Tikal Analysis part III

Ok, so here we are at the start of round 5. Roughly half way through the game. No volcano this turn, which means a lot of positioning, because its likely we'll see one next round. Scores are pretty well tied up. Jendi made an expensive move to cap the temple, but that should pay off. This round has a level 5 temple out. I'm in a good position where it may pay to bid 3-4 to grab that tile, move a guy on it, raise it to a 6 and cap it. That would help me to mitigate the guaranteed 21 pts that Jendi is going to see from his the rest of the game. 4 pts might hurt, because it would leave me short to bid on the volcano the next round. We'll have to see how the bidding goes. This is a game where it pays to have a really strong bidder in front of you. When scoring comes around, someone that will take the volcano will give you scoring second, which is often just as good and doesn't cost you anything. I really hate bidding just so that the slob after me doesn't win the volcano. There are only 3 artifacts to grab this round, so I'd be hard pressed to see them, plus I'm not really in a position for them to help me. If I get really lucky, someone will pull the matching mask to mine, so I can get a 3-piece set.