pahakuukkeli wrote: ↑24 February 2026, 09:35
The way I think of the power rankings in Harmonies is mostly about "How much I want to use an early pick to a particular animal with the intention of planning my board around its completion?".
This is how I see it as well. I think of the "strong" cards as the ones I feel comfortable starting with and basing my strategy on. With that said, that definition of "strong" is somewhat arbitrary, so I wanted to say that given the right circumstances most cards can be op in their own right.
pahakuukkeli wrote: ↑24 February 2026, 09:35
In that regard, I consider Kingfisher bad. It's not an animal I want to rely on from the beginning. It can be a good late pick for a cube (or even two), but the games where it's pickable early on are extremely rare.
It is rare but there's games where I picked it on my first or second turn because I planned for the Alligator combo (taking into account that the other player is unlikely to pick those cards), or because I was planning for a long river that fits the pattern.
I consider the card secretly OP in the 4 players games I play on side B, because it fits the way the water is arranged on that map and, more importantly, because the other players are unlikely to pick the card. In multiplayer games, you are generally more focused on your own game than on denying a good card to your opponents. So this means that you can plan for a board that makes good use of Kingfisher while also delaying picking the card, going first for the cards that other players are more likely to be battling for.
It can seem a bit backwards because it's essentially saying "the card is good because most of the time it is bad", but in effect making use of that can give you an advantage in building a better board than your opponents.
pahakuukkeli wrote: ↑24 February 2026, 09:35
About Penguin and rivers, I may be a slight anomaly among the high level players when it comes to water. My water scoring is a lot lower than most other top players (only 9.52 average while most others are 12+). I've come to a conclusion (which may be correct or not) that often you lose more points from animals than you gain by pushing your river length. It's possible (even likely) that my enthusiasm towards Penguin is related to my personal play style.
That's interesting data (I've been wanting to get premium for a while, but I'm not happy with some of the recent decisions of the site).
I'm of a similar view on water, I regularly have games where I have close to no water points because I'm focused more on my overall game plan, and sometimes a river doesn't fit into that. I avoid picking water for its own sake.
I agree that if you aren't going to have a substantial river anyway, then capitalizing on the Penguin points is good. If on the other hand you already have a long river that you can mostly fill with animals, it's generally going to be more beneficial to keep exploiting those points than to cut your river with those greys. You are losing 4 water points, so if you place say two greys, that's in effect 8 points you are earning from the two greys, which is okay but maybe not as good as how you could have used those two tiles otherwise.
