Tips & Strategy

How to teach Grand Austria Hotel, first-game advice, strategy for guests, Staff, the Emperor and money, player counts, solo and the Let’s Waltz! modules, and videos to watch.

Advice only — the rulebook always wins.

How to teach

The video teaches below all follow the same order: theme and goal, setup with the 10/12/14 dice and the starting guest and rooms, then the six die actions, the additional actions, and finally the Emperor scoring and the final scoring. Teach the guest cycle first — take, serve, move into a room, collect — then the dice. Leave passing and the Emperor tiles for after a demonstration turn.

Host game

Before taking an early guest, ask which prepared room will house them and how the order will be filled. Keep one krone in mind when a plan relies on serving items already in the Kitchen; receiving new food and serving stored food are different operations.

Rehearse serving a guest

Receive food or drinks from an action and place them directly onto current guest orders for free; only the items you leave over go to the Kitchen. Then demonstrate the usual Kitchen serving action: pay 1 krone for up to 3 items moved from there onto guest orders.

Completing an order is not enough to collect the guest’s reward. You also need a free prepared room of the matching colour (or any colour for a green tourist). Move the satisfied guest into it, collect the card’s points and reward, flip the room to occupied and discard the guest card. Without a suitable room, the satisfied guest stays in the Café and still occupies a table.

First game

• Use the identical front side of the Hotel boards and the recommended Staff sets; draft Staff only from the second game.
• Prepare your 3 starting rooms on the ground floor: they cost nothing.
• Keep the Emperor scoring after round 3 in sight from the start — falling to 0 hurts.
• Food from an action goes straight onto your guests; only moving it later from the kitchen costs a krone. Several teaches (and early players) miss this.

Guests

• Aim to take a guest almost every turn: they are your points, your rewards and your bonus actions.
• Cake and coffee are scarce (never more than strudel or wine): early on, prefer guests who do not want much of them, and take actions 1 and 2 with an even number of dice — or pay to boost to one.
• Match guests to rooms you can open: an unhoused guest blocks a table and costs 5 at the end.
• Rewards that give free guests, Staff plays or rooms chain into extra actions on the same turn.

Staff

• Hire permanent and once-per-round Staff early; their value grows every round.
• Game-end Staff can be worth 10–15 points, but only once hired — plan the krones for them.
• Cost reducers (free rooms of a colour, cheaper guests) save more money than they cost.

The Emperor

• Steps in rounds 1–3 pay three times (score, move back, keep the rest) and earn the A bonus.
• Prefer yellow groups and step-giving guests to action 4: action 4 is usually the weakest use of a die.

Money and rooms

• Red groups pay krones; finishing one early keeps you liquid.
• Watch the Politics cards from round 1: build your room colours and rows toward them, and claim before your rivals for 15 instead of 5.
• Passing to re-roll is a gamble: do it only when every option is poor.

Player counts

Two players is the favourite count of most reviewers: the snake order (1-2 then 2-1) keeps turns tight. At 4 players a player waits through 6 turns at the turn of the round; the Start Player module of Let’s Waltz! replaces the snake with clockwise turns.

Solo

The Automa takes guests and dice by its cards and never passes; it denies you the guests and dice it takes. Push for the Politics cards before its cards claim them, and keep a margin for its Emperor points.

Let’s Waltz!

• Vienna Ballrooms: get a dancer into each ballroom before it scores (−5 otherwise); champagne comes cheapest from big 1- and 2-actions.
• Celebrities: a cheap colored die early is worth taking for Gandhi (free rooms) or Freud.
• Unique Hotels, Start Player, Would You Like Some More? add variety without much length; learn the base game first.

Videos vs the rulebook

• In the Gaming Rules! playthrough the host first puts drafted food into the kitchen, then corrects it on air: food goes straight onto your guests.
• Some videos call the Politics cards “objective cards”, the revised name; the rules are the same.
• If a video and this guide disagree, follow the rulebook pages linked here.

Sources

• Learn to Play: Grand Austria Hotel — BoardGameTeacher
• Grand Austria Hotel - Tutorial & Playthrough — Gaming Rules!
• Grand Austria Hotel - Strategy Overview — No Friends Gaming
• Let’s Play… Grand Austria Hotel! | Solo Playthrough Livestream — The Board Game Garden
• Grand Austria Hotel Board Game | Solo Playthrough | Part One | Learn to Play — Totally Tabled
• Expansion Overview #8: Grand Austria Hotel: Let’s Waltz! / Alles Walzer - Module 1 — Michael Wißner
• Rules forum on BoardGameGeek