Undergrove Strategy Discussion

[SpaceWater]

I am shocked By the complete lack of any Strategy discussion or strategy guides online available for Undergrove.
I love Undergrove, I think it’s a good game with simple rules and surprising depth so I wanna start discussion somewhere.

What Strategies have you all discovered while playing the game?

What are some challenges you have while playing?

What are important factors to consider that determine your decisions?

Personally I have struggled and seen other people struggle with making sure to absorb Carbon! I would be left with plenty of saplings and lots of roots that don’t end up getting scored. As a result, I adopted a more aggressive strategy where I end the game as soon as I can.

I found that if you activate a mushroom that absorbs 2 carbon even once, you can’t end the game having only 3 seedlings, you will necessarily be committed to a 3rd Reproduce action in order to have space to absorb carbon on your 9th Absorb action.

Cheers! I’d love to hear from you!

[SpaceWater]

Made a spread sheet to look at possible game states and estimates. Attempting to attach screen shots, but get an error saying “Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached”

Notable bits are:
Assuming you’re planning on scoring every seedling/tree you have, a player can expect to activate a double absorb mushroom either 0, 3, or 5 times depending if we have 3 trees, 4 trees, or 4 trees and a 2 root seedling. Considering we have a maximum of 4 trees and 18 roots, it doesn’t generally make sense to go beyond 5 double absorb actions.

My calculations estimate it takes 27 turns to end the game if we have 3 trees, 38 turns if we have 4 trees, and 40 turns for 4 trees and a 2 root seedling.

More of a theoretical than an actual strategy, I found out the fastest you could finish the game is 15 turns with the right mushrooms or carbon track pulls, faster if your opponents use generous mushrooms.

[enbycass]

Guess I should give some tips now that I'm in the top 3:

The goals are usually worth a large number of points compared to a game like Wingspan. Try to win them as it's often a big swing.

Try to be as efficient as possible and take as few actions as possible to do what you want.

The game is a race so try to end it early if you can stop an opponent from completing their plans but stay flexible in your plans as someone might end it early on you.

Pay attention to VP/roots/carbon/trees. Make sure to not fall behind on absorb actions try to absorb two at once.

Those 4 point mushrooms that let you flip over two others can be really good and a couple of them can mean infinite actions as long as your have carbon.

Watch your opponents and quickly grab their new mushrooms if they're useful to you. Try to play good mushrooms where other players can't use them efficiently.

Keep in mind you can play mushrooms anywhere. You can occasionally use this to block an opponent to reduce their score. More ideally put down a mushroom that helps you and hurts them.

[Cos-]

Keep in mind you can play mushrooms anywhere. You can occasionally use this to block an opponent to reduce their score. More ideally put down a mushroom that helps you and hurts them.

Could you elaborate on that? How can you block an opponent and reduce their score - won't they just play somewhere else? How can you put down a mushroom that "hurts them"?

[enbycass]

There are mushrooms that get more points based on adjacent mushrooms matching in type. You can put a mushroom of the wrong type next to it to block their points.

And then the rest depends on goals. But you can put mushrooms that don't match goals next to theirs.

I don't tend to do these things much and usually I just look for ways to help myself and if it can restrict an opponent, all the better.