The Strategy of Maka Bana

Maka Bana is my favorite German board game. It has many of the aspects with I like in board games. I've played this game many times with many different people and I've developed a number of strategies.

 

I usually start the game by playing next to a fish square. I do this for my first few turns. I normally don't get monkey blocked early in the game because the playing field is so open. Yeah I know technically it is not a monkey but a totem, but I always think the game is "Making Banana", and well, you need monkeys for that. Anyway, once I have about three piece next to fish squares, I start showing fish as my first card. If people are ganging up on me they can block the fish squares that would give me doubles, but it's hard to block them all and there are plenty of other open fish squares too. If I think people are gunning for me, I tend to not play to make a double. I usually use this fish technique for the first third of the game.

 

Getting a tiki on the board is always better than getting blocked. I find that getting blocked is really what distinguishes the score more than anything else. Having a double is only slightly better than a single, but getting blocked is devastating. So when I play my moves I actually concentrate much more on beach position than doubles.

 

If one player can control two beaches they usually win the game. Two beaches are 8 points. Compare that to getting a triple tiki which is worth 6 points. Getting a triple tiki is really hard and almost never worth it because you'll get blocked 4 out of 5 times. Beaches are easier to control because people tend to not pay enough attention to them. Instead people like blocking double tikis because it's so obvious. When I play on a beach I normally have several good moves which makes it hard to block. Also, I can hide my beach motivations until late in the game. I find that I normally completely ignore one beach that is popular so that I concentrate on the others.

 

I almost never lead with a beach card. Beach cards tend to draw monkey blocks. When it's my turn to play my monkey and only one beach card is lead by the group, that's almost always where monkey goes.

 

I try to lead the a card with the most possible squares. It's usually fish, tattoo, or flowers. The other two card types have four in the set so they lead to fewer open squares until late in the game.

 

You know that area between Bikini and Diablo with lots of touching squares? Yeah. I don't play there. That area always draw lots of attention because people see all the triple tiki opportunities. Lots of monkey blocks occur there every game.

 

Turn order is really important. When you are the leader you have two blocks. One with the monkey and the other with your tiki. When I'm in the lead I put my tiki where I think some else might go. I always err on the careful side when doing this because playing near somebody else's tiki draws monkey blocks sometimes.

 

Late in the game when people are painting it's easier to place tikis because there are fewer blockers. When I am going to make a bold move I try to do it when there are other people painting.

 

I usually play at least one painting card mid game. This give me control of a beach and really sets someone else backwards.

 

When someone else is painting, I always protect the tikis on beaches I control. It's devastating to lose those.

 

My monkey placement is for not for blocking my opponents plays so much as protecting my investments. Now this is probably the most important strategy that isn't obvious. I try hard to keep other people off my beaches and away from my tikis. This strategy really distinguishes the winners from the losers.