by jhagen1908
I've had a couple 3-player long games with the original loan rules where I scored nearly 300 (294, 289) and won against strong competition by going no-loan.What they had in common:
* I picked up 5 fish in round 1, nearly enough to meet the first two rounds' food needs by itself.
* I bought/built a wooden ship by round 3.
* The building distribution was abnormal - for example, in one of the two games the Grocery Market came out extremely early, allowing for much more efficient food gathering than usual.
I'd say a zero-loan approach is viable occasionally in 3-player but not always.