages in some cases.

Also, the free action at the beginning should be utilized whenever possible. It basically gives you an extra action each turn if the display can be repopulated each turn. Using the displayed artifact to draw a new artifact is also a good approach as it equals two actions (meld and a draw).

Specific cards to look out for:

• 1: Dancing Girl: This is a card that can end a game rapidly in a 2 player game because the requirements for success are pretty low. If this card is present in your opponent’s display, you cannot exceed your opponent’s lightbulb count or you risk losing.
• 2: Holy Lance: This requires 2: Holy Grail to be on your board when activated granting an automatic win. The easiest counter is to empty the age 2 pile so that Holy Grail can’t be drawn.
• 4: Cross of Coronado: This requires a hand with one of each color. The easiest counter to this win condition is to add cards to your opponent’s hand or take all of their cards.
• 6: Pride and Prejudice: If there are 5 piles present and all are unsplayed, the rest of the cards will be scored thus resulting in a win condition. Yes, this is intentional.
• 8: Battleship Yamato: This card has no dogma effects and no symbols to speak of and it also has a face up age of 11. The game will end if a Draw action is taken and this card is on your board. Other cards that trigger drawing a card of the maximum age on your board will also cause the game to end (such as a sharing card).

Relics

Relics are very powerful cards when you consider that it doesn’t require any points to acquire these achievements. The trick to relics is keeping them or devising clever ways to steal them from your opponent. The easiest way to keep them is to make sure that the base pile of that age remains empty after you’ve seized the relic. To steal a relic, you can return a card (e.g. 6: Democracy or 4: Perspective) to set up a steal on a meld action later.