SpielByWeb

[hans]

I'm getting ready to play my first game and have a question about the rules when a player exchanges a consumed polyp tile for an alga cylinder in Action #7. The rules says:

If a player has played a shrimp onto the open-sea board they may either:
1. place the alga cylinder onto the alga cylinder space on the open-sea board, or
2. place the alga cylinder on the top of one of the coral tiles.

If a player has not yet played a shrimp onto the open-sea board then they must place the alga cylinder onto the alga cylinder space on the open-sea board.

Both of these options seem to be the same to me. What is the real difference between the two and what advantage does it give if you have placed a shrimp onto the open-sea board?

I'm a little confused. Any help in explaining this would be appreciated.

[RyanMC]

Before you have eaten a shrimp you have to play the algea cyl on all tiles of that color. They all flip. Once you have eaten a shrimp you can play the cyl onto one of the tiles. That tile becomes locked and can never flip again, and all others of that color flip. You can only lock one tile per turn, but you can still use multiple cyls to flip cards and then lock one(flipping the rest) then flip some more if you choose. SO eating a shrimp allows you to start locking down the board rather than just adjusting it.
_________________
---------------
-=RyanMC=-
---------------

[HappyProle]

Playing onto a coral tile locks it in its current state and flips the other coral tiles showing the color of the cylinder you purchased.

The benefit is that coral tile can no longer change for the remainder of the game. If you lock Gray over White, you've guaranteed Gray will be dominant over White for the entire game and Gray will score at least one bonus point per tile.