I acquired Wingspan for Christmas and I have been playing a bunch. I enjoy the game a lot, as the design is both pretty and generally well balanced. I don't know what other people manage in terms of high scores, but I managed a collection of results in the 103-107 range that seemed really solid, and several of them happened the same way.
I built an egg button and hit it over and over until I won.
Basically my strategy was to play a bird on the egg row that let me turn eggs into cards, and then another bird that let me turn eggs into food. This way I could just hit the egg button nearly every turn and get all the resources I needed, freeing me to play pure points into my other two rows. Normally you get too much of one thing if you hit a button all the time, but because I could toss away the main resource I was gathering it was fantastic. I generally hit the food and cards buttons only about 3 times over the entire game combined.
Question is, can you rely on this strategy? Answer: Hell no! I went through the bird deck and there are only 2 good cards to turn eggs into food, and 2 cards to turn eggs into cards. I just got stupid lucky to put together this same engine three times. You can't do this sort of thing with the food or card rows either, because there aren't things that let you efficiently trade away your cards or food for stuff so you can pound that button all game. You can make those rows good in a variety of ways but you are still going to have to hit your other rows, which dilutes the power of the button a great deal.
My first try at the game awhile ago led me to think that it is not great with five players, and maybe not even that good at four. The pink cards that activate on opponent's turns are nuts with high player counts and they make the game feel quite random. However I have been playing a bunch of two player Wingspan and at two players the pink cards aren't great, which isn't as much of a problem but isn't ideal either. A few weak cards you can just discard to discard effects, but a few overpowered cards can erase the skill element of the game too much.
Three players seems great though. The pink 'on opponent's turn' cards are good, but not absurd. Unfortunately I suspect that at WBC next year we will see Wingspan played, and it will end up at four players just because of the lack of copies of the game. I would hope to see it at three players for the finals though, as that seems like the superior format to me.
I know now what cards I want to see in my opening hand though. Common Raven (pitch egg for 2 food) and Franklin's Gull (pitch egg for 2 cards). Those two together are a powerhouse, giving you an amazing button to push over and over by your third action! Mix in a Common Grackle (tuck a card for an egg) later in round 1 and you can hammer that egg button the entire game long, never once needing to hit the food or card rows. Delicious.
I've heard the suggestion that the pink cards should only activate when an opponent next to you does the thing. That means that there are always 2 opponents who will trigger for you in a 3, 4, or 5 player game, which scales better.
ReplyDeleteI played the European expansion yesterday (with both decks shuffled together), and they have some cards that trigger at the end of the round, and the two that I played both gave me a reward based on how many times an opponent took the "eggs" action that turn (and with multiple opponents, I get to choose the one who hit the eggs button most often). So that at least lets other players leech off of your egg strategy. It's still probably the best strategy if you can get the cards,though.