With 5 plays on Burger Joint here's what I've discovered:

Each game lasts approximately 15 turns per person. AKA you should be getting a point every 1.5 turns. Since you get 4 and later 8 cubes per turn, I don't see this game lasting longer than that.

For the sake of analysis, I am going to use colorless cubes. Color restricts your strategy, but essentially I'm looking at the ideal strategy here. The less you are forced to vary from this strategy by color the better your chances of winning are.

Prestige Track
It takes 10 plays to maximize your prestige track. Since once you start the track it gets cheaper to gain more points, it seems to me that you want to do that.

10 plays = 30 cubes. But you take a way opponents cubes too. Lets say you do that 8 times (AKA 2 plays were duplicates). That means your opponent also lost 8 cubes so now you're only 22 cubes down, and you gain 8 cubes, so now you're only 14 cubes down.

14 cubes = 4 vps. (Actually it's better than that because presumable you're taking the best cubes from your opponnent).



Burger Joint track:
Again. the more you get in this track, the more points you make. So maximizing is best.

6 plays = 12 cubes = 3 vps.


Restaurant track:

To get to the restaurant track, you need to get the burger joint first so it takes 6 cubes total for each. And you can have up to 4 of them;

Special Note: the first two give you extra cubes at the rate of 2 per turn. That's a whopping 20 cubes if you do it by turn 5. That seems like a good estimate. So the first two restaurants are:

2 plays = 4 cubes = 2 vps.
and the last two:
2 plays = 12 cubes = 2 vps.


Bistro track:

To get to the bistro track you need the joint AND the restaurant. So it costs a whopping 12 cubes to do this. But you get 3 victory points out of it:

12 cubes = 3 vps.

You could also grab the less vp bistros. I'm not going to analyze all of them right now but I will show you one: 0vp - one free cube of your choice. Say you manage to get that on turn 5. Which is unlikely to happen without ignoring the early restaurants but hey.

You get 10 cubes. TOTAL. So you've spent 12 cubes to gain 10 over time. Sure the 10 cubes are of your choice, but really is replacing the exact cubes needed for 3vps worth 10 cubes in the future? There isn't any combination of 10 cubes that will give you more than 3vps. DO NOT get the 0 VP BISTRO.

So, in summary. Assuming you have your choice of cubes at all times, this is the least number of cubes needed to win:

2 VPs for 4 cubes for the 4 early restaurants (2 cubes/vp)
4 VPs for maximizing the prestige track (3.5 cubes/vp)
3 VPs for your 3vp bistro (4 cubes/vp)
3 VPs for maximizing the burger joints (4 cubes/vp)

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So what does this mean? Your exact strategy will vary with the cubes you get, but a few things seem certain game to game:

1) Your first step is to get 4 cubes per turn - That means two more restaurants. It's by far the most efficient task around.

2) After you gain your 4 cubes per turn, you want the prestige track. Do not ignore the prestige track. It is by far the best way to gain VPs in this game. Even if you have to do a 3 for 1, prestige track is better than another restaurant straight up.

3) Maximizing the burger joints is better than getting another restaurant too (After you are drawing 4 cubes), So you can use those other cubes for the prestige and the 3 vp bistro.

4) DO NOT get the 0 vp bistro. Ever ever ever ever. If you can get two bistros tho, I'd get a 2vp and a 3vp because near the end game, that extra vp will cost a 6 cube loss and I feel none of the 1vp powers are that much better than the 2vp powers.

5) Since we've determined that prestige and bistros are good. The most powerful color cube in your arsenal, given a clean slate, as a Burger is white - which lets you get both. As Pizza, your color is brown.

Good write up. But I would have to disagree with you in the fact not to take the 0vp bistro. I have had several games where early in the game I got the right cubes to get it and it has paid off very well. Many times I have been short that one cube to do something good and that 0vp bistro has paid off well. The times I get the bistro early in the game I have won by a very large margin every time. That one extra cube of your choice helps out a lot.

I like your analysis, but this statement I don't completely agree with. For example, you said the prestige track gives 4 points for 14 cubes, which is roughly 3.5 cubes per point. However, if you just did the prestige track once, you'd get 1 point for 3 cubes (or 2 since you get one from your opponent.... or 1 since your opponent lost one also). So what is important is not the total number of points you get, but how much it costs to get those points. In economic terms, think of it as the marginal benefit. So instead of saying you should definitely maximize the prestige track, I'd instead say you should definitely use the prestige track at least once :-).

So maximizing a track isn't necessarily the best.

You need to play the prestige track three times to get your first point tho'.