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could you make more strategy videos? they are very useful

A lot of valuable insights. Clever is hard to use properly, so it's good to hear it is valued lowly and I shouldn't be scared to take it. I'm really surprised that reputation is equivalent to appeal, most animals will give you the baseline appeal needed to get the most efficient early income, but early reputation is hard to find and can get you an early card unlock and worker, as well as giving you more selection on upgraded cards, animals, and sponsors, and endgame every two or three appeal gets you a conservation point on top of all the bonuses in between. Personally I value it somewhere between appeal and conservation points. I did not even know that animals with multiple continent icons got multiple partner ship zoo discounts! Assertion seems pretty undervalued as it can often net you 5 conservation points on the final turn (minus the value of your next best play) where your opponent either gets either 2 or 0 and if they get 2 it is at the cost of their next best play so probably close to 0. Posturing seems really good before you upgrade build since it's both action and cost save and fairly weak afterward.

What about the 7 point bonus for completing a column?

Hi, I'm putting together a huge strategy guide with jdan, would you mind if I use a screenshot from this video? I'll give you credit and link your video and channel ofc.

Nice video, thank you! Where can I find this mod? Looks like TTS, but I can't seem to find it. Thnx!

Thank you for a consistent tutorial

Animals build and cards are what winners take most

thanks for your interesting opinion!

Interesting that you rank migration and breeding sponsors so low. The breeding ones I think are definitely A tier in 2 player (and I would think still B in 3/4 player) as they can be critical to getting high-level conservation project spots before your opponent(s). Migration is more niche, but can be huge if there are release projects available. With 2 players, the breeding sponsors are always snapped as soon as possible because getting the project spot before your opponent is such a huge swing. They just aren't a "play first round" sponsor. Which there should probably be two tier lists, one for early sponsors and one for mid/late/anytime sponsors. Since many of the early sponsors are garbage later in the game.

Association rarely needs to be upgraded early. Unless you have a 2nd worker early it isn't as good as animal/build to upgrade early. Usually it is one of the last actions I upgrade. But agreed that playing 2 workers in one association action is strong. But that is a mid to late game action. I would say "build" should be tier A because 99% of games will upgrade build and in the majority of games it is the 1st or 2nd action upgraded. Association is strong, but it often isn't upgraded if you upgrade sponsor (card is the other action I often forgo when upgrading sponsor). (Context: I mostly play 2 player, so the strategy may change with 3/4 players)

Love how simple and clear this was. Good work.

I’m currently competing in the “Board Game Olympics” at my local board game cafe, and tonight I represented my team for this game. By keeping your strategy advice in mind, I was able to take first place! Thank you!

I personally think that build is far more important to association. Especially if your bonus for four partner zoos is only one conservation bonus or if getting your third association worker doesn't give you any conservation points or just one. For me Animal and Build are A tear while cards is the third one I always tend to upgrade. The fourth one is between Association and Sponsors, depending on the cards I get early and if I need sponsors. Sponsors can become an A tier upgrade in certain situations and more urgent to upgrade than any other card, but it's very situational and I upgrade it maybe once every 5 games or so. And any donation after 7 coins is pretty bad value so I wouldn't worry about them too much unless you have a strong income. 10 or 12 coins for just 3 points is not really that good. The good thing is that it doesn't take an extra action so if you have the coins to do everything else as well it can be powerful. But I disagree that it would be hard to win without donations. The Release Animal conservation projects can also be extremely good early on. They are the only conservation projects that you can play before the first break, which gives you another association worker and an upgraded card. They are situational, but I wouldn't but them anywhere near the D tier. I also think that the Waza Small Animal program is one of the most underrated cards in the game. It allows you to play three animals instead of two during your turn or two instead of one and you also get a free snap if there is a small animal available on the table. It's incredibly strong if you can combine it with the Waza Special assignment. The data of the best players of Board Game Arena also show that the top players always upgrade Animals, Build and Cards and then the last card is between Association and Sponsors. Association gets picked like 80% of the time while Sponsors does get picked for the remaining games. There's one or two top ranked players who pick sponsors way more regularly though.

I strongly disagree with ranking action cards. Animals is probably the only one I will always upgrade. However which card you don't upgrade and your upgrade order is extremely dependent on the game. While it's less common, sponsors is sometimes by far the most powerful upgrade

I've adopted this strategy after watching your replay several months back, and I've found a lot of success with it. It's a very strong strategy. I am finding it can be very volatile at higher arena ELO however. In certain tile distributions you may not get enough playable plazas(non-blue) early on to setup the borders of the foundation with. This means you have to either place plazas in scoring district positions on the second/third/fourth level to maximize the number of plazas in play and still make it to level 5. Additionally, purple and yellow districts can be very finicky in this setup. If the tiles run nicely it's a very easy strategy to execute, but all it takes is some bad variance or a smart opponent who will counter-pick your plazas and embrace the abundance of blue plazas and you can get yourself in a deep hole.

the problem I see in this game is that all the things you state are an early priority ie., improving your deck and researching w/ your book to get early assistants are only done at the expense of the other....you can't do both. I've only played this two player & it seems to me every one of our games end w/ the person who finished first in the race to the lost temple is the game winner. Admittedly, in a lot of cases it is done by virtue of the tiebreaker (which goes to person who wins that race) but it still feels OP to me & I don't like that. I guess I favor games where your moves aren't so scripted ie., that offer many different ways to win, w/ each being equally balanced.

Gotta work on your tongue clicking man. It’s every other sentence

Amazing video. Its hard to find actually good strategy videos for board games but you nailed this one. Thanks and keep up the great content.

This provided me with some insight I didn't previously have - really clever "discovery." Thank you!

I think it would be cool to see some sort of analysis based on the starting distribution of tiles. I'm not sure if it's always better to go for a tile that has the least of them on the boards or the one that has the most of them on the boards knowing that there's going to be fewer than coming back later. Is it better just to force for a particular arrangement of tiles on the board

@Strategy Advisor Can you please do Terraforming Mars next?

So if you upgrade your actions in alphabetical order, you should be good to go! 🤣

Horses and the sheds and some islands must be in The Norwegians. Not in base. Think I will try this game again on Board Game Arena. Thank you.

Doing build 1 before getting america parter zoo seems very risky. If opponent is also on the 2 america's plan and takes it before you do, all plans are out the window. Since you had priority on getting partner zoo you didnt need to keep the euro bird, but when I dont have prio I would have kept it as a backup plan. 4:14 I think you should always do association at 5 for a project ( either americás 2 or bird breeding). This lets you upgrade build making it a much stronger action especially since we have a huge amount of money for second round. This also lets you get extra worker and to make sure you can use that, you want asso going back up the track asap. Because of this, I don't like advancing the break and drawing cards first actions. I'd probably put it back for an X, because you want this round to last. ( Heck, you could even play both america's animals and do the project after, but then getting the extra worker is more risky) EDIT: You adres this 30 seconds later, but I still feel wating for america's 4 for the 1 extra CP is a mistake. The upgrade and better use of asso at 5 is worth more than the extra cp. Also blocking america's 2 makes it more of a risk for opponent, because if they want to support it they need 4 symbols for 3cp. Getting to 4 leaves them the easy 2 EDIT2: It's crazy the amount of primates showing up for the mandrill.

For the ones that require partner zoos they do inherently become cheaper. I wonder if that should be factored into the bison for example

Very useful

Fantastic video, thank you. I would like to see an analysis like this for other popular euro games.

What is your average solo score?

I looked through the entire internet and I am glad that I found this video

Hello Mr. Advisor, your analysis is incredible. Can I have a look at the original data? I would like to know more about the enclosure and jumping mechanic and the possibility that they can go beyond the times two calculation. However, the data is presented in the way that they are lumped together. I would want to take a look at the original data that has not been lumped together. Applying statistic to the board game is such an awesome approach! Keep up the good work. Cheers

Ark Nova Water World expansion!

I haven’t played in a while, but it seems as if you’re arbitrarily assigning symbols a value. Like how is an ability worth 4, and how is an appeal worth 3? What are you basing that on? Is that in the rulebook?

Well done on the video, it includes a lot of pointers that are going to be helpful to players that want some input on what is a good baseline on upgrades, starting cards and sponsor cards. I couldn't find many things that I disagree with, I just have some pointers on specific sponsor cards or on the upgrade path of your starting cards. As for upgrading the Build action card, this is the card that I tend to vary the most on when and if I want to upgrade it. In a lot of games, you need to upgrade it early to make multiple buildings, including important economy stuff like kiosks, all in one action. Though I don't play online, apparently the metagame over there (with a ton of experienced players) is that it is often the first card to be upgraded, to become more action efficient over a longer period of time and always having the option to spend leftover money on stuff. As I said, I tend to vary the most on this card specifically, as there can be games where you are aiming for large animals, that only requires the occasional 5 enclosure on the strength 5 spot and then waiting for it to be all the way back to 5 for your next big enclosure. In those games, I tend to upgrade the card late in the game, or sometimes not at all. In the sponsor cards you had the 'Federal Grants' card on A tier, this is generally considered to be one of the best sponsor cards in the online meta. As I said, I don't play online, but I can see that especially having it early will greatly boost your economy for absolutely no trouble at all. It is the easiest to play economy card, that also generates an easy point and a science symbol. Also cards like 'Science Museum' and 'Medical Breakthrough' can be complete gamechangers when played early. They are rather hard to put into play, but if you can find some symbols early, they pay off in a big way and can generate anywhere from 2-8 points for a single card, which is insane. Also the 'Breeding Program' and 'Global Breeding Program' cards are legit sleepers, which can in most cases win you the race for a common conservation project. They only work twice for that reason, but winning two 5 point goals before other people can claim them will generally win you the game if it is anywhere close between you and the other players. Occasionally they might even give you a point if you happend to score a lot of goals, which is probably a rare thing, but still a nice bonus.

Lol this game was a joke. Side entrance + Federal Grants. Scarlet Macaw + Bird Breeding Program. Has to be the best card draw I’ve ever seen. No strategy needed when all the stars align like this

Good job!

Thats cool. I think another interesting aspect would be to look at the ratio of "useful" cost on a card, e.g. cost for appeal, rep vs the dead cost like enclosure. Is there any trend, for example when comparing small and large animals?

What an absolutely fantastic video and analysis. It feels like we are getting a full on peak behind the curtain. It also makes me appreciate the game more. Its complex execution has a deceptively simple underlying mechanic.

Can you make a vid about how to get lots of tiles? Ive played 10 times and can barely get my home and one island covered

I don't agree with everything you say, plus it's very easy to play against someone who has less than 100 ELO (honestly even under 200 is very easy) Make a video with an opponent who's at least 400 ELO and let's see with 10 games how many you win

This was a very fast game. Well played.

Best strategy video I've seen for any boardgame

Yeah, I’m not convinced. Purple and yellow are really hard to get right this way.

Another takeaway from this is that bigger animals are stronger than smaller ones, cause there is no "base value" for the card that would value the cost of adding that card to your hand and using an action to play it (and if you haven't upgraded build multiple actions to build enclosures).

This is great! I need more insights specifically for the solo game. I've played 4 dozen times on BGA and i'm just getting slaughtered. I do quite well in games with other people but the solo game.....

3:15 you actually have to buy 4 additional workers to get the free production

Just found this channel, thanks, could you do some for Rising Sun, Blood Rage, Cthulhu Wars, in case you are familiar with those?

I have no idea what any of this means, but CZcams brought me here, and game design is fascinating. Neat.

Fantastic insight! I would assume that the Fur Seal is undercosted in your model because the combination of a rock AND water requirement on a single animal makes it much more restrictive to play

Hey the icons that are requirements on the left side (like animal and country tags) do not count toward total icons.

You have the medical breakthrough card tiered way too low. It’s the most powerful (sponsor) card in the game. Sure, the four research tags are tricky, but you can get those before the third break… A conservation point every break?! Sign me up every time.