Eagles in arena play

[Andrei3009]

I'm not an expert player, but I would like to say that I welcome the discussion about eagles. At least it should be considered to have the option of removing eagles, in the same manner as the "remove powerful birds" option in Wingspan. I have in no way done any thorough statistical or mathematical analysis, but I know how I feel when an eagle shows up on the display: I have to get hold of it. Even worse is it when I get it in my hand in the initial draw. Then I have to hold on to it through the whole game. And if I don't have got an eagle, I keep open a space for the aviary as long as possible in case an eagle shows up and creates a eucatastrophy. I'm sure it's because I'm a bit simple-minded, and haven't bothered to evolve a more advanced tactical understanding, but I have worked my way up to 345 ELO at this point. And I don't always feel that I deserve it.

Now for the arguments for removing only the eagles. I really don't think the sun bear is comparably strong, because you only have the option of doing the association action afterwards. It only demands a standard size 2, but it also demands Asia zoo, which you don't necessarily have and which may be hard to get if you even have the option of getting more zoos at that point. The eagles you may put in an aviary, and if you put one or two other large birds in there as well, you can get a lot of points on quite small space and relatively cheap. And you also have the option of using a standard 4 or 5 enclosure, only demanding water or rock. Compared to other point bomb animals, like the elephants the eagles in themselves are relatively cheap. You may well be able to use the determination ability for another animal action, adding the points from those, in a way, to the eagle's value.

At least my humble opinion is that, given the low price and low requirements of the eagles, I would welcome the option of taking them out of the game.

I started playing not so long ago and settle on my thought about the game, but I agree with wertmark.

It seems to me that you are too attached to the eagles, no one forces you to keep it in your hand or take it from the tray, there are often higher priority cards, for example, matching release projects and generally cards suitable for current projects. They also take up space in the hand, which could be annoying without hand size university.

Most likely, I didn't just get into the right situations, but I don't really understand the benefits aviary in most games, and I certainly won't build it if I don't have anything to play there. An aviary for the sake of one eagle is just a 5-size aviary of a different shape, requiring upgraded bild.

As for the sun bear, as wertmark noted, any small animals have a significant advantage, since you usually have free size two enclosures, and for the rest of the animals you need to build ones, which takes whole turn if you haven't taken care of it in advance.
An additional action association is almost the same as just an additional action, since in most cases you end the game with animals + a project

Sun bear does have a more complex requirement, but it is satisfied quite often, and sun bear is one of the main reasons why I take the Asian partner zoo by default. I think non needing to build a enclosure more them compensates need to have asia partner zoo

[yazavats]

I'm not an expert player, but I would like to say that I welcome the discussion about eagles. At least it should be considered to have the option of removing eagles, in the same manner as the "remove powerful birds" option in Wingspan.

A common denominator for these eagle discussions is that they're usually initiated by less experienced players who consider eagles OP and call for their exclusion which is then rebutted by more experienced players. Eagles, due to determination, are indeed strong cards in a vacuum, and you would not rate all cards equally, so there's no disputing that. How strong they actually are is contextual, dependant on synergy and game plan. The comment I'm responding to sort of highlights the overcommitment to eagles from less experienced players that can sometimes be as much to their detriment as it sometimes is to their benefit. It's not a must keep or a must snap if there are cards that better shape or fit your game plan. It's not a must upgrade build, must build aviary if you're doing it for an eagle alone. It's not a cost effective point bomb animal by itself, it's the potential chaining action that makes it such. The most common idea for an eagle is a strong finish, but first you must get to the finish line.

[Ringbearer79]

Discussing the Eagles is perfectly fine, but the odds of having an option getting them removed is 0%. As a reminder: BGA only allows official variants and I highly doubt the developers are interested in removing certain animals from the game.

[FDHenneberg]

Discussing the Eagles is perfectly fine, but the odds of having an option getting them removed is 0%. As a reminder: BGA only allows official variants and I highly doubt the developers are interested in removing certain animals from the game.

Exactly, most designers are reluctant to change things in their games, and I can absolutely see why. If more or less all competitive expert players agree on a game being broken, you’ve got a chance for something to be changed, see the Power 4 in Wingspan (I’m not even sure every designer would have done that, as there are cases in which stronger imbalances than Raven/Killgull didn’t lead to a change). It’s also a bit like opening Pandora’s box, in Wingspan, the Wood Duck was next, and now (some) competitive players ask for removing the weakest bird cards. For eagles in AN, all of this is very obviously not the case, quite the contrary, as has been explained way better than I could in this thread.