Mastering the Vertical Shift in Cascadia: Alpine Lakes

Sprawling wilderness won't win anymore; here is how to pivot your Cascadia strategy toward high-elevation scoring and enclosed lakes. 

I love Cascadia. It’s the game that really made me pay attention to Flatout Games, and I instinctively want to give all their games a try, despite surprisingly stressful ones like Calico. There’s just something so satisfying about the tile-laying experience paired with the challenge of getting the animal tokens where you need them to be in order to score the most points. And while I don’t necessarily win a lot of games (my win rate is at about 40% at the moment), I always enjoy the experience. 

So I was pretty excited when Cascadia: Alpine Lakes came out, as it represented a really new spin on the game. Sure, the Landmarks expansion added new ways to score, but the core game experience didn’t change all that much. My first playthrough was a little rough, but it kinda blew my mind at how different the game feels. The Cascadia fundamentals are there, but it feels like a whole other experience now. As much as I had guided the teach for that first session, it wasn’t until we actually played the game that I came to fully appreciate that you can’t approach this game like the classic Cascadia if you want to make the most of what has changed.

Unlearning the 2D Habit

The Cost of Horizontal Sprawl

In base Cascadia, you end up with your own bit of wilderness that makes a fun sort of tableau at your side of the table. You build outwards with a focus on trying to match terrain in order to get better points due to contiguous sets. Going into Alpine Lakes, you’ll start building out in this manner, but you’ll need to do so with a plan for how to go higher. And you need to do so in a gradual manner, as you can’t just stack one set of tiles on top of each other while leaving the surrounding tiles at Level 1.

Double-Hex Tile Geometry

In the original game, you play single-hex tiles, which means you have a lot of flexibility. You might create gaps initially, but it’s not difficult to go back later with the perfect tile that matches the surrounding ones. The new game gives you two hexes fused together, which radically redefines how you place things. It would have been simple if you just needed to spread out, but you need to go higher to win. And it’s easy to mistakenly create gaps that you won’t be able to make use of later.

The Slot-Destruction Dilemma

The new stacking mechanic comes with a bit of a price - you can’t stay too married to your terrain layout on lower levels. Accept that it’s more important to take things higher and think ahead to what your higher levels of terrain will be like instead of focusing on Level 1. And the required cognitive load is greater as you’re trying to visualize your next tier of terrain while also juggling any animal tokens you already have in place. And setting up those tile staircases becomes more important than the basic terrain-matching of the base game.

The Elevation Scoring Math

So let’s actually talk about all the changes the elevation mechanic brings to the table. You can ignore this at your own peril, but then you’d pretty much be trying to place base Cascadia while your fellow players make legitimate alpine builds. 

Level 1 (The Base Layer)

This is literally our foundation for the real points later in the game. You still want to build initial terrain sprawl, but you also need to prepare for the future. 

• Wildlife Scoring - Your tokens are only good for hitting the card goals, but don’t yield any points because of their lack of elevation.
• Starter Lakes - Any lakes here are pretty much incidental, and you can cover them as you go up. They only give you 1 point on their own and 2 points once you have them surrounded, which is okay, but they can’t compete with lakes at higher elevations. 
• Strategy - This is your foundation for the future, and it’ll establish the perimeter of your tableau. Just don’t get too distracted building outward, as you’re missing out on a lot of points.

Level 2 (The Intermediate Shelf)

Once you hit this level, you’re on your way to greater things. But don’t stop yet, as you still haven’t unlocked serious points.

• Still No Elevation Points for Wildlife - Your animals are still stuck in the role of helping you with your card goals, but not much else. At least elevation helps you break ties for majorities, as long as everyone else is still playing at Level 1.
• Lakes Making an Impact - Lakes at this level score you 2 points on their own but a better 4 points once fully surrounded. And you don’t need to surround it with tiles entirely at Level 2, so your base layer setup still counts.
• Strategy - You’re still thinking about the future and can’t be too married to how things are arranged. You want to get more tiles at that Level 3, so you need to establish the structure needed to get there without violating the cliff rule about differences in elevation.

Level 3+ (The High Alpine)

This is what’ll really cement the win for you and make you an Alpine Lakes player and not just a Cascadia player.

• Top of the Wildlife Heap - Every animal at this height gets you a bonus of 2 points per token, which can scale quite significantly. And don’t forget the highest animal majorities you want to lock in.
• Lake Magic - Lakes at this level start at 3 points, which beats a fully surrounded Level 1 lake. And if they’re still fully surrounded, you get 6 points per lake, which is crazy. And if you set things up well with your base layer, then you’ll earn a lot with clever lake placement.
• Strategy - Your endgame should pretty much be at this level, as you score the bulk of your points here. You may lose some terrain cohesion, but the extra elevation points will more than make up for it.

Mastering Lake Placement

Coming from base Cascadia, it’s easy to focus on what’s familiar, which means matching terrain and arranging your animal tokens. But fully surrounded lakes offer some pretty efficient scoring the higher you go.

• Study Lakes From Above - Don’t forget that a lake is considered surrounded as long as there are tiles on all six sides, regardless of elevation. If you’re more comfortable stacking lake tiles with other lake tiles, that can still work as long as your base layer lake is surrounded, as the future levels will maintain that. Just remember only visible lakes will score points!
• Avoid Exposure - Do your best to avoid leaving lakes on the outer edge of the map. That guarantees scoring half the points you could once they’re surrounded, so plan accordingly.
• The Mountain Basin - Focus on placing lake tiles deeper in your tableau instead of on the edge so they’re more likely to be surrounded, thus doubling their points. You might need to mess up your existing terrain layout, but it can be worth it.

Turn-by-Turn Building Phases

One of the most brilliant parts of the Cascadia games is the 20-turn limit that defines the game experience. But that also doesn’t leave you a lot of time to grow your way to the top, so it helps to have a plan for making a truly Alpine landscape.

• Foundation (Turns 1-6) - The early game has you just setting up your sprawl and making sure you have the right types of wildlife options across your map. You also want to map out some early lake areas in the center of your board so you can keep those spaces earmarked for the future.
• Stepping Up (Turns 7-13) - As much as possible, you need to stop growing outward and focus on building Level 2. You need a good amount of Level 2 tiles supporting one another so you can legally place as many tiles at Level 3 to score the bigger points.
• The Peak (Turns 14-20) - Every animal token at this level gets you another 2 points, which is great, but prioritize the animals you have the best chance of getting the additional points for having the elevation majority. Don’t content yourself with just 1 Level 3 animal per species, especially for contested majorities. 

The original Cascadia game is a bit more of a comfortable and cozy affair, but Alpine Lakes really calls for more strategy and careful planning to get ahead. You can still focus on just collecting the animals you like and call it a day, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan to make the most of things.