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I played terra mystica for the first time recently as the engineers. I decided to pick good bridging starting locations, build a stonghold and a bridge the first turn, and spend the rest of the game accumulating as many points as I could from the bridges. I got boxed in the second turn and completely destroyed in terms of points. The engineers low starting resources and few workers from dwellings seem to imply that the ability to build bridges without with workers is extremely powerful.

What strategy should I use when playing as the engineers?

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The risk of getting boxed in is always something you have to pay attention to. (Of course, the risk is greatest for this with the Chaos Magicians)

I only played the engineers once (and won with about 135 points), so I don't have much experience with them. The stronghold ability is very strong but should be used situationally. What I mean by this is that you should not focus too hard on building bridges. I had my first point scoring bridge in round 2 (because for scoring points there have to be 2 buildings at either end of the bridge).

Very important (like always) is the position of the starting dwellings. I chose C11 (lots of possible bridges) and E7 (mainly for power leeching), but of course this depends from game to game.

I also built only 1 bridge with 2 workers, the other 2 bridges I built with the power bridge action. I think you should always do it like that if it's possible.

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  • The way you describe playing the engineers, you aren't taking much advantage of their only 2 abilities. So wouldn't that be like playing any other race and not using that race's powers?
    – GendoIkari
    Sep 17, 2014 at 16:26
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    @gendoIkari: I think the idea is that focusing too much on your special power is harmful to the engineers. Instead of going straight for your power, you build lots of settlements to get lots of workers, then build bridges and collect points. It's a mid-to-late game power, not an early game one.
    – Dan
    Sep 18, 2014 at 1:52
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    @GendoIkari The Engineers' real racial power is their super-cheap buildings and 5 power-income second temple that can be built on round 1. Even without bridges, engineers have their upsides. I've won a game as Engineers without building a single bridge.
    – xnor
    Sep 18, 2014 at 4:18

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