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kostinen wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 22:43 I mentionned you were aware about social birds "FrankJones, you mentioned that there are 5 cards that allow you to gain food from outside the forest. That's not exactly true (you said so yourself)"
Maybe my english is sometimes bad, sorry for this !

Yeah I all agree with you about the previous messages. That was ironic that I was, kind of, agree. I took this opportunity to explain why because I thought it would be interesting. Maybe not the good timing

No worries

My sentence construction was a bit awkward.

And I should have elaborated by explaining why I was separating the social food-giving birds from the non social ones. My apologies for the confusion.

On the subject - I haven't seen the Belted Kingfisher or Eastern Kingbird in a while. (I do like those birds) I seem to be struggling for food every game.

I agree you about the vultures - (Ceaseless got me to recognize their value in the BGA format where cards are scarce and a zer0-food bird can help ethe early game tempo). And they can block opponents from choosing to use their hunting powers.

I even kept the magpie in my last game - 2 of any food, easy to play, star nest (two of the goals involved nests), and a "just in case" my opponent decides to start playing predators (Never know when an opponent might have rodentologist or Falconer.)

Once I realized it did not fit my plan, I dumped it for a food (or maybe used it for a Tern discard, I forget which).

kostinen wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 22:50

FrankJones wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 22:25 The other 3 are a bit dicey, because I don't expect my opponent to hunt when I have a vulture or the magpie. In fact, I don't think I've ever received a piece of food from those 3 birds in any of my games here on BGA.

I like those two vultures because they cost nothing and it's very good with my strategy, especially when I didn't find the birds I need. One in the forest is good, providing me the opportunity to gain two foods if I can trade a card. And it gives me sometimes extra food with the pink power, but I don't count on that in 2 players. In 3 players they are very powerfull for me

One of my guilty pleasures was playing 5-player with all expansions on the app, against 3 or 4 AI opponents, where the vultures were mega-top-tier.

But playing hundreds of such games left me in bad shape when I discovered Wingspan here and had to re-learn 2-player with no expansions, no nectar, and no power 5.

Seems as though we will never get expansions here, but if we do, they might need to un-ban those birds or add some others to the banned list. Spangled Drongo? Maned Duck? Certainly the Drongo. The Maned duck is one of my favorites, but it's so strong. Similar birds in later expansions do less or cost more to play.

Also, to clarify some possibly imprecise phrasing in my other post - There are ways to draw a card from the grassland, of course. Tuck and draw - but under this format, there is no way to increase the number of cards in hand so setup a self-sufficient tuck-and-lay-egg (such as Red-winged blackbird) to go with a crow to perpetually remove the egg to avoid having the nest on the tuck-and-lay-egg fill up.

There's a lot to be said for context and relevant information to a situation/claim. If you want to know what sort of poster you're dealing with, check their post history. If someone says a game is easy to play, check their rating/games. A low rated player with enough games to have established their rating making such a claim indicates a reason to be skeptical of their claim, because their claim isn't showing in their own games. Another thing to keep an eye on is what mode they're playing. For example, if someone is playing with the power birds, that's definitely skewing several of the subjects that have been discussed here.

FrankJones wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 19:28 With the swift start birds and without the power 5, there are 175 cards.

Exactly FIVE of them give food in a non-forest habitat without also giving the opponent(s) food. So, you can say, "you should be getting food from other habitats", but we don't get to dig through the deck and pick out those 5 birds.

Most games, I don't see any of those birds.

Only two of them give an unconditional food (The two crows). So, yeah, if you get a crow, it's probably a good idea to play it in the grassland.

The spotted Towhee gives specifically a grain, which may or may not be useful depending on the circumstances.

The Cedar Waxwing and the Dark-eyed Junco give specifically a cherry or a grain, and also requires having extra cards to tuck to gain those food. Which, again, might not be useful depending on the circumstances.

I will make a special note to the Wetland "crow" Black-Crowned Night-Heron, though as a Wetland bird its value is limited to a less convenient habitat and a non-self-sufficient one. It's not as reliable as the others, but then suddenly you run into game(s) where it's a key food generator for some high scoring Wetland hands. Indigo Bunting is also worth a mention for the Grassland. Red-Headed Woodpecker too I suppose. Their birdfeeder reliance for specific food definitely makes them awkward though. I think they fit the bill as engine foodmakers to earn a spot on a list at the very least, less reliable than the Crows but probably more than the Waxwing/Junco. I notice you ruled out the birds that also give the opponent food, though if you hadn't there are a few that have the food skills to make it on the list.

I don't think this takes away from the main point though, which is that a lot of games won't offer you the chance to make a food engine outside of the Forest.

kostinen wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 22:07 I didn't really appreciate SluggerBaloney's tone. So it bothers me to agree with some of its points, but let's explain it!

For some time now, my playstyle has been based primarily on the idea of ​​playing in the forest as little as possible (preferably not at all) as a default strategy. I'll try to explain how and why.

FrankJones, you mentioned that there are 5 cards that allow you to gain food from outside the forest. That's not exactly true (you said so yourself), because there are actually 6 more that are "social" birds, which share their gains with everyone. There are also (at least) 5 more that allow you to gain food passively (pink power), and 3 others that allow you to gain food the moment they are played.

Personally, I particularly like 10 birds that I consider very effective at providing me with food (5/6 of which are social birds).

Based on this, if I don't have any of these 10, I generally keep only a few birds at the start, favoring wetland and/or tucking birds.

With this, I can see a lot of birds, often having some food to use when the time comes.

For me, cards are the most powerful resource in the game.
- Building a powerful card deck as early as possible gives a significant advantage in making subsequent moves as efficient as possible because you know more precisely where you're going.
- A card can also be tucked in exchange for an egg/food.
- A card can be traded for food in the forest. And this is a huge point I "discovered" recently. If I draw two card, I already theorically gain two foods, but in the same time knowing which food I need because I already have cards (well it's two card or two foods or 1 and 1, not both, I know).

With this strategy, I often know where I need to focus my efforts to be most effective. I might occasionally be forced to make a few moves in the forest if necessary (with one or two birds placed, depending on the number of cards I can trade with their potential value later in the game). I might also completely shift towards a full forest strategy (if I have the right cards for it).

I don't want to claim that this strategy is the best, as it certainly has its flaws. It requires considerable experience with the game, as you need to know which cards to keep, anticipate the food you'll need, and so on. It's therefore less reliable than a strategy that focuses on building a forest with at least two food resources as early as possible, which I recommend for all beginners (and which is also used by most of the best players, from what I've seen). It can (rarely) lead to catastrophic situations.
I can also say it does not imply to all games (you need good wetland birds or tucking birds in grassland)

I simply wanted to lend some credence to this idea that SluggerBaloney mentioned, which better suits my playing style and gives me better results.

You and SluggerBaloney are two very different things here. I think you've already gotten some idea of that based on posts I see you make later, but I'll note it again here. You two aren't exactly thinking on the same wavelengths.

As for the point on food, given the context of trying to avoid Forest usage, a lot of the birds you're referring to are very lacking in terms of repeated use, which is key for pulling this sort of thing off. I'd probably stick to the ones you said were very effective at giving you food for the point you're aiming for. A lot of the other birds are "technically true" but not really relevant for the main idea. Some of them are great cards, but mostly for other reasons (I love the Vultures, but I'm not leaning on their pink effects as a foodmaker in 2-player, etc.)

Good point, I did forget about the Indigo bunting and the Black-crowned night heron.

Usually when I play the Night Heron, it's because it's a 9-point bird that meets a lot of goals/bonus cards.

But, the ability to gain one food while drawing cards can be huge. The worst situation is having a grassland engine that has run out of nest space, but the only other option is take 3 turns to do something: Draw birds, then gain food to play the bird then play the bird. That is not likely to end well.

An egg is an egg. One point. But one crucial food can be worth many points.

And, yeah, I was trying to dance around the issue, because I am super careful to avoid getting moderated, but I agree. If a player has 100+ games and a 200-ish Elo, and is then giving strategy points, how much are those strategy tidbits really worth? Doesn't seem to be working out too well.

But when a player of your caliber, or Kostinen's caliber writes strategy posts, I read carefully. I have learned a lot on this website by observing and taking advice from high-level players.

FrankJones wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 18:55

SluggerBaloney wrote: ↑29 November 2025, 17:47

In all seriousness, this is not helpful advice.

Yes it is

Wingspan is a simple game. There are 3 things to do (Gain Food, Lay Eggs, Draw cards). You can't do all three. The entire point of the game is getting all three resources (Food, eggs, cards) by only using 2 rows

By far the easiest way to do this that has the most birds supporting it is getting Food from another row. So if you are drawing food a lot, you are likely going to lose cause you should be getting food from the other rows.

The game is 90% variance, that disguises itself as a skill game, which is why people get so ego-addicted to it. Truth is 90% of the game is what cards are in your opening hand and in the top 5 cards you draw.

Ceaseless has provided excellent general analysis in various forum posts,

Not really, he is just pointing out common sense. You had a bird with a point generating brown power, you drew 2 birds that could copy that power and generate more points, and you just didn't play them. That's like your opponent in Chess blundering thier queen, pointing it out to you, and you just don't take it. It's a no brainer move.

I did ? I don't recall playing any such game in which I did those things.

Anyway, here:

https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=767303922

I am "supposed to get food from outside the forest"? How would I do that without any such birds? I couldn't even get birds that give me food IN the forest. I struggled to get any useful forest birds at all! I had to make do drawing food two at a time, and only by making the unusual play of playing two "play another bird" birds without having a third (Because with no way to get food, I never would have been able to play any birds if I didn't stop hunting forest birds and do SOMETHING.) So, I put two birds in the forest, helping the End-of-round goals, and enabling me to get food to play my other birds.

By the time I had the American Redstart, I no longer was able to gai much benefit from it. But, I needed to get birds on my board because my strong grassland engine would have fizzled fast without nests to lay eggs on.

I didn't feel great about my chances, but I was able to eke out a win. But I suppose tactics had nothing to do with it, and every player would have made the same "common sense" plays that I made?

Perhaps I made some tactical errors. If anyone wants to review and critique the game, I would certainly listen to and analyze any advice given.

I prefer Historian to Food Web Expert, slightly more of them without a real loss in quality, especially with Spague's Pipit already in hand (a tempting grab as a generic good card, though it achieves none of your early objectives.) Though the difference is marginal. You ended up pulling several Food Web cards, though there was no way to know that would happen at the time. I'm not a big fan of Magpie, you don't really need a Grassland bird here, and as a star nest you've got that covered between Black Tern and Red-Eyes Vireo. (Looking at the opening, you better get that card.) Having Kept Tern alone to have 4 food in hand would have been better.

You really held out on that Forest. Instead of playing Barn Swallow, I'd have probably laid the eggs, played the Vireo + House Finch next turn, and you can still snag the EOR if you want it laying ends on your last turn of round 1. Once you pulled Redstart your goal should have been to either play that, or that + Red-Eyed Vireo. You can take care of Scaled Quail later, I'm not sure why you went for that early or why you laid eggs as soon as you did (you didn't need more eggs yet and you were setting off their pink power too. You had time to lay eggs later.) Redstart is probably better to play than Vireo + an effectless Kinglet, given the fruit issue that ended up snagging you. I doubt you were really going to need another Cavity Nest to secure 3 of those points to avoid a tie just in case they played one more cavity themselves.

House Finch is way better than Chipping Sparrow by the way. 1 extra food, sure, but it's worth 2 more points, has 3 more egg slots, and tuck and draw actually creates points for your ceiling, rather than only letting you fill them in, an important distinction if you're going to flood all of your egg slots as you were in that game. That 1 extra egg Chipping Sparrow gives you for playing it early doesn't make up that gap.

Instead of drawing Woodpecker, I'd have looked at Wild Turkey with its point score, Grassland benefit, and the egg space to hold it. Woodpecker isn't going to compete with Warbler boosted by Food Web Expert (you're risking a bonus for 5+), but a Wild Turkey is in range, it just comes down to how food rolls. When gaining food for the last time you should have tossed Woodpecker for that same reason. Roseate Spoonbill can actually compete with Warbler as well, Warbler is 7 points + 1 extra food point by comparison (the 1 extra nest egg slot is irrelevant as 1 egg slot will be unused in Warbler's route.) Roseate is 5 points + bonus. A bonus of 3+ points is much more reasonable than the 5+ Woodpecker required.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑30 November 2025, 02:10

I prefer Historian to Food Web Expert, slightly more of them without a real loss in quality, especially with Spague's Pipit already in hand (a tempting grab as a generic good card, though it achieves none of your early objectives.) Though the difference is marginal. You ended up pulling several Food Web cards, though there was no way to know that would happen at the time. I'm not a big fan of Magpie, you don't really need a Grassland bird here, and as a star nest you've got that covered between Black Tern and Red-Eyes Vireo. (Looking at the opening, you better get that card.) Having Kept Tern alone to have 4 food in hand would have been better.

You really held out on that Forest. Instead of playing Barn Swallow, I'd have probably laid the eggs, played the Vireo + House Finch next turn, and you can still snag the EOR if you want it laying ends on your last turn of round 1. Once you pulled Redstart your goal should have been to either play that, or that + Red-Eyed Vireo. You can take care of Scaled Quail later, I'm not sure why you went for that early or why you laid eggs as soon as you did (you didn't need more eggs yet and you were setting off their pink power too. You had time to lay eggs later.) Redstart is probably better to play than Vireo + an effectless Kinglet, given the fruit issue that ended up snagging you. I doubt you were really going to need another Cavity Nest to secure 3 of those points to avoid a tie just in case they played one more cavity themselves.

House Finch is way better than Chipping Sparrow by the way. 1 extra food, sure, but it's worth 2 more points, has 3 more egg slots, and tuck and draw actually creates points for your ceiling, rather than only letting you fill them in, an important distinction if you're going to flood all of your egg slots as you were in that game. That 1 extra egg Chipping Sparrow gives you for playing it early doesn't make up that gap.

Instead of drawing Woodpecker, I'd have looked at Wild Turkey with its point score, Grassland benefit, and the egg space to hold it. Woodpecker isn't going to compete with Warbler boosted by Food Web Expert (you're risking a bonus for 5+), but a Wild Turkey is in range, it just comes down to how food rolls. When gaining food for the last time you should have tossed Woodpecker for that same reason. Roseate Spoonbill can actually compete with Warbler as well, Warbler is 7 points + 1 extra food point by comparison (the 1 extra nest egg slot is irrelevant as 1 egg slot will be unused in Warbler's route.) Roseate is 5 points + bonus. A bonus of 3+ points is much more reasonable than the 5+ Woodpecker required.

Exactly. Agree 100%.
(I actually looked at my cards and somehow missed that I had a historian card in my hand).

So, essentially I blundered my way to a 1-point win because my opponent had two weak bonus cards.

Obviously this game is far more tactical than the 90% luck asserted by someone else in this thread. I should have lost this game because of my tactical misplays.

The Bronzed Cowbird was brutal. Should I have hate drafted it? I think I had an opportunity to do so.

FrankJones wrote: ↑30 November 2025, 01:40 Good point, I did forget about the Indigo bunting and the Black-crowned night heron.

Usually when I play the Night Heron, it's because it's a 9-point bird that meets a lot of goals/bonus cards.

But, the ability to gain one food while drawing cards can be huge. The worst situation is having a grassland engine that has run out of nest space, but the only other option is take 3 turns to do something: Draw birds, then gain food to play the bird then play the bird. That is not likely to end well.

An egg is an egg. One point. But one crucial food can be worth many points.

And, yeah, I was trying to dance around the issue, because I am super careful to avoid getting moderated, but I agree. If a player has 100+ games and a 200-ish Elo, and is then giving strategy points, how much are those strategy tidbits really worth? Doesn't seem to be working out too well.

But when a player of your caliber, or Kostinen's caliber writes strategy posts, I read carefully. I have learned a lot on this website by observing and taking advice from high-level players.

I wouldn't necessarily discard a user's strategy advice just because of their rating, though it's unlikely they'll get any benefit of the doubt if they're saying some really weird stuff. The claim that I mentioned rating for was regarding how difficult a user found a game to play, not any specific strategy advice they gave. I mention this because strategy advice is something you can evaluate separately from someone's rating. On the other hand, how difficult someone finds a game to play is relatively more specific to the one making the claim. If they're low rated, they're not playing the game very well, so the game isn't so easy for them after all. They may think it's easy as they're making mistakes they didn't notice left and right.

As for the differences between what SluggerBaloney was saying vs kostinen, them both mentioning that there exists strengths in avoiding the Forest isn't enough to mean they're saying the same thing.

• Details. Slugger didn't provide any details regarding what such a transformation actually looked like, while Kostinen did. There was far more context and information in what Kostinen was saying.

• Purpose. Slugger was largely saying what they were in an attempt to broadly sweep all of Wingspan into one bland, vaguely defined statement to try and belittle the people they were talking to and about. Kostinen was attempting to give advice for how to use specific cards and play the game under specific circumstances, acknowledging this is only one aspect of Wingspan based on some of the cards you have.

• Finally, they're not even playing the same Wingspan. Slugger is over there playing with the banned power birds, while complaining about luck. (Not to mention how cutting away a full row is a lot easier when there are 5 power cards that single handedly accomplish this near on their own.) Kostinen is playing the modern version of Wingspan under the base game that you'd see players play, as the absurdity of the power 5 has been established for quite some time.

FrankJones wrote: ↑30 November 2025, 02:28 The Bronzed Cowbird was brutal. Should I have hate drafted it? I think I had an opportunity to do so.

You didn't. They pulled it from the tray on the first turn of round 2 before you could touch it.

I recently finished this game with the feeling that I played very poorly, so I decided to analyze it myself. This analysis may be useful for less experienced players, and I would also appreciate feedback from experienced players, especially regarding the first round.

Replay: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=91503907

Round 1

Starting plan: take rodent, play owl, lay eggs, play mockingbird, get food, play mallard, eggs / draw cards.
The plan itself was good.

1) Take rodent — following the plan.

2) On the second move I took Mourning Dove, which would have been be good if I implemented it correctly.

3) I played Mourning Dove while overpaying with food— this was a very bad move. A much better line would have been: play owl → lay eggs → play mockingbird → get food → play dove. Most likely I should have ignored the round goal and focused on tempo.

4) I took Purple Martin. This decision is debatable, but I now think it was a mistake. It cost a move, and I could have simply played Mallard and taken it more efficiently, or forced the opponent to take it and lose tempo.
With my cards, I already had good egg production in the forest, so I did not need many grasslands activations And developing grasslands was inefficient This is visible later, when my grasslands produced only 5 endgame points, which could have been compensated by a stronger forest. I also failed to play Purple Martin for the round 1 goal.

5) Everything was reasonable.
6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

8) I decided that 4 extra points were worth making a move in grasslands, but this was likely also a mistake. As discussed on the forum, with good play, late-game actions can be worth more, and this game was no exception (although my late-game play was also poor).

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46854

Round 2

1) Everything was reasonable.

2) At this point, I already believed that investing in the forest would be very strong, and I probably should have taken the ibis instead of a random card from the deck. However, for some reason, I decided to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

3) Everything was reasonable.
4) Everything was reasonable.

5) I think the better line was: play mockingbird → take food → play the grosbeak in the 5th slot for Forester. Instead, I again chose to play the mockingbird in grasslands.

6) Everything was reasonable.
7) Everything was reasonable.

---

after that I will not analyze each move, I will only say potential mistakes.

- I focused too much on American Bittern, which was a weak play.
- I should have played a bird on the second-to-last move of round 3 to guarantee winning it. I played differently because I confused the round 3 and round 4 goals.

I believe I played round 4 as well as possible. I took a small risk, giving up 1 point for a chance to play a strong bird, and it paid off big time.

---

Final Thoughts

Despite good luck with bonus cards, I scored only 84 points, which is very low for such a strong start. With better play, I believe this game could have reached close to 100 points.