How can one reach 20 points in At The Gates of Loyang?
My first game, I got almost to 19 and the winner got 20; my second game, I scored 20 points (no loans, 15 coins left). It caused a big of a stir on boardgamegeek, since Uwe said nobody beat 19 in testing.

It's been a couple of years, so I can't remember the details, but I see this game as an exercise in efficiency. Use your veggies right so you never have to discard them, always go up two steps early on when it's cheap (although the turn I went 3 steps was 8-9-10), never take loans, keep the 2-packs cheap..

I found this bit I wrote about the game back then, discussing the game on BGG.


  I usually had 2-3 regular customers and one fewer casual customer; I
  skipped delivering to each regular customer 1 time to plant. I believe
  I bought 2 extra fields. I never sold to the shop (although I
  considered it once) and I actually used the helper who refills the
  shop so I could buy more grain. I used two-packs to manage the number
  of customers so that I always had more regular than casual without
  letting any regular customer go unsatisfied more than once. Like last
  game, I started with radishes, although next time I think I want to try 
  starting with grain if possible. The first time I played I concentrated
  on keeping max{shops, helpers} to 1 for cheap 2-packs; this time I used
  the helper who makes your 2-packs free regardless (I think I got him 
  twice, once when I had several helpers covering customers I was saving)
  
  It could be my group just isn't that nasty - we didn't really use any
  of the interaction cards to mess each other up.
  
  Edit: yes, I realize I used the word shop to refer to two different
  things, but I don't have the rules handy and I think it's fairly
  obvious what I mean