Deer seem too strong in 2 Player

[wodan46]

I'm defining the following cards as "Deer Strat" cards.

5 copies=Red Deer (points for Trees/Plants, bonus free Deer play)
5 copies=Roe Deer (points for Icons, bonus draw)
4 copies=Fallow Deer (points for Deer and other Cloven Hooved Animals, bonus)
4 copies=Wolves (points for Deer, bonus turn and draw effect)
6 copies=Lynxes (points if Roe Deer)

Outside of the first game I played, where my opponent played one Deer Strat card and I zero, there has been a 1 to 1 correlation between "my % of game Deer Strat cards played" and "my % of game VPs scored":

I suspect that in a 3-5 player game this is a self-resolving problem. The more people that commit to Deer Strat cards the lower the average return per card. Arena is only 2 players though, and if you don't want to play Deer Strat options there aren't many tools that you have to preclude your opponent from monopolizing them that don't result in you crippling your own strategies anyways. Why would you bother though? Instead of dumping Deer Strat cards to the clearing right when it clears you could just... play them yourselves. Evenly split they're still a decent rate.

Is it going the same way for other players too? Or are you finding other strategies workable?

[ahrnge]

Haven’t played this for a bit (I’m sure I’ll get back to it at some point) because I more or less agree with this take for the 2 player game.

I’m maybe not as impressed with the lynxes as you. I don’t think 2 turns (1 turn to play, 1 turn to draw the lynx and the card you pitch to it) for 10 points is good value. to me they’re a part of “the deer strategy” that I’m only happy to use if I’m playing them for free off of the paw tree or the paw lizard.

But on the whole i find you pretty much MUST fight over wolves and deer to the best of your ability every game, and when you happen to draw significantly fewer deer and wolves than your opponent it doesn’t particularly matter how your complementary strategies are going.

Obviously there’s a lot of moving parts to this game, and I’m oversimplifying a bit. That said, I think the 2 player game would be improved slightly by some small nerf to the wolf (a card that frequently works out to be 30+ points while effectively costing zero or even negative turns to play), like house-ruling the cost of the wolf from a 3 to a 4 card pitch.

[bannedrewsmile]

I agree and in fact feel that deer are so strong they are the all-encompassing dominant strategy, to the point where everything else is a waste of time. Ideally on your turn, you should only be taking actions that are playing deer, playing trees only when you need room for more deer, playing cards to free up hand space to make room for deer, and drawing cards from the deck to find deer (or raccoons for greater odds). This isn't even an oversimplification- I would imagine some people are reading this saying:

"but bannedrewsmile I had a game earlier where I used birds or tree moss or something and never played any deer and I beat my opponent who played lots of deer".
I used to think other strategies were viable too until I loaded up this account and went from 0 games played to rank 1 arena #2 elo in one day using this strategy with a >90% winrate. My one and only loss was the one game I deviated from this strategy and tried to do an "under-tree" strategy with the card draw mushrooms and tree moss. I also had a tie game. Every single other game I just hard pushed for deer, saved wolves for the end, and won quickly and by a large margin. I think once people figure this out the game will be more competitive and small optimizations like knowing when to play and when to draw will start to matter more over the long run, but note that these optimizations only serve the purpose of "give me the greatest chance to find deer while minimizing my opponents chances".

I don't think this makes the game bad, any game that allows for >90% winrates clearly allows for skill expression and I am having a great time with the game, but deer are just the overwhelming best strategy I have found. I think theres a bit of nuance in understanding what your opponent has in hand and structuring your turn order in a way that maximizes your odds of finding deer and playing the endgame correctly which makes the game still interesting, but I shake my head whenever I see someone try to make an oak tree strategy work for example. Everything but deer is just too slow

[wodan46]

I’m maybe not as impressed with the lynxes as you. I don’t think 2 turns (1 turn to play, 1 turn to draw the lynx and the card you pitch to it) for 10 points is good value. to me they’re a part of “the deer strategy” that I’m only happy to use if I’m playing them for free off of the paw tree or the paw lizard.

I did some more thorough math since my first post and I agree with your points. Lynxes are the weakest of the Deer Strat, but make good targets for Silver Firs and Fire Salamanders, which are themselves highly efficient cards that are arguably the best of their respective subtypes.

Obviously there’s a lot of moving parts to this game, and I’m oversimplifying a bit. That said, I think the 2 player game would be improved slightly by some small nerf to the wolf (a card that frequently works out to be 30+ points while effectively costing zero or even negative turns to play), like house-ruling the cost of the wolf from a 3 to a 4 card pitch.

I kind of wonder if they should've set predators to trigger off other player's forests. Something like:

Wolf: 0.5 Draw and 2 VP per Deer in other player's Forests.
Fox: 0.5 Draw and 2 VP per Hare in other player's Forests.

Ditto for Goshawk, Bullfinch, Hedgehog, and Tree Frog, the latter two which should probably have been worked to score off Insects rather than specifics like Butterfly or Gnat.

Doing so would've made the game more interactive and rewarded actually checking out other player's tableaus.

Everything but deer is just too slow

When reviewing the cards I broke them down into card equivalent (CE). Even a zero cost card is really 3 CE, because playing it costs you the card, plus the opportunity to draw two cards that might actually be Deer or Wolves or otherwise conditionally good. Assuming bonuses are always scored:

Wolves go from
1 Deer=3 CE for 5 VP
2 Deer=2 CE for 10 VP
3 Deer=1 CE for 15 VP
4 Deer=0 CE for 20 VP

"20 VP for a free turn with no tempo loss" is absolutely bananas. The only thing remotely comparable is Red Deer, which gives you VP for playing the most common card in the game and let's you play another of the best subtype in the game for free.

The next best card in terms of raw VP per CE potential is I think Tree Ferns, the best zero cost card, at:
1 Amphibian=3 CE for 6 VP
2 Amphibian=3 CE for 12 VP
3 Amphibian=3 CE for 18 VP
4 Amphibian=3 CE for 24 VP

Best value of anything not named Wolf or Deer, but 1 Fern with 3 Amphibians is still only marginally better than 1 Wolf with 2 Deer and hopelessly outclassed by the time its 1 Wolf with 3 Deer. Making matters worse Fire Salamander is the only good Amphibian whereas all Deer are good to incredible.

I think 'bottom' strategy is probably second best. Mushrooms break even on CE if you play at least 5 pertinent cards thereafter and are free tempo if you do more, Plants all have high scoring potential and interact well with each other and the Trees you have to play anyways, then throw in Wood Ants and some Amphibians to trigger Tree Ferns and you are getting some good value.

But it is as you say. I see you crushed me recently: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... =38948523;. I tried every trick in the book, I used Gnat and Mole to spam Bats and 0 cost cards, I got three surrounds to get 15 point Beech Martins and was closing on a 4th, I did my best to keep Wolves and Deer away, but even with you landing only 5/14 Deer and 1/4 Wolves you easily won a supermajority of the game points.

[DoctorFianchetto]

I really like the idea of Forest Shuffle. It's a nice card strategy game which brings a relaxing experience with the forest imagery. On the surface the game brings a lot of depth with many different playstyles, but if you have basically solved the game with this claim that one strategy trumps everything else, I can only feel disappointment.

I did my best to keep Wolves and Deer away, but even with you landing only 5/14 Deer and 1/4 Wolves you easily won a supermajority of the game points.

He must have gotten points outside of the Wolf/Deers?

[bannedrewsmile]

I really like the idea of Forest Shuffle. It's a nice card strategy game which brings a relaxing experience with the forest imagery. On the surface the game brings a lot of depth with many different playstyles, but if you have basically solved the game with this claim that one strategy trumps everything else, I can only feel disappointment.

I did my best to keep Wolves and Deer away, but even with you landing only 5/14 Deer and 1/4 Wolves you easily won a supermajority of the game points.

He must have gotten points outside of the Wolf/Deers?

Theres certainly still depth in how you play that strategy and how you play substrategies since you will need to play non-deer cards eventually, but I do feel that the skill expression in this game is how to find and play as many deer as possible while denying them to your opponent. In the game wodan is referencing I was on my other account and had quite a few undertree cards as well which I agree are the second best, particularly the moss card which gives 6 points per reptile, but like I said above you can click any game in my history on this account and you will see I hard commit to deer and win by a large margin most games. I'd encourage anyone to try this for themself, I could be very wrong about this since it is early days for this game.

[ahrnge]

I suspect you are right. You basically described how I was playing too, although your clean framing of the crux of the game convinces me I should have been using raccoons more aggressively.

I have been on the wavelength of whatever strategy you complement deer with mostly being out of the necessity of playing SOMETHING to get under 10 cards, to draw more deer. But i hadn’t come as far as using that to justify grossly inefficient raccooning, which is probably surprisingly strong within reason.

of course then in this framework the fern is good only because if gives you something productive to do when you have to play non-deer cards, which doesn’t mean it’s not good, but it’s not often worth building around at the expense of drawing for more deer cards.

I’ve been of the opinion for a while that the best card other than the wolves is the chanterelle (tree) mushroom early on in the game. Because it is the best card for drawing you more deer. as mentioned above, the mushrooms effectively break even at 5 draws, and its pretty easy to play 10+ trees after a chanterelle, netting 2.5+ turns or 5 “CE.” The mushrooms in general dig into the deck, where the deer are hiding.

edit:
This was meant to be a response to bannedrewsmile’s first comment but I seem to have messed up foruming.

[bannedrewsmile]

But i hadn’t come as far as using that to justify grossly inefficient raccooning, which is probably surprisingly strong within reason.

of course then in this framework the fern is good only because if gives you something productive to do when you have to play non-deer cards, which doesn’t mean it’s not good, but it’s not often worth building around at the expense of drawing for more deer cards.

I’ve been of the opinion for a while that the best card other than the wolves is the chanterelle (tree) mushroom early on in the game. Because it is the best card for drawing you more deer. as mentioned above, the mushrooms effectively break even at 5 draws, and its pretty easy to play 10+ trees after a chanterelle, netting 2.5+ turns or 5 “CE.” The mushrooms in general dig into the deck, where the deer are hiding.

Raccoons are the sleeper hit I think, especially if you're not holding any deer. Switching out 8 cards and getting 8 points for doing so has been extremely strong for me.

I think most people know fern is good, I especially like it because it draws me a card while still giving a lot of potential points. I tend to play very few trees, around 6 ideally which is typically all I need to play a game-winning amount of deer/wolves so space can be contested, I like playing the turtles because they free up hand space, cycle, and give 11 points with a fern in play which can be meaningful.

Completely agree Chanterelle is the best non-deer/wolf card, it not only frees up space but also turns the free trees (birch/beech, cant remember) into the equivalent of drawing 2 cards from the deck while also freeing up a hand space which is super good.

Some other tips that have helped me and may be helpful to you when trying this strategy:
1. When possible, only play trees when the opponent has 10 cards in hand or when doing so would wipe the clearing. Don't give them the chance to get a free deer.
2. Pay attention to what your opponents strategy is, and float them a good card into the clearing when they have 9 or 10 cards in hand. This forces them to either miss the card that wasnt useful for you at 10 or take an inefficient 1-card action to draw a card that isnt a deer. Don't do this if the clearing is low and you've seen them draw a cycling tree
3. Most people don't expect the game to go as fast as it does when one player is aggressively mining the deck for deer. This makes sycamores (1 point per tree) not as good as most people think, so I will float them out as a trap when I can.
4. Don't fall into the trap of using cycling trees like oak or firs to put your good cards out just to redraw them- all youve done is play a 1 cost tree. Cycling trees allows you to draw for deer while still playing trees, that is why they are strong. Birch/beech are playable, the other 4 trees shouldnt be played if it can be avoided.
5. Pay attention to the colors you are discarding throughout the game- the wolves take red, blue 2x, and light blue. You dont need the extra turn for wolves to be strong, but it helps especially in a contested endgame.
6. If there is only 1 winter card left and you are still above 30 cards, don't be afraid to dig if you are slightly down rather than playing a bunch of small point cards and giving your opponent time to build up their score, since scores scale exponentially in this game. Similarly, if there are 20 or less cards play your wolves or other endgame card even if you still have a deer in hand if it will put you above your opponent. I had a game where I beat my opponent by one point using a raccoon to dig for the last winter card, even though it meant putting a deer in the cave. Play to the odds, don't get too greedy

Hope this helps I'm looking forward to seeing how the meta evolves in this game

[wodan46]

Overall the game just feels fundamentally imbalanced. Of VP scoring cards with unambiguous ceilings, 47 Tree cards and 68 card halves can never score more than 2 VP per card equivalent (CE), even if you score the bonus and fulfill every onerous condition. Whereas the good but not broken cards are more like 3 to 4 VP per CE. For example:

*Getting 5 Different Butterflies requires a lot of setup. The pay out is 15 CE for 20 VP.
*Linden Tree is 4 CE for 1 VP, unless you have the most, in which case its... 4 CE for 3 VP.
*It takes 6 out of 11 European Hares just to reach 2 VP a CE.

You could casually triple the VP of Butterflies, quintuple the VP of Linden Trees, or add a +1 Draw effect to Hare, and they'd only be good but not broken. That's how off the balance is. Because of it things like trying to get Butterfly sets or securing the most Linden Trees is irrelevant... they will never ever be worth your time. European Hare might be worth it IF you have a Silver Fir to play them on and IF you have a Mole to play a bunch of them in a single turn, but that requires a lot of things to go just right.

[DoctorFianchetto]

I agree that it's imbalanced. I've only played a few games and haven't done any statistical analysis (nor would I know how to), but it's pretty clear that a lot of cards are worthless. Butterflies are a prime example. European Hares, Foxes and Common Toads aren't worth playing. Bears and Raccoons are a waste of effort, one point per card in the Cave is basically nothing. Bats are pretty weak on their own, maybe if you get a lot of squirrels they could pay off. Most of the Trees aren't great, but I do like the strategy of stacking Horse Chestnuts and the Beech bonus is pretty good.