Game analysis (meaning, I'm looking for feedback)

[FrankJones]

Greetings,

A very tight game, final score was within 2 points:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=822056848

I did not like my starting hand. But then I fell into some good cards. I ended up one egg short of winning (one more egg means I tie the 4th round goal instead of losing it).

I also ended up with several unused cards. Thus, I am nearly certain I misplayed this game. I haven't reviewed it yet move by move, so I figured I would offer it here for analysis / review.

A starting hand with Yellow-Rumped in the opening looks like a strong start to me. With Red-Shouldered Hawk in the tray, you have Forest bird #2, Anatomist bird #2, and a passable scoring support play with the already strong Rumped tuck and draw. You can keep Rodent for the Hawk, Invertebrate/Seed hold as generic options for Yellow. There's a decent case for not even needing to have the third food, and instead only keeping 2 so you have 3 cards in your opening hand, keeping in mind the tuck and draw filtering your Forest will have. Normally going second makes one hesitate to assume the trayed bird will be yours, but Mallard should ensure your opponent's draw. I suppose if it didn't, then Mallard is yours instead.

Since you ended up playing that differently, you lacked a second Forest option for a bit, and I'm surprised you got rid of Chimney Swift, which is an acceptable card for End of Rounds and serving as your second Forest bird, among other things. You then threw away Screech Owl, another second Forest bird option.

Your blind draws in round 3 (third cube, bringing you down to 3 cubes), didn't seem needed, you had fodder to filter through with Rump still. Seemed like a decent time to play Crested since it fits your bonus goals and will help gain more food back. I also see no reason to play Black Necked when you did, Crested is much better since it would help get the food back (between its effect and being able to toss a bird for another food), including if you wanted to play Black Necked later. I'm not even sure you want to, you probably have other outlets to fill your bonuses and aren't limited to going for them both yet, you had time to work out what you'd need down the line. The usage of Crow for your food by Grasslanding instead of your Forest, which nets 2 extra food in exchange for 1 less point (and given the plan to get a third Grassland bird, I could see some of that being reconverted.)

This analysis is far too kind. I played horribly and made countless errors.

My own analysis to follow in the next post:

[FrankJones]

Okay, my thoughts:

I like the Yellow-rumped Warbler in my starting hand. Tuck and draw birds are strong, especially outside the wetland. One of the worst scenarios is needing one card late game, but not being able to get that card without taking a non-scoring or low-scoring wetland activation. I do sometimes run into trouble because I always want to discard a card for food until I have my second forest bird, but I definitely do not want to skip a tuck and draw.

This means I ideally want to have 2 discardable birds when I gain food, until I get my second forest bird. But that’s tough to do because it’s difficult to gain cards without a brown powered card-getter in the wetland and without a second wetland bird. And without a bird in the grassland that can help me get eggs to discard for cards.

So, I’m not thrilled with my water bird, though 6 points plus a bonus card (early, when it is more valuable) and an anatomist card is a very good start, I think. In fact, my two keepers already give me the low bonus on my starting bonus card. Nice.

Opponent cold draws the Mallard. Of course. But it gets replaced by the Purple Martin. Excellent. That will help with the R2 goal. Maybe going wetland with the Purple Martin was a mistake, since it is much more powerful in the grassland.

Red Shouldered-hawk is a good bird for my second forest bird. And it’s a 3rd anatomist bird. High success rate on its hunting power.

So, let’s see what I did. I cold-drew the Purple Martin. Seemingly setting myself up to play it and the Warbler as my first two birds, and then worry about getting a second forest bird and food for my roseate spoonbill later?

Yeah, discarding the Chimney Swift was a mistake. Star nest helps with two goals, and I can move it around to support my wetland and forest, both of which need help. And there are worms in the feeder. Bad play. That’s my old prejudice still seeping in, playing 5-player with all expansions, where those migratory birds are less important.

I did not expect my opponent to take the red-shouldered haw. But I ended up with the cooper’s Hawk. I guess I was keeping the greater prairie chicken for the R3 goal, but the Chimney Swift would have accomplished that same thing while giving me more help overall.

I throw the hawk and get the screech owl. Helpful for the R2 goal, but weak power. Then I throw it away for food, still holding the greater prairie chicken. Questionable at best.

Perhaps I should have grabbed the sandhill crane. My opponent had shown the crow, and didn’t take the crane right away, giving me a chance to nab it.

Seems I was planning the entire time to win the R1 goal, but meanwhile my lack of a second forest bird is hurting me.

Ecologist is a nice draw for my bonus card.

My second wetland action R2 was nice. Fish crow. Painted whitestart, if I want to get an immediate second forest bird with a ground nest so I can then draw two food to play my fish crow. Great crested flycatcher would be nice too; 5 points and an anatomist card. But, there is no cherry. I could have gained 2 food, throwing and trading the nuthatch and the whitestart, then play the fish crow. Maybe that would have been better.

This is not an efficient game for me this far. 3 turns left in round 2, with an upcoming goal I am well positioned for, and I still have no grassland bird. And the one I intend to play will cost me an egg every time I lay eggs.
House Wren was very lucky. Now I can play that and the fish crow in one turn, and then lay 3 eggs. Helps with my ecologist also.

My final turn R2 is interesting. I lad 3 eggs and skipped the fish crow (generally a terrible idea). I didn’t want to give up the R2 goal. But my opponent did not use his own crow for a grain, indicating he was not planning to lay eggs. Now, if I had used my crow, perhaps my opponent delays the northern mockingbird and lays eggs instead. It would have been odd to pass up those 3 points just to rush the mockingbird if I had been sitting there with only 2 eggs in the cavity nests.

Mockingbird in the forest was interesting. With the Crow, I think I’m going grassland there.

Start of R3, the Barn Swallow is there. Ugggh. So, start of R1 was the Mallard, start of R3 was the Barn Swallow, and at the start of R2 when I went first, there was nothing useful in the tray. Oh well.

Meanwhile, my opponent was 5 for 5 on predator kills.

Okay, R3 turn 3, yeah, I draw cards. WHYYYYY did I do that?? I have the great crested flycatcher and two cards I dislike. I can play the flycatcher, then gain food, getting 4 food and fucking and drawing and hoping for a good draw.

Here is where my plays went from bad to worse. I have 3 anatomist birds, so I definitely want to play 2 of them. I want to get 3 birds in each habitat for ecologist. But the red-headed woodpecker is pretty terrible. In hindsight, I wish I had grabbed the common grackle earlier, especially if I planned to draw so many cards. That would have converted my junk cards into 2 points, one of those points being an extra egg, crucial for the R4 goal.

Now I play the black necked stilt, apparently deciding I am going with that and the red-headed woodpecker for my anatomist, and the prothonotary warbler in the forest to get 7 and 6 points on my bonus cards. Maybe I was hoping to blind draw a better 3rd grassland bird? Seems that the better arrangement would have been flycatcher forest, woodpecker grassland, warbler wetland.

Yes, I agree, this was a bad play. Play the crested flycatcher, gain 4 food and do a tuck and draw, gaining a new card while scoring a point instead of the black-necked stilt.

Instead, I now need to inefficiently gain food with my crow, missing out on activations of the woodpecker. WHAT AM I DOING !???
R3 final turn I lay eggs AGAIN? What am I doing? Play the crested flycatcher already !!! I have cost myself two activations of the woodpecker already.

That 3rd round was a disaster of terrible plays.

Oh. My plan is to play the woodpecker, and then lay eggs 3 times and then play the warbler as my final play for 8 points minus an egg +2 points for ecologist. So, I am going to end up not playing the great crested flycatcher. This is a train wreck.

And my opponent gains food (I guess I wasn’t expecting that) and leaves me no grain. Now I gain food from the forest, still without a 3rd forest bird. Terrible.

And then I end up skipping the crow power again. This was some terribly inefficient food acquisition in this game. And AGAIN there is no grain in the feeder.

Questionable final sequence by my opponent – discards the cherry for egg, tucks a grain for 2 points, and still ends up with 2 fish for the Pelican bird. But, delaying the acquisition of that bird (I certainly hadn’t shown any inclination to draw it from the tray) would have been better, I think, because then the egg lay action could have gained one more tuck and draw and one more use of the crow/crane, saving the Pelican for the final play and ending efficiently with no extra cards or food.

And then I have to take a terrible 3-point final turn. So, I skipped my fish crow 3 times, had to skip the woodpecker twice at least (not counting the extra times I could have tried to use it had I played it sooner), and ended up one food short of being able to trade it for a 12th egg, which would have won the game despite all these stupid errors I made.

So, bad luck:
1) Opponent got two very good birds when goi first R1 and R3. I did not.
2) Opponent’s predators succeeded 9 times out of 11.

But, I had some good luck too at times, and I had the cards to win and just made a lot of bad plays.
I played poorly, and it cost me. I could have and should have won. No excuses.

[illy831]

With the anatomist, I would have been tempted to keep that Yellow-Billed Cuckoo too at the start. You don't know yet if you can get either a fast wetland or a fast second forest bird, so you might even have to grab food to play that early. By default, you play it later and it lays eggs on Warbler while helping complete Anatomist.

Since you don't have a fast wetland bird, I agree with Purple Martin (that's lucky!) and think putting it in wetland is a must. I would have also cold drawn the hawk to be a fast second forest bird while helping anatomist. It's also a solid hunter. I think those synergies made it too risky to leave until your martin was developed, and it resulted in your opponent grabbing first.

After that I agree that Chimney Swift should have been kept. The annoying thing about the Warbler at the start is you may need to bypass its power sometimes.

If you hadn't gotten access to the Martin or another playable wetland bird right away, I think the play is to grab the hawk, get two forest birds, and start gaining food for the Spoonbill. It'd also be tempting to grab the Night Heron for its high points, food exchange ability, and it would finish your Anatomist. If you can get rolling with Warbler, Hawk, Cuckoo in the forest and Spoonbill and Heron in the wetland, that's not a bad setup and you can be pretty relaxed about your draws (being done with your first bonus, having five birds down already, a good food engine, and the tucking forest bird).

For the later game I've only read your analysis and it does sound like a mess; a lot of under-utilized brown powers. If you were starting to have extra cards, Grackle sounds like a strong way to finish. The unnecessary draw was probably a killer, and it sounds like having anatomist not resolved earlier was a distracting factor.

[illy831]

I didn’t get that far but I wonder by the way if fish crow was a bit of a waste (except to deny it to your opponent) given how good your food engine was by the end of it.

[FrankJones]

Agreed on all points.

I'm nearly certain I was deep into the bourbon while playing that game, but that's no excuse. That's one of the worst games I've ever played, and I consider myself to be a 500-level player, and that game I played like a 200. It was brutal for me to watch the replay. It's incredible I only lost by 2. I should have gotten slaughtered with all those terrible plays. I was bailed out by a couple of lucky card draws, but then, yeah, that third round was just atrocious and baffling. Complete self-immolation.