I'm new to tengaged, and have so far completed three games. I finished in 7th place in both of my first two fast casting games, due to my own sloppy strategic gameplay that ended with me on the wrong side of the numbers.
The 7th place boot is, to me, the most important boot of the game. I play from the outset to keep four votes on my side at the 7 slot, but ideally I would like to have 5, meaning two unique final 3 alliances with one outsider to burn.
I prefer to play a loyal game with small flexible alliances. If I can line up two final 3 alliances with 4 unique players, I haven't yet failed to navigate my way to that crucial 7th slot.
In my first game, I was recruited into an aggressive alliance of 5 that was run by a very aggressive strategic player. In that scenario, I should have been saving my move for the 5 slot, but I acted too quickly. I was intimidated by the aggressive leader of our alliance, even though she had promised me a final 3 slot before bringing in the additional 2. I still don't know for certain if she would have taken me to the end or not, but I suspected that she was not going to. I attempted to orchestrate a coup at 7 to flip the numbers on her and get her evicted, but others in my alliance were more loyal to her than to me and told her my plan. She acted quickly to evict me.
That's a valuable lesson: it's not smart to be too aggressive. Lay low, keep your numbers, and execute your moves only when the time is right.
I just finished my third game, and stuck with my original final 3 alliance the entire way. As time goes on, and I prove myself to be a loyal ally, I hope that players I've played with in the past will recognize me and begin to seek me out as a reliable and honest vote.
I haven't mastered how to play to the algorithm yet, but for now I'm content to get to as many final 3 endings as possible while I work on the other facets of my game. For example, I have very little public chat presence because I am always discussing strategy with my alliance in private. This hurts my chances of winning POV or pulling out a win because I usually finish games without any upvotes. I do take time to upvote posts by key members of my alliance, though, because giving them POV benefits me and my game, while allowing me to continue to focus my attention on strategizing in private.
On the other hand, I have been very successful at keeping nominations from coming my way. I finished my last game with only 5 total nominations--two of which came at final 4 where there just wasn't anywhere else to put a vote. If I can continue to keep heat off of me, I stand a good chance of making it deep into games. Flexibility is key to success.
