Selecting New Place Cards

[Shaq Jenkins]

The Creature usually blocks The Rover because it is a powerful space, so it is very important for players to make smart decisions when selecting new place cards.

Lately, I've seen players choose The Swamp as the first new place card, which really confuses me. The Swamp is a card that helps one player only, whereas The Shelter, The Wreck, and The Source help the entire team, which makes them much more powerful. It is no surprise that the team ends up losing when players choose The Swamp instead of the other new place cards. It's possible that we may only get to select one or two new place cards throughout the entire game. Why waste it on The Swamp?

What are your thoughts on this topic? How do you decide which new place cards to choose?

[ClimateChangeIsReal]

Perhaps they are trying to go in order from 6 to 10 or something. Remember that you can strategize via chat (but the creature will hear)...

[nandblock]

Yes, the other cards more directly help the team, but simply not getting caught in itself helps the team!

That said, yeah, not my first pick of card, unless some of the other ones have been claimed.

[eoc]

It can certainly make sense situationally, if you're somewhat interested in getting back your cards because you discarded a bunch early. Also, the creature may not go for this new place as strongly as it would, say, 7 or 9 if those were picked as first new place (because, as you said, it only blocks the benefit for one player, not the entire team). So you might get away with playing the Swamp once or twice soon after picking it up, since the creature may decide it's not worth it to gamble for one player on 6 when it could hunt the rest of your team on 1-5, which gives you more options overall and can lead to quicker collection of additional extra place cards. However, it also leads to your teammates getting slaughtered a bit more, because they will end up on 1-5 until they grab their own new place cards

Finally, if you believe that other team members better suited to pick up 7/9 (e.g. ones with their survival card still in hand) will successfully play the Rover effect in the next turn(s), it could make sense to leave these places to them for better distribution.

[Romain672]

I really not think you can find excuses for the person who take the swamp first. It's just not the optimal play, even by considering other survival card with the arguments said by others persons here.
(and the argument "choose one bad card (6), so you will not be targeting, so your teamates will be targeted" is not valid )

7 is nearly always my first pick, gaining some card is really powerfull. And I really think at 5+ players, if you are the only one who used the rover power, you can said to the creature "I will go 7 this turn, enjoy.". The tempo loss by putting the creature token on 7 seem (for me) not worth it considering there is a good chance another player will be able to use the power of 5 or all players will have one free turn with a good effect.

9 seem good too, but just giving some will to players who are already in a bad spot will just not do much, they will still be on a bad position.

8 seem good on late game. Not cause it increase in value, but because others card decrease on value : 5 is just a little better than taking back another card, 7 give less time to use some card, 2/6/10 doesn't do much on the last 2/3 turns. Only the 9 have more value too since it give more space to try to have 1 will on the maximum of players at the end of the game.
I sometimes have a choice between 7 and 8 as first choice (or second) at late game, I already did some 8 pick.
Or even just with the face B, if the creature token is already on the nothing/artemis/nothing/artemis part perhaps 8 is better than 7.

For the swamp 6, I still don't know if a team should take only one 6 or two 6 since 6 is rarely discarded compared to all others card except 2.

7>9>6>10 & 8>6.

[eoc]

I really not think you can find excuses for the person who take the swamp first. It's just not the optimal play, even by considering other survival card with the arguments said by others persons here.

You just can't make a sweeping statement like what is and isn't "optimal play" without considering the actual game situation and the many psychological elements in play. Especially not if you, at whim, discard the very reasons that were asked for in the opening post as invalid

[Romain672]

Yeah that's true, I think way more about the optimal/mathematical way and not the exploiting/psychological one.
(wanted to add another thing, but I think it stay totally my fault, you can have lots of good reason who can be exploited by an optimal strategy, but are still good most of the time against people who doesn't play optimal)

But for me (I could said that every time, but it's just annoying to write/read 'for me', 'on my opinion' every time) :
the difference between the 6 first and the 7/8/9 first is just not close at all. So even if all stars are aligned, it will just reduce the difference, but it will still not be close.

@eoc : For your specific post, you can't know if others players will have access to the rover soon. So I think, even if I only have one card left (yes it's strange, but let's suppose that), you have choice between 6+(6 most of the time) who lets you get nearly all your card back, or 7+surrender+(7 most of the time) who seem way better for me, since the second one help the team while the first one doesn't.
And it have less value since you can't know which card have other player. Except if they reveal that to you then... But it give information to the creature only for change a choice between two cards.