Beginner tries to improve - Any help welcome

[Ceaseless]

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.

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.

After Mallard is played, you will only be using the Wetland twice for the rest of the game, and one of those times is right now, to see what cards you might be preparing for and/or filtering out with tuck and draw. As a result, the second Wetland bird is only going to save you the egg you spent for it and isn't very important as a role, especially because we really want more birds in the Forest and Grassland. You'll have 5 cards in hand, one more Wetland for another draw 3 puts you to 8. The Grassland should expect 4 of them, the forest should expect at least 2 Forest-only birds, and 1 of those cards will stay cycled for tuck and draw, likely to stay there unless you managed to convert it into your last play somehow, but I wouldn't count on that happening at this stage of the game. So you only have 1 card left for a Wetland slot anyways, which I will point out you actually consider tossing for food down the line. The only way I see you getting a second Wetland bird is if it is migratory. To be fair, I actually think White-Crowned Sparrow is a believable card to go for. It might be able to sneak in that last Wetland draw spree for the egg depending on how you use it, but more importantly it will fill the extra food slot role in the Forest as well as help compete for EOR 4, and serve as your third (switched to fourth with the next Grassland bird) Grassland bird for your intended spam plan behind Mockingbird/Martin.

Redstart is actually rather important now because we're at the stage where we'll be gaining food, so we may as well get extra as soon as we can. The food for Restart is already prepared, and it's staring right at us, as opposed to any other hypothetical bird. In addition to the natural Forest role of wanting to acquire it before gaining more food to playing the other birds, we're naturally incentivized to go for it due to the Forest role and EOR 4.

Grosbeak is probably the center of the debate for me. It's the final Forester/fourth Forest bird with a food generating effect. Alternatively, if we use it as fodder and set up Mockingbird/Martin a bit sooner, you can lean on their Grassland powers as a way to dig up a different Forest bird to fill the needed role to fill in for points rather than food. Instead of Northern Mockingbird you could actually play Sparrow in the Wetland. Your last turn can either be to gain food, costing you 1 food but letting you save your big Wetland draw for the start of the next round to score multiple key birds if they emerged, or you can just draw now, and use Martin to tuck and draw if a key bird immediately pops out. If none do, you'd develop normally with your Forest then play Northern Mockingbird before considering any real digging. Get to your third Grassland Bird, play it, and you can gain food for the last time to slide Crowned to the Grassland spam category, spamming the Grassland until you find your important Forest bird through repeated tuck/draws and use your remaining food to play it.

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 tuck and draw is the ideal, and Frankjones already listed a few more of those, but egg layers score points too. Also, a Grassland food generator like American Crow would let you create a viable Grassland engine. So there's more combinations with Northern Mockingbird than you're thinking.

[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.

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.

Like I said, I like the Groovenstein plan and I wanted to discuss about an alternative plan. The Owl is a good bird for this start. You mentionned it's the kind of bird i'm searching for, yes you are right, not THE bird i'm looking for but I would be happy to have it as plan B+. But I feel like this slows my start by doing two inefficient moves. I don't think I'm running out of cards at the start of this game (considering my plan), but rather food, so the worm I keep seems really important to me.

About the Mockingbird, I understand the point. Lost a turn to take a Purple Martin with a very solid forest strategy already in progress does not seem to be that good. I would prefer to spend one more turn later do get the cards I miss to fit the forest plan.

[illy831]

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

Ah! Yes, thanks. Both the Barn & American Robin also cost just one food, too.

The tuck and draw is the ideal, and Frankjones already listed a few more of those, but egg layers score points too. Also, a Grassland food generator like American Crow would let you create a viable Grassland engine. So there's more combinations with Northern Mockingbird than you're thinking.

Oh, that is a good point with the crow. Given the bonus I still had half a dream of completing Forester anyway, so I was thinking of probably making use of the forest throughout the game. But I find Forester hard to complete anyway, usually.

So, is my fixation on the chimney swift suboptimal? I can't help but think that in the plans without it but with the mockingbird, you need to 1) play that second water bird, 2) draw for a cheap, nice second forest bird, 3) draw an effective meadow bird to pair with the mockingbird, and 4) gain the food for the forest and then the meadow bird, and then the mocking bird, which all sounds like a lot of turns to get going. While committing to an early cup nest bird whereas the swift aligns both of the first two EOR goals. As an opponent I would think that's potentially an easy 6 point advantage.

On the flip side, I also have experiences of drawing six birds and not getting anything I want and feeling very stuck. If a cheap food generator doesn't come...

With the swift, you can ping-pong between drawing 3 cards and gaining 2 food + owl hunt until you find a single nice meadow bird, or two. You wouldn't need to land a second forest bird first to help set up the grassland. If you end up with surplus cards/food this way, you can target birds that help convert them, like Canada Goose or Brewer's Blackbird, to set up a strong finish. I was thinking that was more flexible and risk averse, but maybe giving up the mockingbird's powers, you would still view it as riskier?

[Andrei3009]

I am very glad that I have received so many different replies.

Regarding the starting strategy: I usually prefer to play even not the best birds than to hope to find something good. But in this game, I did not take into account a very important factor - in order to play owl + mockingbird, it was necessary to make an inefficient move - to take one food, and if you leave the wheat and the rat, you can use useless cards to take the second food. If I didn't have to take only don's food (for example, if I left two birds - an owl and a mockingbird with three food and took mallard from the tray) I would have put the mockingbird in the forest anyway, because it would have been nice to develop the forest and then take wheat from it and go get maps (along the way getting points in the forest)

I didn't even consider keeping egret, because I already wanted to leave three other birds, but I don't really like the idea of keeping it, since I won't play it right away anyway, but only after I get and played the forest birds. By this point, I can find something better or get enough cards for half the game that I won't need a second wetland bird.

Laying eggs doesn't matter much to Mallard

It has always been interesting for me to lay eggs in this case. The answer may depend on the context, but both options look about the same, the only difference is the number of cards you get for the first wetland activation (2 or 3) and the importance of the one remaining egg.

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.

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 game plan.

You're right that it was worth playing owl first, then taking wheat and playing dove.

About mourning dove: having eggs in the forest, you can play just by getting and putting birds on a lot of points, this is not a very reliable strategy and I only do this in games with a low tempo or if you are very unlucky with half-dead birds. To be honest, I don't always get the pace of the game right, especially if i didn't focused enough. Mockingbird and purple Martinn didn't do that much in this game. They can be viewed as birds with 2 points each (which is very small for the 3rd round), allowing me to make 5-point moves at the end of the game and of course cycling the cards. By putting mockingbird in the forest, I could have 2.7 points per turn and 4-5 more food. By getting good cards and saving action by not playing (and drawing) Mockingbird and purple Martinn, I could get as much as I got for the egg spam at the end . And dove alone wasn't enough to save me from premature grasslands actions.

I would like to note that if I had made the right decisions from the very beginning (left the rat and wheat), and also played the dove correctly, then I could have gotten enough tempo for mockingbird and martin to really show themselves.

You did at least calculate what Baird's gets you to in round 4 compared to your other options at the time?

I did, it was close but still worse option

[Ceaseless]

You did at least calculate what Baird's gets you to in round 4 compared to your other options at the time?

I did, it was close but still worse option

What did you have them set as at the start of round 5? You didn't know Red-Cockaded Woodpecker was coming, so what was your potential score approximately looking like to you at the time?

[Andrei3009]

You did at least calculate what Baird's gets you to in round 4 compared to your other options at the time?

I did, it was close but still worse option

What did you have them set as at the start of round 5? You didn't know Red-Cockaded Woodpecker was coming, so what was your potential score approximately looking like to you at the time?

I was planning to play downey woodpecker from the tray, which would have earned one less point and a bonus card, but 1 more point due to the exchange of food for an egg.That would have been three points less. Now then i think about it, my risk wasn't worth it, I just had to throw food over the eggs and get guaranteed points, although my breaks didn't matter. In a closer game, it would be necessary to increase the chances of winning with and without risk

I don't remember how many points Baird's would have given, but definitely less because of the bonus card and eor goal.

[Ceaseless]

I did, it was close but still worse option

What did you have them set as at the start of round 5? You didn't know Red-Cockaded Woodpecker was coming, so what was your potential score approximately looking like to you at the time?

I was planning to play downey woodpecker from the tray, which would have earned one less point and a bonus card, but 1 more point due to the exchange of food for an egg.That would have been three points less. Now then i think about it, my risk wasn't worth it, I just had to throw food over the eggs and get guaranteed points, although my breaks didn't matter. In a closer game, it would be necessary to increase the chances of winning with and without risk

I don't remember how many points Baird's would have given, but definitely less because of the bonus card and eor goal.

I will list the two options by their value in points rather than sort out the total player scores.

Downey Woodpecker is a 3-point bird that loses 2 points for eggs to get into the Forest, adds 4 additional points from Viticulturalist, and nets 3 points from EOR. Therefore, it should net you 8 points to play it while reducing your food from 4 to 3. You have 4 turns of Grassland, which for 3 Grassland birds with 2 point generators is 5 points a round, so 5*4 is 20 points. You have 3 food that can be converted into 1 point apiece since you have 3+ Grassland turns with an odd number of birds. So 20+3+8=31 points from round 4.

Baird's Sparrow is a 3-point bird that loses 2 points for eggs to get into the Grassland. The act of playing it is worth 1 point. 4 turns of Grassland with 4 birds and 3 point generators is 7 points a round, so 7*4 is 28 points. There is enough egg space for the 5 eggs a turn.
If we modify it to 3 turns of Grassland it's 7+3 for 21 points, but we can use 1 turn to play the 8 point Woodpecker to get up to 29 points.

So it seems your calculations regarding Downey are correct. You not paying 1 food the first Grassland is fine since you have 3 food for 3 more, but the second you're giving up 1 point without gain, the extra food could only be used for something like Indigo Bunting, but you end up losing the points gained to food loss, so there's no benefit. You don't actually lose any real topdecks until you pay food the second time for Woodpecker or Cassin's Finch (I guess it's a match for Woodpecker, lol.) Though by paying rodent for your first payment you lose Spotted Owl, though it would be high risk to assume its bonus would have trumped the 4-point increase from Viticulturalist. Woodpecker only had a 2-point gain on Downy thanks to the 2-food gap for the Fruit costing Woodpecker points, and even that was only known for Woodpecker having a 3-point bonus.

I really underestimated those benefits to Viticulturalist and the Forest, skimming over Downy during the replay as a bad bird without doing the math on what those values added up to, especially for the cheap food.

[Madbranch]

Hello everyone!

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=789313829

Could you also maybe help me get better? I've read in the forums that getting two forest and one wetlands bird is great early on so I did this. And i think i was doing okay if not actually decent in early game. However i crumbled in mid and late game. Any tips on that? Or in general what I did wrong and what would've been better and why?

Thank you in advance!
MB

[Ceaseless]

Hello everyone!

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=789313829

Could you also maybe help me get better? I've read in the forums that getting two forest and one wetlands bird is great early on so I did this. And i think i was doing okay if not actually decent in early game. However i crumbled in mid and late game. Any tips on that? Or in general what I did wrong and what would've been better and why?

Thank you in advance!
MB

For starters I don't advise playing with powerful birds turned on. Once they come out anyone who doesn't have one loses, any there's not much they can do about it but hope for a miracle or that the player manages to misplay their winning hand.

The reason a player gets 2 Forest birds and 1 Wetland bird is to get their game set-up. I will note your hand is an exception because both of the birds you put in the Forest can make food just fine in the Grassland instead, and thus generate you points while doing it, many more than what the EOR 1 bonus for birds in Forest will get you. Anna's Hummingbirds comes at the price of giving your opponent free development but the Grassland boost puts you beyond that most of the time when combined with something like American Crow. Fortunately Anna's and Crow are both 1 food birds, so playing them in the Forest is still going to lead to a more than playable start, just not the great start you had.

Move 19 there's no reason to gain food with only one Forest bird before playing a second one if you have one available, which in this case was the American Crow. If you're going to commit to the Forest bit go all the way and gain 2 food a shot instead of 1, or 3 and 2 respectively if you still planned on using Hummingbird's effect, which is probably ok in a field where no one has a weaker Forest than you do.

Move 36 Common Raven was flipped, you should have taken it and the win. Instead one of your opponents did and that should have been the end of the game for the most part, but they're not even a 100 yet, so maybe they'll slip up or some other miracle will happen. They're not my focus in any case, so I won't dig into how they managed to lose this one.

Move 50, in light of Common Raven being in an opponent's possession, you should have taken Bronzed Cowbird when drawing cards. You're likely going to get an egg from it absurdly often, making it very high scoring and letting you avoid needing to manually lay eggs until you've really developed your Grassland.

Move 68 I don't see much point in drawing blind cards on the last turn of a round, given the tray is going to reset anyways and offer more options.

Move 105 when playing Heron and a Wetland bird I'd just play the Anhinga for 3 extra points even if it costs 2 more food. Harrier can be saved for the Grassland.

Move 126, if you were planning on playing Northern Cardinal it should have been played as soon as you could after drawing it, so that each Forest gain could get its benefits, given how often you were gaining food. Delaying playing it only costs you food.

Move 140 I doubt I'd get rid of Bushit, given it's one of your few Grassland Birds, not to mention a rare cavity nest in light of EOR 4, with your other one (Juniper) being pretty bad for a later game play. Don't forget to add 2 more points from Bird Counter bonus. You might even get a few lucks in given your hand size and Wetland capacity. It's not the Grassland bird I'd be looking for but at this stage you can't afford to be picky.

Move 165 the EOR 3 bonus is eggs in Wetland, so there's no reason to place an egg on a Forest bird like Cardinal. Mourning Dove already covers the slots for eggs that you'll be using up when paying.

You've ended up far too behind to do much of anything, though the best play in round 4 was probably something like playing Greater Roadrunner, your only real scorer, and Cedar Whitewing (Bird Counter Bonus, and you can even snatch a couple points with its tuck effect burning out your remaining useless cards). Black-Necked-Stilt is worth barely any points and drawing cards is far too late at this stage of the game with your cards. it's point scoring time, you can't burn turns not scoring as much as you can.

After you develop your Wetland enough to get your cards and your Forest enough to play them, you need to find a scoring plan. The easiest method is usually the Grassland with tis natural egg scoring ability. Getting birds in the Grassland to score more points per turn off of is a key mid to late game plan. Obviously if you have alternatives like a strong set of high scoring birds backed by the food to play them that might work too, but the point is that you need to look at how to get to scoring after you've developed.

[kostinen]

Hello everyone!

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=789313829

Could you also maybe help me get better? I've read in the forums that getting two forest and one wetlands bird is great early on so I did this. And i think i was doing okay if not actually decent in early game. However i crumbled in mid and late game. Any tips on that? Or in general what I did wrong and what would've been better and why?

Thank you in advance!
MB

I'm replaying this game as I go, without reading the existing comments so as not to be influenced by it

The beginning is fairly clear to me. I'm keeping the American Crow, Anna's Hummingbird & American Coot, two random food items, and Bird Counter. Clearly, this starting set is a great opportunity to build a self-sufficient grassland in terms of food. I don't plan on taking food from the forest in this game.

My game plan is therefore to build a complete grassland as quickly as possible, with birds that have activation powers (tucking birds are the best) and place a few other birds elsewhere that help:
- increase the total egg capacity
- are useful for objectives
- provide points (bonus cards?)
I'm considering completely ignoring the first EOR goal (except for opportunities, with passive powers like vultures, etc.) to get as close to a complete grassland as quickly as possible.
I'd potentially like to place a second bird quickly in the wetlands, especially if it's cheap. In any case, I'll want to play a second one for the EOR goal in round 3.

Turns 1-3: I build the first bricks of my food-generating grassland.
- Anna's Hummingbird in grassland
- Lay 2 eggs, activate Anna's Hummingbird, taking the worm if possible, so as to leave less desirable options for the others. I know that I can theoretically gain 2 food on my next turn, but I want to have my food as soon as possible so I can play my birds as quickly as possible.
- Play American Crow in grassland

Turns 4-5: Play the American Crow

Turns 6+: Draw a card (spend an egg for an additional card). My priority is to keep anything that enhances grassland activation, then a second wetland bird, and finally anything that's good for EOR goals and/or earns points.

Note: There's an alternative plan where I take the Greater Prairie-Chicken in the first round. The idea is to get a good bird for the second EOR goal, one with a high egg-laying capacity. The downside is that it lacks activation power and therefore "pollutes" the grassland. It's still a very good option, I think.

_______

Now I'm looking at the rest of the game.

Turn 1
Okay, Greater Prairie-Chicken is taken. I'm somewhat relieved to have eliminated the dilemma. Anna's Hummingbird in the forest doesn't seem like the best choice. It's already a place where you can gain food, and in my opinion, it's always good to be able to do several things from one area. For example, gaining eggs and food in the forest, gaining birds and food in the wetland, etc. This often saves time and allows for more precise action sequences. Above all, it's very difficult to build multiple strong areas, so building one and playing it as many times as possible is preferable. Making this area multi-purpose (in my strategy: grassland, gaining eggs and food) allows you to ignore weak areas and maximize your gains.

Turn 4
Here, you have to take the common raven instantly. It's an incredibly powerful bird; it allows you to ignore the forest by simply placing it in grassland.

And playing American Crow in the forest seems even less effective than Hummingbird, given that its ability requires an egg to activate. The good news is that in grassland, the eggs are "already there," but in the forest, it's more complicated.


I stopped the review after turn 5, but basically, what worries me about the current setup is that while there's potential to gain food, there's clearly a lack of eggs to make things run smoothly. A lot of eggs will be needed to make that food worthwhile. Some eggs will need to be discarded in wetlands to quickly draw the right birds (playing a second bird becomes urgent to save some eggs). Not to mention the EOR goals, which require a strong ability to lay eggs.

The ideal solution for the future would be to introduce a bird that allows for passive egg laying (Bronzed Cowbrid is here), especially with 3 players. A bird that gathers eggs in the forest would be good. Or even one that lays eggs from the grasslands so that every activation is beneficial.