Why would you pay extra food?

[Cos-]

In this implementation, you're allowed to select more food to pay for playing a bird than is required. The game warns you, but it will let you. I guess this must be allowed by the rules, though I don't remember it ever coming up in offline play. But... why? Why should it be allowed? Why would anyone ever want to do it?

[paramesis]

During development, I made sure that everything that could be legally done in the game would be possible within the implementation, and generally didn't delve into whether there exists a valid reason to do so. In the base game, there is no reason to overpay food. I didn't limit the ability to do so because the European expansion introduces birds that can steal food from opponents, and in theory degenerate 2-for-1 trades could be a way to prevent an opponent from using one of these powers. As I noted in an earlier thread, the implementation was designed so that it could accommodate expansions relatively easily, but I should reiterate that Stonemaier Games and Monster Couch maintain their position about Wingspan expansions on BGA.

[Ceaseless]

During development, I made sure that everything that could be legally done in the game would be possible within the implementation, and generally didn't delve into whether there exists a valid reason to do so. In the base game, there is no reason to overpay food. I didn't limit the ability to do so because the European expansion introduces birds that can steal food from opponents, and in theory degenerate 2-for-1 trades could be a way to prevent an opponent from using one of these powers. As I noted in an earlier thread, the implementation was designed so that it could accommodate expansions relatively easily, but I should reiterate that Stonemaier Games and Monster Couch maintain their position about Wingspan expansions on BGA.

You can overpay the wrong types of food, correct? So if you wanted to keep wheats to pay off your Sandhill Crane, you'd choose 2 other food so you maintain wheat to pay for points.

[paramesis]

You can overpay the wrong types of food, correct? So if you wanted to keep wheats to pay off your Sandhill Crane, you'd choose 2 other food so you maintain wheat to pay for points.

Yes, that is certainly a legitimate strategic use of 2-for-1 wild trades when playing a bird, but I would not consider it overpaying/paying extra. What I referred to as "degenerate 2-for-1 trades" are cases where you pay two food tokens to count as 1 wild, then spend that wild and another food token to count as 1 wild. It is possible for an unlimited number of food tokens to count as a single food of any type, though in the base game, there isn't a strategic reason to overspend tokens in this way. It is possible on BGA and, as Cos- mentioned, there is a warning dialog when one attempts to do it.

[LiatKolink]

One possible reason I could see is in Wingspan Oceania paying extra Nectar to achieve majority; but that does not apply to the base game, of course. Another possible reason I can think of is, again, with expansions, there are some birds that allow you to steal a specific food type. You could overpay to deny the opponent that food if it is more useful for them than for you.

[Cos-]

I haven't played the expansions where those things happen, so thanks for the answers giving some situations where you might actually want to pay extra food. (I don't like the ways some of those expansions change the game, although I would enjoy playing with more birds!)

Since we only have the base game on BGA, would it make sense to at least have an option to not allow you to spend pointless extra food, and default that option to on? Since everyone seems to agree there's never a reason to do it in the base game. This would _not_ apply to doing a 2-for-1 wild trade to avoid spending a type of food you want to keep, it would just apply to truly extra food, where if you just removed that one food from your payment and made no other changes, you could still play the bird.

[Ceaseless]

I haven't played the expansions where those things happen, so thanks for the answers giving some situations where you might actually want to pay extra food. (I don't like the ways some of those expansions change the game, although I would enjoy playing with more birds!)

Since we only have the base game on BGA, would it make sense to at least have an option to not allow you to spend pointless extra food, and default that option to on? Since everyone seems to agree there's never a reason to do it in the base game. This would _not_ apply to doing a 2-for-1 wild trade to avoid spending a type of food you want to keep, it would just apply to truly extra food, where if you just removed that one food from your payment and made no other changes, you could still play the bird.

What would be the point?

[Cos-]

The point would be to keep you from accidentally spending extra food due to confusion with the interface, which I have done more than once.

[PaulB-UK]

Last time I accidentally did that the game warned me I was spending extra food and was I sure I wanted to go ahead. Has that been removed?

[Mathew5000]

Last time I accidentally did that the game warned me I was spending extra food and was I sure I wanted to go ahead. Has that been removed?

The food-payment area turns a shade of light red with the advisory "Paying extra food!", and if you continue there's a dialogue box saying "Are you sure? You are using more tokens than required to add this bird Cancel/Confirm"

Seems sufficient to me.