Violet Carpenter Bee and Tree Strategy

[IllusionKnight]

Hello, two things.

One: when the Violet Carpenter Bee latches itself onto a tree and becomes a double, is it just treated as being the same name as that tree or does it also copy it's effects e.g. Silver Fur getting 2 points for every creature on it or Beeches 5 points if 4 Beeches in your zone.

Two: Does Tree Strategies seem really powerful? The Oak (10 points for having all 8 different types of trees) and the two tree ferns (one for having more than 10 forests for 10 points and the other being a copy of the oak. In the few games I've played it seems like a dominant strategy.

[DoctorFianchetto]

One: when the Violet Carpenter Bee latches itself onto a tree and becomes a double, is it just treated as being the same name as that tree or does it also copy it's effects e.g. Silver Fur getting 2 points for every creature on it or Beeches 5 points if 4 Beeches in your zone.

I don't know. I've only tried attaching it to Horse Chestnuts to increase the total count. It would be interesting to test the behaviour on Beeches, Silver Fur and Oaks. I assume it duplicates the effect.

Two: Does Tree Strategies seem really powerful? The Oak (10 points for having all 8 different types of trees) and the two tree ferns (one for having more than 10 forests for 10 points and the other being a copy of the oak. In the few games I've played it seems like a dominant strategy.

In my limited experience this is a slow strategy, too slow to be that powerful. Once you plant an Oak you have to commit to getting one copy of each other tree. This is not easy to do because the final tree in the set can be evasive. My feeling is you get more bang for your buck investing that time and energy into animal/plant synergies. If I'm going to play any Tree strategy it's normally stacking up on Horse Chestnuts.

[cigma]

when the Violet Carpenter Bee latches itself onto a tree and becomes a double, is it just treated as being the same name as that tree or does it also copy it's effects e.g. Silver Fur getting 2 points for every creature on it or Beeches 5 points if 4 Beeches in your zone.

The English text on the card (unfortunately not in the tooltip) says: "scores no points itself, but the tree this bee occupies counts as one additional tree of this type." As I understand this, the Bee helps you scoring whenever the number of trees is counted (4 Beeches, the most Linden, 1-7 Horse Chestnuts, more trees than any other player). But I don't think it "doubles the effect". If you add the Bee to the Silver Fur, you score 2 points for one more creature on the Silver Fur. If you add the Bee to a Beech, and this is your "4th Beech", all your "real" Beeches score you 5 points. Although I haven't tested this and might be wrong about it.

[IllusionKnight]

when the Violet Carpenter Bee latches itself onto a tree and becomes a double, is it just treated as being the same name as that tree or does it also copy it's effects e.g. Silver Fur getting 2 points for every creature on it or Beeches 5 points if 4 Beeches in your zone.

The English text on the card (unfortunately not in the tooltip) says: "scores no points itself, but the tree this bee occupies counts as one additional tree of this type." As I understand this, the Bee helps you scoring whenever the number of trees is counted (4 Beeches, the most Linden, 1-7 Horse Chestnuts, more trees than any other player). But I don't think it "doubles the effect". If you add the Bee to the Silver Fur, you score 2 points for one more creature on the Silver Fur. If you add the Bee to a Beech, and this is your "4th Beech", all your "real" Beeches score you 5 points. Although I haven't tested this and might be wrong about it.

Ah that would make sense I just presumed the "scores no points itself" was indicating that it wasn't a point producing card but that explanation makes more sense. Thanks.

[Cos-]

The bee does _not_ count as a tree itself, nor does it alter the tree's effects, nor does it score points. Its only effect is on anything where the count of trees makes a difference - it "fakes" the count to be one higher than it actually is.

With horse chestnuts, this actually ends up being the same as having one more tree, because they score as a set rather than scoring per-tree, so having a higher count increases the score in the same way as having one more tree would. For beech and linden, the bee can help your real trees score.

Your tree count also helps for moss and woodpecker cards. Moss scores 10 points if you have at least 10 trees; if you have 9 total trees but one of them has a violet carpenter bee, your _count_ of trees is effectively 10, and the moss scores. A woodpecker scores if you have more trees in your forest than anyone else, and these bees increase your effective tree count for that comparison.

No other cards are affected by violet carpenter bees, I'm pretty sure. Only beech, linden, horse chestnut, moss, and woodpecker.