Counter strategy to 'plant your full tableau first'

[VictorTM]

Hi, I haven't played that many games yet, but I get the impression that a popular strategy is build your 4x4 tableau first to get the 7 extra points. Is that strategy the only one that gets the win, or are there other strategies that can get the win that someone could share. Thanks.

[Meeplelowda]

Hi, I haven't played that many games yet, but I get the impression that a popular strategy is build your 4x4 tableau first to get the 7 extra points. Is that strategy the only one that gets the win, or are there other strategies that can get the win that someone could share. Thanks.

I was wondering whether that is the dominant strategy is well. I'm hoping it isn't, because I really like games with divergent paths to victory. I have won once without completing my tableau first, but perhaps it was because of sub-optimal play by my opponent.

[Mordencranst]

Hi. Idk how qualified I am to *really* answer this question, but I can say what I know both as someone currently ranked 22nd on this site and someone who knows what players better than me do.

First off, I'm a damned hypocrite here because I DO plant a lot, but not blindly. I try to play for tempo and pick non-plant actions that give my opponent as little help as possible to slow them down, so whilst I almost always have a full array first that's a symptom of my way of playing, not the focus. Also I *lose* with a full array a lot too. Especially going first, endgame engines can generate a lot of points and often it genuinely IS better to run your 30 point sprout generation machine than it is to plant two mediocre mushrooms.

To put it another way, good players tend to play more efficiently, so they get what they need in less actions, so they can plant more which leads to them generally getting the 7 point array bonus and finishing faster. But that's more correlation than causation.

Early game racing for plants is very important because you NEED good soil and you at least WANT to race for fauna objectives. But towards the endgame the maths becomes much more complicated and a lot of top players will sacrifice a full array to make their opponent do an awkward plant and get to run their engine an extra time (iirc Hatomz, the current no2, is rather good at doing this).

[Calmon70]

Hi, I haven't played that many games yet, but I get the impression that a popular strategy is build your 4x4 tableau first to get the 7 extra points. Is that strategy the only one that gets the win, or are there other strategies that can get the win that someone could share. Thanks.

The point doing this is usually not 7 extra points (of course it's nice!) but rather having a board which collects usually more bonus than the one with less tiles. Especially when you can bring your opponent to use red/yellow actions so you can use again green after refill. It's kind of snowbally strategy which can supported by the right victory cards (the one with filling rows/collumns in specific way for example).

How to counter it: don't refill him with cards/resources! You could go for a blue strategy (in combo with your own green actions) for example and forces him to use actions to refill his hand/res instead of going 2 more plants again and again.

[kalencap]

Yeah, from early play. I’ve been wondering about this as well. It leaves ( ) a lot more of points on the table. Trying to figure out best time to pivot to growth myself.

[FrankJones]

I plant a lot and I win a lot.

It seems to me that whoever gets cheap cards that meet the Fauna goals wins. Does this change at higher levels, or do I need to play with the expansion to change up this meta?

[critternation]

It's all about card synergy. 1st or 2nd to fill the board doesn't matter. I often let the opponent plant last if I know im scoring more vp doing something else.
There's obviously a situation if you are many cards behind in planting you're probably in trouble. I don't even look at my opponent board often other than to make sure im not 3 cards down and to check on the fauna races.

[FrankJones]

It's all about card synergy. 1st or 2nd to fill the board doesn't matter. I often let the opponent plant last if I know im scoring more vp doing something else.
There's obviously a situation if you are many cards behind in planting you're probably in trouble. I don't even look at my opponent board often other than to make sure im not 3 cards down and to check on the fauna races.

Planting early and often is the optimal strategy though. Sure, sometimes a scoring tableau can be set up that can counter such a strategy, but how often does that prevail against a player who is planting a lot of cards and meeting Fauna goals?


It's a high variance game with completely random card draws. Often, one player will simply get better/cheaper cards that meet the goals and complete the winning tableau.

[kevinsbane]

It's all about card synergy. 1st or 2nd to fill the board doesn't matter. I often let the opponent plant last if I know im scoring more vp doing something else.
There's obviously a situation if you are many cards behind in planting you're probably in trouble. I don't even look at my opponent board often other than to make sure im not 3 cards down and to check on the fauna races.

Planting early and often is the optimal strategy though. Sure, sometimes a scoring tableau can be set up that can counter such a strategy, but how often does that prevail against a player who is planting a lot of cards and meeting Fauna goals?


It's a high variance game with completely random card draws. Often, one player will simply get better/cheaper cards that meet the goals and complete the winning tableau.

Just want to share a couple of high level games I played where I adopted some interesting strategies because I drew suboptimal cards early.

One where I fell way behind on planting, and lost: (winnable actually but a mistake by me (planting a random blue card that didn't fulfill a fauna goal) + a key card by my opponent = loss). If I had kept watering, I probably would've gotten enough soil and sprouts to outscale him in one turn regardless of his cards.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=761356312

One where I fell behind on planting, but because I went last, and I had a better watering engine going, I forced him into a suboptimal planting play which let me catch up on my last plant action, where he couldn't plant anything.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=761339979

Table where things got ridiculous - not that this should be the guiding principle. Nb Seeds gained in total: 61
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=762098626

That being said, I plant between 8-10x more frequently than watering, composting or growing. *shrug*
I also score below average compared to winners on the fauna, and above average on completion bonuses. Guess I'm guilty of it more often than not.

Additional game for reference:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=801405799

[FrankJones]

I'll take a look at these. 61 seeds !? I thought I would see a board that had several cards that give seeds, but there's only the one.
Odd to see a game of yours with so few green abilities. And, Java island! I've never chosen Java island. Intriguing. (I haven't viewed any of the moves yet, just the start and end position).