Top Beginner Mistake

[fifthnephi]

IMO, the biggest mistake beginners make is:

Trading momentum/efficiency for early end-of-round (EOR) goals.

i.e. prioritizing the early EOR goals ahead of simply building your engine faster.

A classic scenario:

You're taking the final turn of the first round. The EOR goal is eggs in grassland. You have 1 bird with 1 egg on it in your grassland, but you need to lay 3 more to tie for first place on the end-of-round goal. You have 1 food to get the 3 eggs down and tie. But you could also use that 1 food and 1 egg to lay your next engine bird in your grasslands.

What should you do? LAY THE BIRD IN THE GRASSLAND!

Think of it this way: You are giving up 4 net points in EOR goals to have an extra turn at the end of the game that should be netting you an average of ~7 points. Because you continued your engine plan instead of laying eggs, you don't have to use a future turn to lay that grasslands engine bird, so you've saved a turn.


Unless the first end of round goal has a synergy with an existing plan, it's probably inefficient to pursue.

Thoughts? Any other beginner mistakes you think are more prevalent?

[FrankJones]

I think spending the food is the issue. Otherwise, it's fine to go after the first round goal, especially if it involves laying eggs, which will need to be done anyway.

In the scenario you described, if spending the food means taking a very inefficient "gain food" action to play the next bird, then yeah, that's likely a mistake.

[Andrei3009]

IMO, the biggest mistake beginners make is:

Trading momentum/efficiency for early end-of-round (EOR) goals.

i.e. prioritizing the early EOR goals ahead of simply building your engine faster.

A classic scenario:

You're taking the final turn of the first round. The EOR goal is eggs in grassland. You have 1 bird with 1 egg on it in your grassland, but you need to lay 3 more to tie for first place on the end-of-round goal. You have 1 food to get the 3 eggs down and tie. But you could also use that 1 food and 1 egg to lay your next engine bird in your grasslands.

What should you do? LAY THE BIRD IN THE GRASSLAND!

Think of it this way: You are giving up 4 net points in EOR goals to have an extra turn at the end of the game that should be netting you an average of ~7 points. Because you continued your engine plan instead of laying eggs, you don't have to use a future turn to lay that grasslands engine bird, so you've saved a turn.


Unless the first end of round goal has a synergy with an existing plan, it's probably inefficient to pursue.

Thoughts? Any other beginner mistakes you think are more prevalent?

We must not forget that the action itself, lay the eggs, gives 2 more points, so this move is worth 6 points, not 4. I am not an expert in this game, but I have already gained some experience: I would look at the pace of the game as a whole, if both players have a good start, then most likely the last moves will be good to and so you should not lay eggs, however, in the case of low tempo games, the last moves won't be as good since they you won't have time to develop grasslands and EOR will mette a lot. Also, 4 points on the end the round are 4 points without egg laying, which leaves more places for eggs at the end of the game. I think I would lay eggs in most cases if I didn't have to use food or if I didn't plan to develop the grassland in the near future. Case with discarding food hightly depends on strength of your food generation

[fifthnephi]

IMO, the biggest mistake beginners make is:

Trading momentum/efficiency for early end-of-round (EOR) goals.

i.e. prioritizing the early EOR goals ahead of simply building your engine faster.

A classic scenario:

You're taking the final turn of the first round. The EOR goal is eggs in grassland. You have 1 bird with 1 egg on it in your grassland, but you need to lay 3 more to tie for first place on the end-of-round goal. You have 1 food to get the 3 eggs down and tie. But you could also use that 1 food and 1 egg to lay your next engine bird in your grasslands.

What should you do? LAY THE BIRD IN THE GRASSLAND!

Think of it this way: You are giving up 4 net points in EOR goals to have an extra turn at the end of the game that should be netting you an average of ~7 points. Because you continued your engine plan instead of laying eggs, you don't have to use a future turn to lay that grasslands engine bird, so you've saved a turn.


Unless the first end of round goal has a synergy with an existing plan, it's probably inefficient to pursue.

Thoughts? Any other beginner mistakes you think are more prevalent?

We must not forget that the action itself, lay the eggs, gives 2 more points, so this move is worth 6 points, not 4. I am not an expert in this game, but I have already gained some experience: I would look at the pace of the game as a whole, if both players have a good start, then most likely the last moves will be good to and so you should not lay eggs, however, in the case of low tempo games, the last moves won't be as good since they you won't have time to develop grasslands and EOR will mette a lot. Also, 4 points on the end the round are 4 points without egg laying, which leaves more places for eggs at the end of the game. I think I would lay eggs in most cases if I didn't have to use food or if I didn't plan to develop the grassland in the near future. Case with discarding food hightly depends on strength of your food generation

You're right - 6 points. I would say 75%+ of my games, my final turn is worth 7+ points. On top of saving a turn, you also pace one turn ahead on future EOR goals, which IMO is worth even sacrificing a couple points for.

[fifthnephi]

I think spending the food is the issue. Otherwise, it's fine to go after the first round goal, especially if it involves laying eggs, which will need to be done anyway.

In the scenario you described, if spending the food means taking a very inefficient "gain food" action to play the next bird, then yeah, that's likely a mistake.

I agree with you generally - if you have 0 eggs and will need to lay eggs before placing a second grasslands bird. But the amount of players I see with 2+ eggs already that lay 2 additional eggs just to chase the first EOR goal is astounding. If you already have eggs, it's generally better to make the best pacing move instead then get another grassland engine bird down before laying eggs again. Picking pace over first EOR goal also puts you one turn ahead for the next 3 EOR goals.

[illy831]

We must not forget that the action itself, lay the eggs, gives 2 more points, so this move is worth 6 points, not 4.

For me the math is just 4 points on the swing; the lay egg action is displaced rather than given up if you don’t take it. I.e if you lay out your 26 turns in the two alternative paths you have here, you are just moving a L and P around (lay, play). And in fact you are converting a 3-point (+ any new brown power) L into a 3-point (minus early food) L. It could be a lesser L before considering the knock-on effects which are what really matter.

Another consideration in this hypothetical might be: how important is it to get a second bird in your meadow rather than forest or water? (Answer probably depends and the theme remains being economical with your turns)

[Andrei3009]

We must not forget that the action itself, lay the eggs, gives 2 more points, so this move is worth 6 points, not 4.

For me the math is just 4 points on the swing; the lay egg action is displaced rather than given up if you don’t take it. I.e if you lay out your 26 turns in the two alternative paths you have here, you are just moving a L and P around (lay, play). And in fact you are converting a 3-point (+ any new brown power) L into a 3-point (minus early food) L. It could be a lesser L before considering the knock-on effects which are what really matter.

Another consideration in this hypothetical might be: how important is it to get a second bird in your meadow rather than forest or water? (Answer probably depends and the theme remains being economical with your turns)

In this case, your final move when you lay the eggs also gives you two points less. Relatively nothing has changed, but I would rather count as 6, because relative to other moves, for example, going into the forest, it's 6 points, not 4. I hope I was able to convey my point.

[Andrei3009]

IMO, the biggest mistake beginners make is:

Trading momentum/efficiency for early end-of-round (EOR) goals.

i.e. prioritizing the early EOR goals ahead of simply building your engine faster.

A classic scenario:

You're taking the final turn of the first round. The EOR goal is eggs in grassland. You have 1 bird with 1 egg on it in your grassland, but you need to lay 3 more to tie for first place on the end-of-round goal. You have 1 food to get the 3 eggs down and tie. But you could also use that 1 food and 1 egg to lay your next engine bird in your grasslands.

What should you do? LAY THE BIRD IN THE GRASSLAND!

Think of it this way: You are giving up 4 net points in EOR goals to have an extra turn at the end of the game that should be netting you an average of ~7 points. Because you continued your engine plan instead of laying eggs, you don't have to use a future turn to lay that grasslands engine bird, so you've saved a turn.


Unless the first end of round goal has a synergy with an existing plan, it's probably inefficient to pursue.

Thoughts? Any other beginner mistakes you think are more prevalent?

We must not forget that the action itself, lay the eggs, gives 2 more points, so this move is worth 6 points, not 4. I am not an expert in this game, but I have already gained some experience: I would look at the pace of the game as a whole, if both players have a good start, then most likely the last moves will be good to and so you should not lay eggs, however, in the case of low tempo games, the last moves won't be as good since they you won't have time to develop grasslands and EOR will mette a lot. Also, 4 points on the end the round are 4 points without egg laying, which leaves more places for eggs at the end of the game. I think I would lay eggs in most cases if I didn't have to use food or if I didn't plan to develop the grassland in the near future. Case with discarding food hightly depends on strength of your food generation

You're right - 6 points. I would say 75%+ of my games, my final turn is worth 7+ points. On top of saving a turn, you also pace one turn ahead on future EOR goals, which IMO is worth even sacrificing a couple points for.

I can't say the same about me, which is probably why you have 100 more elo.

You also need to consider the available egg slots: at the end of most games, you wouldn't have enough egg slots to make the most of the extra turn.

[FrankJones]

So, the obvious conclusion here is, "Don't fight for the first round EOR goal unless you can do so without costing yourself more value than you gain."
All of which is situational.

What if there is no better play? Drawing cards might be bad if nothing good is in the tray and we go first next round with 3 new cards. Maybe Gaining food is sub-optimal because of the bird feeder. And maybe we cannot play a bird because we don't have a good one to play or we do, but lack the food and the correct food is not in the feeder.

Sometimes I end up laying eggs there even if it does NOT help for the EOR goal.

[kostinen]

I agree, this mistake is one of the most common (and decisive).

The example mentioned is quite good, especially regarding the loss of food, which is often an important resource at the start of the game.

But there are much more obvious examples, like when some players spend the first 8 turns aiming to win the first EOR goal :
- Playing birds that are too expensive,
- keeping certain birds over others because they fit the objective (even though another bird is good for a good start),
- etc...

The beginning of the game should be dedicated to building a coherent strategy that will pay off later. So yes, if the effort is very low, it can be worthwhile, but most of the time it's not worth it.

Personally, I choose my starting birds solely based on the 5 cards I have in hand (of course), the 3 cards in the tray (especially if I'm playing first), and the available food. When faced with a difficult decision, I start looking at the end-of-round objectives (including the first one) and bonus cards. I deliberately choose to hide certain parameters because they could cause me to mess up my start to the game.
With a coherent set built from the start of the game, it's not just about scoring a lot of points in the future, but also about greatly increasing my chances of winning the next 3 EOR goals.