Beginner tries to improve - Any help welcome

[illy831]

I recently finished this game with the feeling that I played very poorly, so I decided to analyze it myself. This analysis may be useful for less experienced players, and I would also appreciate feedback from experienced players, especially regarding the first round.

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

If I may offer my 2c — feel free to critique. In this scenario I would have kept: owl, mallard, wheat + rat + worm with the forester bonus, and then — since I start first — drawn the chimney swift on turn 1.

I do have my eyes on the first two EOR goals. If I’m not starting first, I would keep the egret as well and not keep the wheat. It's a cheap water bird, generates points (albeit poorly), stick nest — gets the water engine going fast and aligns with EOR2&3. However, the Swift aligns EOR1+2+3. On top of that it doesn't interfere with Forester bonus, accelerates everything, and compensates for lack of initial plan in the meadow. It's what will allow you to easily finish R1 with two eggs in birds with tree nests, which is not likely to be beat outright. Yet its overall utility means you aren't only gunning for the EOR1 either.

Then. If there’s no special face-up bird to draw, I’d play mallard turn 2 (wheat) followed by owl turn 3. Mallard first because if something enticing to draw shows up turn 3, I can use its brown power. Assuming nothing does, on turn 4 (& 5 if necessary) I get food & use the owl’s hunt. If lucky, a worm has appeared by turn 4, letting me play the Swift on T5. Worst case, I pay by wildcard to get the Swift on the board (meadow) by T6, then lay eggs (T7), one in each tree nest and moving the Swift to the water to draw in T8.

If I have spare food, getting 3 eggs early is tempting but 2 should be enough. That is good for likely three more birds (including first meadow bird) before needing to lay eggs again and by that time, I’ll have the Swift as the 2nd bird in the meadow, so it's 3 eggs + maybe a brown power.

Depending on what I get in T8, I may leave the Swift there for the first turn of R2 to draw cards again, or move it to the forest to start getting food.

The mockingbird’s power is appealing, but it only pays off sometimes. As a duplicator, it’s dependent on another brown power and equalized by a bird that has a nice brown power of its own. It costs twice as much as the owl and doesn’t align with any EOR goals. You have to pay the cost for it upfront, but can’t realize the benefit until later. That seems like a big sacrifice in tempo.

And that’s *if* the mockingbird is played in the meadow. Were you planning to use it with the owl in the forest? You might draw any number of 2 or 1-food birds that also generate points (or food!) in the forest, and which may align with various goals better without blocking off Forester. Usually I do want a plan to get a 2nd bird in the forest early but the Swift will do that.

The mourning dove in the forest also blocks Forester. It looks like a tempo-saver by giving you eggs outside the meadow, but with the Swift, you don't need to lay eggs more than once before you get a stronger meadow. The dove is more appealing in the meadow in this game but isn't quite compelling enough to spend an early turn dropping everything and changing plans to draw it or deny to your opponent IMO. With T8 & T9 draws, you would have 6 cards with two rounds of face-up cards to search for a nice meadow bird and you don't *need* it to come from those 6 cards either.

84 points seems good though and like you closed it out strong, even very strong. I'm certainly not thinking I have 85+ locked in my approach although I would feel good about my chances.

[Andrei3009]

If I may offer my 2c — feel free to critique. In this scenario I would have kept: owl, mallard, wheat + rat + worm with the forester bonus, and then — since I start first — drawn the chimney swift on turn 1.

Thanks for your reply. I thought about the possibility of taking Swift with the first move, but I didn't do it for the following reasons:

0) I picked up mockingbird with the intention of playing into the forest. It's not ideal, but a second owl with 2 food is not so bad, and in the future I can copy a better card like mourning dove. Also, I would not say that mockingbird blocks forester, since I can easily play two more forest birds besides owl, especially considering the 4th EOR. And I usually don't count on getting maximum points from a bonus card.

1) in a vacuum, it's a below average bird, and I already have the basic 2 birds in the forest + one in the wetland.

2) There are no worms in the feeder and there is no guarantee that they will appear. Taking one food from the feeder already sounds bad, considering that before that you will take one card, and taking one food twice is just terrible and will lead to significant losses in points.

I wrote about 84 points with the assumption that i will get dove, without him my start is not so good, but with good bonus cards I should have scored 90+

[illy831]

Cheers! I am enjoying this game a lot and these discussions.

It's not ideal, but a second owl with 2 food is not so bad, and in the future I can copy a better card like mourning dove. Also, I would not say that mockingbird blocks forester, since I can easily play two more forest birds besides owl, especially considering the 4th EOR. And I usually don't count on getting maximum points from a bonus card.

It's not bad! It does block you from the max, which to be fair is hard to reach anyway. Two owls + two food is good, but let's say you draw the bird that costs one worm OR wheat, and caches a wheat every time. That's just as good and cheaper, and has a tree nest I believe. Or a broad-winged hawk, which costs one rat and has a stick nest.

The other thing is two owls + two food is not an overpowering setup even early. It's nice, but your opponent could have something similar, and they might complete their bonus fully. Is it enough to compensate? I don't know, and I would argue no, because it is preventing you from quickly drawing the rest of the birds you need in this game. Without any meadow starters, I think it's important to get a 3-bird draw capability fast.

As it turned out in the game, you leaned heavily on your meadow to generate points in the end, rather than the forest. That's what I would gun for too. A few extra points from the forest early is nice. By the end of the game you want to be rattling off lay egg actions. So it's not the highest priority.

2) There are no worms in the feeder and there is no guarantee that they will appear. Taking one food from the feeder already sounds bad, considering that before that you will take one card, and taking one food twice is just terrible and will lead to significant losses in points.

Taking two food turns is a bummer I agree. However! Taking two foods with an owl hunter is not bad: you might tuck two cards. If a worm comes up in one of those turns, you end up with a spare food; a wheat, rat or cherry could be good for a meadow bird later. If no worm comes up you still get the Swift on the board and two birds counting towards EOR1 goal. These factors combined make it not a big deal in this situation for me. With only one bird towards EOR1 goal, you're also giving your opponent an easier shot at landing a 6-point swing on you. You happened to tie with only one EOR1 bird. You could have had +3 with the Swift and equally, in passing it up you risked your opponent landing a +3 with minimal effort.

Additional food for thought: I have discussed mostly Swift vs. Mockingbird. However, if you didn't go first, I would still lean to keep that Snowy Egret over the Mockingbird. You may get the Swift anyway. Let's say you don't. Then it really helps to start drawing 3 cards early in order to find a second forest bird. This is because, like before, you still start without any meadow birds, and you want to get a solution to that. You have to do a number of draws, and you don't want to spend too many turns drawing. Building water engine is the quickest path that is definitely available. If you end up with a surplus of birds, then you discard them for foods. No, you don't get a double owl this way. You didn't invest 3/5 of your starting resources towards achieving that either, though.

Coincidentally, the Egret would give you another EOR2 bird. If you get the Swift anyway or otherwise end up not needing it, it can be discarded for a food.

Building the forest with the Mockingbird, or the Dove, definitely these do constitute solutions to no early meadow because they give points/eggs. But because they don't help any goals or bonus and don't help you be economical with your draw bird turns that you still do need, I do not see them as high priority solutions. I would rather see what else is out there. Of course, I've been burned that way before.

[Groovenstein]

I recently finished this game with the feeling that I played very poorly, so I decided to analyze it myself. This analysis may be useful for less experienced players, and I would also appreciate feedback from experienced players, especially regarding the first round.

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

Round 1

Starting plan: take rodent, play owl, lay eggs, play mockingbird, get food, play mallard, eggs / draw cards.
The plan itself was good.

1) Take rodent — following the plan.

2) On the second move I took Mourning Dove, which would have been be good if I implemented it correctly.

3) I played Mourning Dove while overpaying with food— this was a very bad move. A much better line would have been: play owl → lay eggs → play mockingbird → get food → play dove. Most likely I should have ignored the round goal and focused on tempo.

4) I took Purple Martin. This decision is debatable, but I now think it was a mistake. It cost a move, and I could have simply played Mallard and taken it more efficiently, or forced the opponent to take it and lose tempo.
With my cards, I already had good egg production in the forest, so I did not need many grasslands activations And developing grasslands was inefficient This is visible later, when my grasslands produced only 5 endgame points, which could have been compensated by a stronger forest. I also failed to play Purple Martin for the round 1 goal.

5) Everything was reasonable.
6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

8) I decided that 4 extra points were worth making a move in grasslands, but this was likely also a mistake. As discussed on the forum, with good play, late-game actions can be worth more, and this game was no exception (although my late-game play was also poor).

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46854

Round 2

1) Everything was reasonable.

2) At this point, I already believed that investing in the forest would be very strong, and I probably should have taken the ibis instead of a random card from the deck. However, for some reason, I decided to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

3) Everything was reasonable.
4) Everything was reasonable.

5) I think the better line was: play mockingbird → take food → play the grosbeak in the 5th slot for Forester. Instead, I again chose to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

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after that I will not analyze each move, I will only say potential mistakes.

- I focused too much on American Bittern, which was a weak play.
- I should have played a bird on the second-to-last move of round 3 to guarantee winning it. I played differently because I confused the round 3 and round 4 goals.

I believe I played round 4 as well as possible. I took a small risk, giving up 1 point for a chance to play a strong bird, and it paid off big time.

---

Final Thoughts

Despite good luck with bonus cards, I scored only 84 points, which is very low for such a strong start. With better play, I believe this game could have reached close to 100 points.

I didn't read your comments or any others so I could watch with fresh eyes. Here's what I saw for about half the game as I went along.

Starting hand: I keep egret, owl, mallard, rat, worm, forester
Plan for round 1:
1 – play owl
2- take seed for mallard
3 – play mallard
4 – lay eggs
5 – play egret
6, 7, 8 – dig dig dig

You kept mallard, owl, mockingbird. I want to be seeing 3 cards as soon as possible, but you kept mocking for the upside, ok.

Hard disagree on the food keep. I want to hold off on food action until I get the owl down, that way I get to hunt. And I’m in no rush to get mockingbird down with nothing great worth mocking right now. With these cards, I’m getting mallard down and not even committing to the owl yet. Yeah I’m probably gonna end up playing it, but in general you don’t want to be playing a bird until you have to, that decision’s final. So I’m getting the mallard down, laying eggs, and digging a couple times. Maybe I pop a couple grassland food birds in which case the owl becomes pretty iffy. Still leaves four turns to play owl and lay eggs on it if that’s how I wanna roll.

Oh a dove appears. Beautiful. Now with 6 turns left we can play owl, lay eggs + take seed or vice versa, play mallard, play dove in wetland, and start digging. I don’t think order matters much on the eggs/seed unless a chance arises we could get shut out of a seed. Forest dove is a possibility, but I lean against it because we’re going to spend a few of our next turns doing some digging, and right now I’d rather be seeing three cards and gaining an egg than having to spend an egg to see three. Also decent chance we end up chucking some of what we dig for extra food, so not having a two-bird forest right away doesn’t seem a big deal. Forest dove also kills max forester, but I’m not weighing that much.

You did forest dove, ok. So I assume the plan is take seed for mallard, play mallard, play owl, lay eggs, start digging.

Hahahah martin, amazing. Too bad we didn’t get that mallard down sooner, we’d have another card or two from these draws. Also too bad we burned the worm to get the dove down, but not a huge deal. Won’t take long to reset feeder.

Grackle. I’m a sucker for a good full tuck/air sando, and the last two EORs aren’t egg-based. Still, pretty much any food bird I would wanna drop into a full tuck I’d also wanna drop into grass with martin and mocking (something like night heron excepted). Ok fine, no sando. Take seed, play mallard, play owl, lay eggs.

Don’t see the wisdom in the cherry take here. We’ll need it for mockingbird eventually, sure. But so much more important to get mallard down (to boost draw actions) and owl (second forest bird, fight for EOR).

Nothing else to add this round.

Round 2 good start. I don’t feel the rush to take redstart. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good pickup: hits forester, we have food for it, gives us a 3 or 4 food forest. I’m just more focused right now on finding a second wetland bird and birds for my grass engine than a third forest bird.

For the same reason, I don’t feel the rush to play redstart. I want to dig. If I can find a grassland food bird I may never want to play redstart. It’s fine to have it in hand. Not ready to marry it tho.

I’m chucking bittern/grosbeak for an extra worm. Gives me food for martin and mockingbird without having to take another food action. This way my last three turns are play martin, play mocking, lay eggs for five points and two card cycles.

Sorry I’m too tired at this point to go through the rest of it. Hope it went ok and you found something in here helpful.

[Ceaseless]

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

As far as your opening went, obviously keep Barred and Mallard, you could keep Egret for Wetland and points, you could keep Mockingbird for a future Grassland, and you could even keep 3 food and use Mallard to dig for Forest bird #2 and use the hand fodder if you managed to draw blanks. Dealer's choice, I wouldn't go to war over which one you picked.

Your food choice is a no from me though. Rodent and invertebrate is the way to go, the food for your two opening birds. There's no need for food for Mockingbird, as it's a Grassland bird in the hopes of a late game powerhouse. You'll have plenty of time for it later.

Round 1

Starting plan: take rodent, play owl, lay eggs, play mockingbird, get food, play mallard, eggs / draw cards.
The plan itself was good.

Ideally you should have kept rodent and played Mallard for drawing potential. Laying eggs doesn't matter much to Mallard, though at some point you'll be doing it on Owl. Since you didn't of course you'll have to take a rodent, and I'd still do what I mentioned. Northern Mockingbird shouldn't touch the Forest, and you can use Mallard to dig for a real Forest bird. If you manage to draw blanks all the way, you have hand fodder to get a second food.

1) Take rodent — following the plan.

2) On the second move I took Mourning Dove, which would have been be good if I implemented it correctly.

3) I played Mourning Dove while overpaying with food— this was a very bad move. A much better line would have been: play owl → lay eggs → play mockingbird → get food → play dove. Most likely I should have ignored the round goal and focused on tempo.

4) I took Purple Martin. This decision is debatable, but I now think it was a mistake. It cost a move, and I could have simply played Mallard and taken it more efficiently, or forced the opponent to take it and lose tempo.
With my cards, I already had good egg production in the forest, so I did not need many grasslands activations And developing grasslands was inefficient This is visible later, when my grasslands produced only 5 endgame points, which could have been compensated by a stronger forest. I also failed to play Purple Martin for the round 1 goal.

5) Everything was reasonable.
6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

8) I decided that 4 extra points were worth making a move in grasslands, but this was likely also a mistake. As discussed on the forum, with good play, late-game actions can be worth more, and this game was no exception (although my late-game play was also poor).

Overpaying with Dove was not the problem, playing Dove first was. Mourning Dove lets you skip weak but usually necessary Grassland turns and focus and getting precious food. Except this time you planned on laying eggs on Owl anyways, so you may as well just play Owl first, lay the eggs then play Dove, with the intention of getting food for Mallard and finding your gameplan.

... except the game beat you to it and flipped the card you've been looking for, Purple Martin, basically the reason we even want Mockingbird in the first place. Instant grab, you have everything you need, and in a real game you can't risk your opponent taking it and ruining your core gameplan, especially since it's a common staple that a lot of players will grab on sight even without it's great synergy with Northern Mockingbird. Your Forest is set-up and getting you the eggs so you don't need to waste time with your Grassland in the early game. You will play Mallard and use your Wetland to get a basic hand size, and your end game is to set up the Grassland with Martin and Mockingbird, which will be your source of points and card digging as you filter your hand. Having a 5 point Grassland potential visible in round 1 is incredible. You just need to get that base set up and search for more Grassland birds.

Grabbing a fruit was a mistake, you need to grab seed for Mallard, that way you can play it round 1 so you have your draws ready round 2. Fortunately it worked out, but it won't always work as nicely as it did that game.

The Forest having egg production doesn't change wanting a strong Grassland/ The Forest's egg production lets you skip weak Grassland moves in the early game, but doesn't replace a powerhouse Grassland that you've been building up to in the late game.

Round 2

1) Everything was reasonable.

2) At this point, I already believed that investing in the forest would be very strong, and I probably should have taken the ibis instead of a random card from the deck. However, for some reason, I decided to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

3) Everything was reasonable.
4) Everything was reasonable.

5) I think the better line was: play mockingbird → take food → play the grosbeak in the 5th slot for Forester. Instead, I again chose to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

Forest set-up is fine, getting you a strong Forest is key for development. In addition to its generic value, you fulfilled Forester and are in a powerful position for EOR goals 3 and 4. I'm not sure why you care about Ibis, and I don't know why you keep dismissing Mockingbird in review when it's so essential to your gameplan.

after that I will not analyze each move, I will only say potential mistakes.

- I focused too much on American Bittern, which was a weak play.
- I should have played a bird on the second-to-last move of round 3 to guarantee winning it. I played differently because I confused the round 3 and round 4 goals.

When you finally laid 3 eggs and gotten your draws with only two more turns to go you should have drawn Horned Lark from the tray. Your next two turns would then be to play Longspur and Lark, winning you the EOR 3 and setting round 4 up with 6 points a turn with digging power.

I believe I played round 4 as well as possible. I took a small risk, giving up 1 point for a chance to play a strong bird, and it paid off big time.

You did at least calculate what Baird's gets you to in round 4 compared to your other options at the time? Pulling a 12-point bird definitely helped swing things in a helpful direction, though there was no guarantee that would happen.

[kostinen]

I recently finished this game with the feeling that I played very poorly, so I decided to analyze it myself. This analysis may be useful for less experienced players, and I would also appreciate feedback from experienced players, especially regarding the first round.

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

This game is interesting because there are several coherent ways to play it. I enjoyed reading the different opinions.

I would probably have gone for a strategy like Groovenstein's, perhaps with one difference: keeping only the Mallard and the Egret, worm, fish, and seeds. I spend the first three turns playing my two birds, keeping the worm. Then I draw, hoping to find some bird to generate food (from the forest or grassland). The idea is that with a strong Wetland (3 cards per turn), I can see a lot of cards and then estimate what to do with them.
Cards that don't fit the plan can be recycled via the forest (there is a strong possibility I will place only one bird there in the short term) and/or with the tucking birds.

The plan is a bit risky, but there are a lot of cards in the deck that will allow me to progress later on. I'm also including cards that will force me to take a mediocre turn in the forest, which isn't something that particularly scares me.

The big advantage is not making any mediocre moves by default, with the possibility of being forced to make them later. Wetlands give me 3 cards, which can also be seen as 2 cards + 1 potential food.

Looking at the rest of the game, having a Morning Dove + Mockingbird in the forest seems very appealing, especially considering the last two objectives. For me, the mistake in the forest strategy was taking the Purple Martin and playing the Mockingbird in the grassland. I personally would have gone all-in on the forest at this stage since this duo would have allowed me to ignore the grassland. However, I mess up quite a few of my forest-based games, so I'm not the best example.

[Ceaseless]

I recently finished this game with the feeling that I played very poorly, so I decided to analyze it myself. This analysis may be useful for less experienced players, and I would also appreciate feedback from experienced players, especially regarding the first round.

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

This game is interesting because there are several coherent ways to play it. I enjoyed reading the different opinions.

I would probably have gone for a strategy like Groovenstein's, perhaps with one difference: keeping only the Mallard and the Egret, worm, fish, and seeds. I spend the first three turns playing my two birds, keeping the worm. Then I draw, hoping to find some bird to generate food (from the forest or grassland). The idea is that with a strong Wetland (3 cards per turn), I can see a lot of cards and then estimate what to do with them.
Cards that don't fit the plan can be recycled via the forest (there is a strong possibility I will place only one bird there in the short term) and/or with the tucking birds.

The plan is a bit risky, but there are a lot of cards in the deck that will allow me to progress later on. I'm also including cards that will force me to take a mediocre turn in the forest, which isn't something that particularly scares me.

The big advantage is not making any mediocre moves by default, with the possibility of being forced to make them later. Wetlands give me 3 cards, which can also be seen as 2 cards + 1 potential food.

Looking at the rest of the game, having a Morning Dove + Mockingbird in the forest seems very appealing, especially considering the last two objectives. For me, the mistake in the forest strategy was taking the Purple Martin and playing the Mockingbird in the grassland. I personally would have gone all-in on the forest at this stage since this duo would have allowed me to ignore the grassland. However, I mess up quite a few of my forest-based games, so I'm not the best example.

While I understand the Wetland focused ideals of Egret and Mallard, no love for the Owl? A 1 food cavity nest forest-only bird with an effect seems to be very strong this game. Exactly the sort of bird you'd have been searching to draw with the Wetland in the first place, given how many boxes it checks.

I don't see why you'd want to ignore the Grassland, it's the best scoring outlet there is. Sure, I want to skip out on using an empty Grassland in the opening, but Mourning Dove does a solid enough job at that, and it turns out we wanted to use it once for the EOR 1. I don't see Northern Mockingbird really adding a major win in the Forest, more eggs is nice Forest-wise, but you still need a winning plan, and neither the Forest nor Wetland will provide it, there's not enough scoring power in the Forest and there's basically none in the Wetland. They're the support for a winning plan, but they're not a winning plan themselves, you don't have the right cards for that. You're relying on a lot of future draws working out, as you're leaning on repeatedly playing good birds.

Mockingbird and Martin, on the other hand, are a winning plan. 5 points in the Grassland with an easy chance of taking off harder given both how generic it is to support Grassland birds with more Grassland bodies, let alone effects, and the high draw power the repeated draw and draws offer for deck digging by filtering your hand. They let you basically ignore the Wetland after you use it to get a decent hand size, which is exactly the sort of thing you want in a mid to late game plan.

[Groovenstein]

While I understand the Wetland focused ideals of Egret and Mallard, no love for the Owl? A 1 food cavity nest forest-only bird with an effect seems to be very strong this game. Exactly the sort of bird you'd have been searching to draw with the Wetland in the first place, given how many boxes it checks.

Nothing to add to this excellent post other than to say that even if the owl did nothing for EORs or bonus, it’s still a keep here with its one-food cost and decent brown power.

[illy831]

Yeah, the owl seems essential for getting the ability to discard for food fast.

Also for the decision at the very start, we don't know the dove or martin will be there. As a meadow bird amplifier the mockingbird depends on getting something exactly like the martin because of the 2x draws. Is that the only bird that does it like that? House Finch costs twice the food, and the yellow-rumped warbler goes in the forest. So I don't know, keeping mockingbird seems like a big early bet that could have come out much worse. Only doubling a points power while still needing to rely on wetland is a different game.

[FrankJones]

Yeah, the owl seems essential for getting the ability to discard for food fast.

Also for the decision at the very start, we don't know the dove or martin will be there. As a meadow bird amplifier the mockingbird depends on getting something exactly like the martin because of the 2x draws. Is that the only bird that does it like that? House Finch costs twice the food, and the yellow-rumped warbler goes in the forest. So I don't know, keeping mockingbird seems like a big early bet that could have come out much worse. Only doubling a points power while still needing to rely on wetland is a different game.

The two you mentioned, and the Barn Swallow, Violet Green Swallow, And American Robin.
(tuck and draw birds that can go in the grassland.)