Distilling: Basic Strategy

I've been asked a number of times to add a lesson regarding distilling. I've said a number of times that, if you want to make money with your labor, distilling is where it's at. It's really the only industry in which expert labor is used as often as basic or skilled, expert labor is readily needed (because virtually everyone uses Fine Rum), and not everyone can provide expert labor, meaning you can get more of the pie to yourself. On Midnight, I routinely bring in 1200+ PoE per day from my distilling jobs. The trick, of course, is being good enough at the puzzle to get yourself at least to Renowned. Hopefully, with practice and the tips I'll lay out here, you'll be capable of going well beyond Renowned, but that's really for those masochists, such as myself, that can't settle for just Renowned. ;)

Three Phases

When I think of distilling, I think of three distinct phases of the game: the Intro, the Bridge, and the Finish. All three phases are part of the same goal - getting as many crystal clears in a row as possible - but the strategies and techniques you use in each phase are different. In this lesson, I'll briefly discuss the different phases and then I'll go into more depth later.

As you read through this, you may see me refer to "colored" pieces - this is a reference to blacks and brown pieces, in combination, with no distinction between the two.

The Intro

During this opening phase, your goal is to prevent the whites near the right side of the board from being burnt. As such, what you're after here is moving those whites to the left as quickly as possible. Personally, I think about pushing the colored pieces to the right more than pulling the whites to the left, but it's two different ways of thinking about the same thing. You don't need any particular skills to get through this section. Of course, you need to have a good understanding of how the pieces move in relation to one another, but you really need to have that through any phase of the puzzle.

Try to build evenly - finish one column before moving on to the next one. This can really help prevent problems with getting pieces stuck and eating up time - more on that later.

This phase doesn't have a strict "end" to it. In fact, the Intro and the Bridge both have the same goal - to push colored pieces to the right and get as many white pieces on the board, at once, as possible. The difference is the number of white pieces on the board. When you first start, you're going to have a relatively small number of white pieces are compared to your colored pieces. Moving colored pieces to the right is done through small movements of each piece. Eventually, however, you're going to end up with a large number of white pieces bunched up near the left side of the board. At this point, moving colored pieces to the right takes longer movements and different techniques and is what I refer to as "the Bridge".

The Bridge

Why do I call this section the Bridge? It's just a term I came up with, but it seems fitting. You're bridging the gap between the Intro and Finish phases while, at the same time, you need to get the colored pieces on the left of the board across your "river" of whites and over to the right side of the board, as if you're making a bridge across. It makes sense to me, so we're going with it.

What makes this phase distinct from the Intro is that, in general, you can not move the pieces from left to right in a single motion. Many blacks would get stuck at the bottom and, likewise, browns would get stuck at the top. Because of that, you need to use some very special strategies during this section to make sure you get the colored pieces across. I'll get into the details about this phase in a later lesson.

That said, there are a couple "rules of thumb" that you can use while playing this phase.

1. Continue to build evenly. Finish one column before moving on to the next.
2. Save blacks on top and browns on the bottom.

Regarding number 2, let me explain. As pieces come in from the left, you'll want to move all colored pieces to the right. Well, what happens if you get a brown piece near the top left? You can't just slide it all the way across because it'll get stuck at the top of the board. To get it across effectively, you're going to need at least one black piece nearby. So, if you have a black near the top left, leave it there. Likewise for browns at the bottom. The great thing about these pieces is that, when it's time to switch to the Finish, it's very fast and easy to slide them the length of the board and get rid of them.

Unlike the Intro, the Bridge has a very definite end to it. The end of the Bridge phase occurs when you don't believe you can complete another fully colored column before it's burned off. When you think that's going to happen (and you'll learn with experience when that's the case), you change tactics and move to the Finish.

The Finish

In this phase, your goal is reversed. Rather than trying to burn off entire columns of colored pieces, you're trying to make full columns of white pieces - as many in a row as you can. If you've played the first couple phases well, this is actually the most relaxing part of the whole puzzle. In general, you're only going to get a few white pieces with each new column so there isn't a lot to do. Again, build evenly and you're pretty much set to go.

Conclusion

This was just meant to be an intro to the strategy of distilling. Look for future lessons for details about the phases and techniques for each one.