People from "Antarctica"

[Jellby]

From now on, every cheater will simply choose United States or China as their country, to make them look less suspicious.

[katmk]

I've found this thread weirdly fascinating and love the investigative work people have put into this. However, I think that the idea that someone saying they're from 'Antartica' automatically means they have bad intentions, is risky. I can think of multiple valid reasons why someone might change their country flag.

Maybe they don't agree with political decisions their own country has made, especially given how often people on these forums say they don't think they should have to play with X or Y country, or have said seeing Z flag upsets them.

Maybe they don't like their country options - for example, there are plenty of people in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, who want their nation to be independent and won't use the flag of the UK.

In turn perhaps these people don't want to claim that they're from a more realistic country, because that feels like lying. Using Antarctica can be intended to indicate that they don't want to be judged on the basis of their nation.

Maybe it's just a joke!

[FDHenneberg]

I've found this thread weirdly fascinating and love the investigative work people have put into this.

[…]

Maybe it's just a joke!

While you raise a very important point in respect to choosing the “wrong” flag, I think the reason people have put some work into this isn’t the flag, but a fact-based feeling that a player opens accounts, gets removed from the platform for bullying others, then opens an account again, bullying again, and so on. Not sure if there’s anything that can be done about that, and not even sure it’s the case, I just wanted to stress that point. As for “Antarctica alone isn’t a problem “, I totally agree with you.

[katmk]

Oh, I know and I think in the case of this specific player, the actions merited a closer look.

Given the title and opening post, I just didn't want the takeaway to be "Antarctica flag = Bad motivations"

[Andrei3009]

I think Antarctica is useful for those people who don't want to show their real country. Of course, you can choose something else instead of Antarctica, but then there are chances that the players of that country will think that from their country.

The fact that your opponent behaved offensively is bad, but how does this relate to cheating? To even begin to suspect a person of cheating, you need something extraordinary to happen for a long time, and even then, it will only be a reason to think about it. Two games of wingspan mean absolutely nothing. Even i in my 150 game had 5-7 games lucky (and unlucky) streaks

[FrankJones]

I misremembered about the first round goal in this game. My apologies on that.

People usually don't make posts accusing an opponent of cheating unless they lose. You lost these two games, so anything "lucky" by your opponent can seem like cheating to you.

In the 2 games you posted, you could have won. But you're playing sub-optimally. Where is your forest plan? In the other game, you had a hummingbird in your starting hand, and yet you took TWO empty "gain food" actions, resulting in a terribly inefficient first round. Part of this was unnecessarily keeping almost your entire starting hand, leaving you with no chance of playing those cards anytime soon.

In the second game, yes, as noted, you did not lose the first round goal. You also again ignored your forest. Granted, you somewhat luckily drew a random forest bird that only costs 1 food, but that still meant you had to do a second empty "Gain food" action.

The most frustrating part of this is that while you were doing this, you ignored the American Coot in the tray, which your opponent grabbed immediately.

Are you really writing a "cheating" accusation post, on the basis that your opponent is allegedly hacking the game to win the end round goals, when you completely ignored a useful bird that is also great for the R3 and R4 goal? I mean, it's not as though the American Coot popped into the tray on your opponent's turn. It was there on YOUR turn, for YOUR taking.

In the two games you posted, you had a viable or even strong bird for both the water and forest in your starting hand, and yet your complaining that the card dealing was unfair? Lately I've had quite a few games where I couldn't even get a playable bird in both habitats.

(And none of those opponents were from antarctica. )

If you sharpen your play, you'll win these games and then you likely will suddenly stop noticing "lucky" streaks in which your opponent does better in the end-round goals.

[FrankJones]

Round 2 of that second game you posited, your opponent goes first and the bird tray puts pout 3 birds that are ... not all that helpful.

The black-bellied whistling duck is there, but if your opponent wants to take that weak bird to battle for one of the 3 remaining end-round goals, so be it. If you had the American Coot, it still wouldn't put him in the lead.

Okay, he ignores that bird, and so do you. Instead, you gain food, passing up the opportunity to discard a card for extra food, which you very much need. Now you have a rat and a grain, which is going to do ... what, exactly?

What's the deal with the Brown Pelican? This bird is difficult to play, requiring two fish, and then it just gives you 3 more fish, when you have no fish target in your hand. I would have long ago discarded that bird for a tuck and draw, or for a food.

What I'm seeing in your two games is a lack of a plan and some very inefficient moves.

Next turn you do another inefficient gain food move. None of your birds eat grain.
The general approach is Lay eggs, draw cards using an egg for an extra card, then gain food, using a junk card for an extra food. In that sense, you are essentially trading an egg for a food, which is a great play, especially since it helps you cycle the bird feeder more often, which you very much need. You're obviously trying to get 2 rats for your owl, and a rat is not guaranteed when you reroll (as seen when your reroll did not provide a second rat).

The cards in your hand, which you seem unhappy about (since you are implying your opponent was using deck manipulation to get better cards), are the cards you chose to draw/keep.

Following those two inefficient gain food actions, THEN you did the "lay eggs draw cards discard egg for card" sequence, and now you have 5 mediocre cards and less food than you could have had.

Following that, you moved the migratory bird to the ... wetland? So you could draw random cards because there is nothing good in the tray? Why? You could have used your turn 7 to gain 2 food with the migratory bird there. Or you could have just laid eggs again. You want to draw cards on your first turn of round 3 when you have priority on the 3 new birds.

First turn R3, you draw cards, as expected. Hey, look! THREE birds with star nests, two of which are pretty good birds, and you got to take them all. I thought this was supposed to be an illustration of the deck being rigged AGAINST you, not FOR you.

The Magpie was overkill. You are desperately short on food and eggs (because of the inefficiency of the first two rounds), and your opponent does not have a predator. Had you drawn a random card, maybe you get the Bald Eagle or the great Egret, a fish target for the 3 fish you'll receive when you play the Brown Pelican. If you ever manage to play the Brown Pelican. You already are holding 4 or 5 birds that you've indicated a desire to play by drawing them from the tray and/or holding them instead of using them for food or tuck and draw. That was the time to draw a random card and hope for a big one, not a time to add the magpie to your hand.

Okay, what's next. Paying 4 hard-earned grain to pay for a 2-food mediocre bird that gives you 3 fish which you cannot use unless you draw birds again. I mean, yeah, Gret Egret and then Black Tern seems cool, but it's a bit late, and you don't even have the eggs. You could have been playing birds and laying eggs and battling for the end-round goal.

Then you draw the bald eagle. I'm confused. After you play the egret and the Tern, what do you need the Eagle for? Or, are you planning Egret-Eagle? For which you still don't have the food. And which may or may not give you fish, which you have little use for anyway.

And after all that, YOU WON the R3 goal! And you are close to hitting your bonus card, and you're only down 5 points. Note that if you hadn't taken the Eagle, you would have had the whooping crane, I think, setting up a devastating Egret-Crane play.

I really am baffled as to what this game replay was supposed to indicate.

[FrankJones]

Wait, am I seeing this right? After all that, you conceded as the final score was about to be displayed and when there were no more actions to take? After you gained 10 points on your final turn (Should have been 11, but you didn't cache the grain for some reason).

If Your opponent's bonus cards were not good, you could have won.

[BarnardsStar]

Wait, am I seeing this right? After all that, you conceded as the final score was about to be displayed and when there were no more actions to take? After you gained 10 points on your final turn (Should have been 11, but you didn't cache the grain for some reason).

If Your opponent's bonus cards were not good, you could have won.

I’ve gone and looked at the last turn of the game viewed from both players’ perspectives and tallied up their points and I am pretty sure it would have been a 77-77 tie, had Archisian not conceded on the last freakin’ turn of the game. (I could be wrong about the exact score but it was close enough that I certainly wouldn’t concede. (But then I wouldn’t concede on the last turn regardless, but that’s another conversation for another time!))

[nik592]

Wow.

Nice analysis (truly, I really enjoyed reading that, just to see a strong player's take on a Wingspan game).