Deer seem too strong in 2 Player

[Cos-]

I agree and in fact feel that deer are so strong they are the all-encompassing dominant strategy, to the point where everything else is a waste of time. Ideally on your turn, you should only be taking actions that are playing deer, playing trees only when you need room for more deer, playing cards to free up hand space to make room for deer, and drawing cards from the deck to find deer (or raccoons for greater odds). This isn't even an oversimplification- I would imagine some people are reading this saying:

Since seeing this post, I decided to try this in several games: Just keep drawing until I find some deer and wolves, focus on playing deer and wolves, draw more when I don't have more of those. Although I won one game like that, I also lost several. In the meantime, I won four games by pursuing hares and foxes instead. It seems to me that I should judge based on starting hand and early draws - hold on to any hares, deer, foxes, and wolves that I get early on, and if by turn 4 or 5 I don't have a lot of deer but do have a few fox/hare cards, just focus on that instead. In particular, with a silver fir - play all the hares on the silver fir for an extra two points per hare.

[NavigatorLana]

I have to agree. I've been playing quite a few games. If you get against someone with deer? Forget it. Game is done. Not just by a little, but easily doubled or tripled. The second multiple deer pop up, it's like, forget it. I might as well concede. (I don't, but it is tempting). I am looking forward to the physical copy of the game, which I already preordered, so I can play with my spouse and family where we can adjust the rules somehow... but on here.. man... it's just sooo imbalanced with the deer/wolves. I have tried all kinds of different ways to combat the deer, and there just seems to be absolutely nothing. I've played where I've dominated with deer/wolves, and just annihilated the opponent, and I've played where I got *one deer* the entire game, and the opponent got all deer, and you are just absolutely wrecked in the process. There needs to be some sort of way to remove so many deer/wolves in a 2 player game, or some way to knock down the amount of points you can get on deer/wolves.

Publisher! I hope you're reading! There are *a lot* of people with this same complaint.

[Cos-]

My experience so far has been different. Now that I've played quite a few 2-player games, and won more than half of them, I see that I've won with deer & wolves less than 1/4 of the time. I've had more wins with tree-focused decks - which usually include a few red deer, but only 2 or 3 and no wolves. A red deer in a tree-focused game is like a less-good version of a sycamore. Even stronger strategies for me, scoring much higher, have been hares & foxes, and frogs & ferns. Those depend on luck: do I get a few of the right cards early enough in the game to commit to one of those strategies. But if I do, it seems to easily beat players who focus on deer & wolves. And I've tried the lots-of-birds strategy a couple of times and had it work very well. I have _not_ found that deer & wolves dominates most games.

[ArcticLancer]

Just going to copy and paste my reply from the BGG thread that covers the exact same question:

I plan to make another thread about this that speaks to the entire card pool and not just these couple of cards, but my feelings have evolved somewhat across my continued time with the game.
Unlike Lana I don't believe these cards are broken. Forest Shuffle really doesn't have any single card that auto-wins games, and due to the numerous ways that cards are drawn and flipped and the low-ish max hand size, not to mention how many cards are removed before play starts, there are too many ways cards can wind up in either players' hands or out of the game entirely. None of these cards win the game if they exist alone.

Now that said, I do think that Deer and Wolves warp the power level of the game. The main reason for this is that all of these cards are capable of generating a lot of points, and in addition to that every one is them offers among the best optimizations in the game. This is to say that Red Deer allow you to play several cards for one play and even at no cost to boot (you save so many cards and get so much tempo from this single card play), Roe Deer are fantastic targets for Red Deer (because they have the weakest bonus effect), and the last deer whose name I currently forget gets to cycle 2 cards as part of play. This makes them effective at trying to find other key cards and more deer to score it's points. Then on top of this, wolves are the second most effective card draw in the game, allowing you to continue to find more deer and wolves. So what you wind up with are a set of cards that are generally both the best points scoring cards in the game and have built-in consistency that most other cards types lack (since it is very rare for a card to draw multiple cards when played).

My original advice stands: both players need to be looking for these cards because they're good. Leila is right that after that the game is generally decided on what your means of generating points are OTHER than deer and wolves.
Anyway, tying this to the rest of the game: I too would like to see more cards feel valuable and good to draw.

Overall I have similar feelings to bannedrewamile, insofar as this being the "necessary way to play the game well" but there is still more game here than that. Anybody who thinks this is "solved" is being silly because it's simply not that kind of game. Similarly, there are many small optimizations you can make in your play, and frankly a lot of people who play Forest Shuffled will be bad at that. The main reason I think this strategy seems so powerful even to bad players is because of the internal consistency. These cards are among the best at finding others of their core strategy, where basically nothing else in the game comes close.

[Leander Quest]

I had 3 lynx cards and one deer and did not get points at all. Is this a bug or do you only get points for the male deer with antlers? The German text is "Reh"...and I thought the hoof icon or the antler icon was meant...so I kept playing lynx cards, but did not get any points at all.

[Jedit]

This game absolutely sucks at 2 player, barely passable at 3 and great at 4. DEER DEER DEER. The scoring needs major revision, the creator is unwilling to acknowledge the problem. Without a fix this game will flare up and then burn out quickly. Any game with only one strategy KILLS the game ever time. butterflies need scoring like the green cards in 7 wonders to make them viable. bugs another worthless. Game is Birds on top, amphibs on bottom and deer on sides with wolves. The strategy of just playing trees is playing by NOT playing. Game NEEDS #1 redesign, #2 new rules, #3 more animal variety/viability.

[640er]

Unfortunatly I have to agree that it is pretty imbalanced. Too bad as the game mechanic itself is fun to play and the artwork is top notch. But running for the same 3,4 cards every game gets boring pretty quickly

[DoctorFianchetto]

I'm joining the crowd. I played some 3-player games today and I had the same experience as 2-player. An arms race for Deers and Wolves and, to a slightly lesser extent, Tree Ferns and Amphibians. Whoever got the most of those cards won. Luck of the draw. It does diminish the enjoyment of a great game concept and tranquil playing experience.

[Andrewsmile]

I was actually somewhat wrong about this game after playing 3 player, I assumed it would be even more luck based in 3 player vs 2 player similar to a game called villagers where 2 player is the most competitive, but to my surprise I was able to get elite on the first day in just a few hours with a 90% winrate. Making a mistake is much more punishing since you get fewer actions and the deck churns through quicker. Playing the endgame and weighting probability of game end feels more important in 3 player since there are fewer opportunities for one player to run away with it. Just my opinion, but I was able to maintain a 90% winrate from bronze to elite. I think people are minimizing the importance of minimizing opponents chances at hitting big by playing the clearing and playing trees strategically

[Leander Quest]

Played about 8 games against a friend and always lost (with butterflies etc.)
Now we played a 3-player game, I went for wolves and deer for the first time (friends had not used this strategy in all previous games) and I won...so wolves and deer really seem to be OP.