Andrei3009 wrote: ↑06 June 2025, 02:31
It's time for me to ask what I did wrong in the game. In my opinion, my card draw was not very good- not one useful grassland bird, but the situation was slightly improved by suitable bonus cards.
https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=683723799
I reviewed the beginning of the game and saw a more promising starting line, which I considered but did not choose, because I thought Loon would work in first round: keep Woodpecker and King rail, play Woodpecker , gain food, lay eggs and hope for good cards or even Common loon if it is still there.
Now I see that it would be better, but what should I do next if I pretend that I didn't have a king rail? I definitely struggle in no grassland games
Kakapogoglu wrote: ↑06 June 2025, 09:15
Andrei3009 wrote: ↑06 June 2025, 02:31
It's time for me to ask what I did wrong in the game. In my opinion, my card draw was not very good- not one useful grassland bird, but the situation was slightly improved by suitable bonus cards.
https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=683723799
I reviewed the beginning of the game and saw a more promising starting line, which I considered but did not choose, because I thought Loon would work in first round: keep Woodpecker and King rail, play Woodpecker , gain food, lay eggs and hope for good cards or even Common loon if it is still there.
Now I see that it would be better, but what should I do next if I pretend that I didn't have a king rail? I definitely struggle in no grassland games
Hello, I checked your game until end of round 2. That's one of those games where it's difficult to score many points, there was a big lack of powerful early game wetland and grassland birds. I'm around ELO 600, however I finished (and won
) a game with 65 points lately, that happens. If I had your starting hand, I would have kept only the woodpecker as you did. Maybe play the woodpecker first, there could have been a chance that your opponent may draw a card from the deck and reveal something better than the loon for you. If not, draw the loon only (not the brown pelican) and play it, lay eggs and draw cards one or two times. With the brown pelican, you disabled the power of the loon (which is like a Wilson snipe when your opponent has also one wetand bird), which was maybe not the best thing to do in my opinion. But my strategy could also have failed when I see the next cards that would have been drawn...
The hand I'm keeping is Woodpecker and Brewer's Wren with Invertebrate, Seed, and Fish. Turn 1 Woodpecker using Seed and hope they don't take Invertebrate turn 1 (they didn't). Turn 2 gain the Invertebrate and use Woodpecker to take Seed. Your turn 3 can now play Brewer's Wren and you have 2 forest and a wetland bird, and one of your forest birds can even sometimes get food/points. Not a half bad start. Yes, Brewer's Wren is a terrible card, but I think its role in this hand is indispensable to guarantee a developed Forest and Wetland, and thanks to Woodpecker you can get over the food cost quickly enough to make do. Instead of playing Wren turn 3 you can also draw Common Loon instead if you really want it. (Edit: I'd like to point out you can just get it with a standard draw 2 later though). Given they started the game with 2 food and neither of them fish, I'm not expecting them to draw it unless they think you have no wetland capacity at all and really want to counter pick (I did not realize they had no wetland birds at all in a 3 card hand, or I should more specifically say that they didn't use any, lol). I find it unlikely and hardly fatal if they try it since you do have a wetland pick. Since Brewer's Wren is a Migratory bird it lets you have 2 wetland birds, yet Common Loon will only count itself for its effect if you move Wren away (this normally matters more than it would have in this game, but your opponent forgetting what a wetland was for so long really kills this trick.) Wren even adds some fight for your second end of round goal.
On move 37, between the Fruit, Fish, and Seed you'd get from Woodpecker's effect you have enough food to play Flycatcher next turn with a 2 for one food trade. Considering Woodpecker's Seed synergy, you had a believable chance of making Canada Goose work as a card, so I'd have chosen to hang onto it for a bit longer. Besides, you were looking for Grassland birds anyways.
I do think you did more random draw 2 wetland drawing than needed. It would have been better to just develop what you had, gaining food in the forest and playing the birds you had. You can wait for next round to see if anything good pops up. I'd have considered Vireo is the Grassland, you already have 2 forest birds with potential food effects, you seem to be ok there, I don't think you had to make a big push to get 2 more for 1 extra food. If you had to go for draws, if you really needed birds in areas, there were a couple of Migratory birds you could have gotten. Double Invertebrate, but Flycatcher helps with that. You could have done that and had more birds in all areas, including the Grassland you were trying to fill, rather than a bunch of dead blind draws.
