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Yeah no problem. Good luck with your video!

I really like the Koala as a first animal. In a vacuum Australia is the weakest continent, but it's not /that/ bad. Koala is enough of a reason to start Australian partner zoo and not feel bad about it. It's just so efficient. I find pouching easier in the first round because of your small hand size. You will often have excess cards that you can't hold anyway. 12 appeal is a huge huge income boost compared to the 5 that Reindeer by itself gives. Plus as I touched on, building over the 1 rep spot, getting 1 rep from Koala and 2 from the Breeding Program gives you that 2nd upgrade at the start of round 2 which is great. The issue with Reindeer by itself is due to how the animals are balanced. If you play Reindeer directly into a size 3 enclosure it is inefficient because you are paying for a Flock ability that you're not using. The Koala makes the Reindeer more efficient, as well as both of them contributing to the Herbivores project. Re: blocking - there would be an argument for just Reindeer if the Americas project was open at 2. Given that it's only open at 4/5 blocking is not really a thing to be concerned about. Neither player is getting 4 or 5 icons before round 2.

It's an interesting idea. I think it made sense at the time to play it. You can never know what sponsors or animals you'll draw later. Though if you have a lot of rocks in hand already it can definitely be worth waiting to play it, especially as most of the rocks were already covered.

Vet strikes again!

(it's not, just a joke)

Oh it was most likely when Warmy gifted 10 memberships to the chat. True legend!

I agree Birthing Pod should be unbanned

Nice game! And yep, I remember on his stream he was contemplating snapping up the Sea Lion instead of Sun Bear / Expert. Would have made it very interesting

Science Library would have been killer

😂 It's him - the publisher reaches out to each winner and gets them to send in a photo.

Haha, when you said all you really meant ALL!

@@NoWondersTV Sure did.

I was definitely in unfamiliar territory this match. I'll know about SP City spam for next time (but you said!) Flooding is an interesting one. I had a few gens where I awkwardly didn't have any steel buuut I still feel like the titanium + flooding damage was worth more. Converting the 2 steel = +12. 2 titanium + flooding = +10. Except it also blocks a better ocean spot from JD and I feel like hitting his economy is more valuable than just +4 on face value (because his econ was terrible). It's probably close. I had a lot of other misplays which hurt my game more, always happy to learn.

It is still a good sponsor that I value pretty highly. I've reviewed many replays on this channel where Spokesperson does a lot of heavy lifting. But yes, it was way too greedy and not what I needed at the time. If I drew animals with my next cards action is probably still works out. But I only drew sponsors which is one of the ways I set myself up to lose.

Everything is easy in retrospect :P That's the thing though. Everyone looks at that round and thinks "small spread" and plays a low card. In some crazy worlds I get the 6k or even 9k! Given all the 0k and 2k were also out I was thinking I could trade my 1 for something decent anyway later. (e.g. imagine if the last round was 15,13,13,12,11 - it was close to happening!)

Re: Tamarin it was a combination of a couple of things. Building the size 2+3 is part of it. It at least suggests they have 2 animals to play before they are thinking about the Tamarin. Given we know that, it's probably not an urgent snap for them - i.e. they should not spend an x-token themselves to snap it up. If they do I think you just have to live with it. Second part of it is I think Dugong is scarier for them to have. It's a Herbivore for the project, but more importantly the double water icons for their Aquarium. Given there are 2 pretty decent cards in the display you can build first knowing you will at least get one of them (if they spend an x-token to snap). Dugong is nice for you as you already have Aus partner zoo. Third part of it is it's only the 4th Americas tag for you. If it was the 5th you have a much stronger case for snapping it. Fourth part is spending x-tokens is a bad habit (one that I'm still trying to kick), especially on actions like cards or build it can really hurt your tempo.

@@NoWondersTV Two things I think I missed there, but the biggest thing in-game I just wasn't thinking about was the value of the two water tags for my opponent. I think if I had thought about that, I would have realized the value of Dugong and at least not spent the X for cards there. It's interesting to me what you say about spending X tokens though. That's not something I think I have a "bad habit" of but I'll be a bit more mindful of spending them.

I think the placement and missing out in the early 1 rep costed you a lot. The 1 worker CP bonus I was not a fan of. If you had the 1 rep and the earlier upgrade from 5 rep you could have just gotten a worker from the CP track and have snapping instead. Then you have muskox right away plus you have the tempo to get America's partner zoo that round and play muskox or deer (to avoid discard) and snapping would have given you the dugong. In general I think worker at 2 CP such an undervalued move while worker from CP bonus is very overrated. I'd say that most times snapping or 5 money gives more benefit than the card upgrade you get here. Yes it does mean you'll stay on 3 upgrades the whole game but that's hardly an issue if you have no upgraded sponsors to play. Especially with breeding project openings worker from CP track is good because you'll get your 5 rep upgrade and 2nd partner zoo upgrades fast anyway.

@@markvanderwerf8592 I do think the worker at 2CP is probably taken less than it should be, but this map is one of the hardest to do that with, because you're turning down 2CP by not upgrading association. It's a lot of why I wanted to turn down the upgraded sponsors in the opening, because I wanted to upgrade association. Are you saying that even in this game, you would have taken worker at 2CP? Obviously I should have placed the initial enclosure over the rep spot, but I'm saying it didn't cost me that much because Animals was upgraded right before, giving me the 5th rep without any real loss in between. In other cases it could have cost me so it was a clear mistake to me, but if I'm taking the worker on 2CP, what is the other card I'm not upgrading besides Sponsors? Is it Animals? That seems crazy because by that point I'm holding an eagle. Is it association?

@@AdamHorton01 you are missing out the option to get 2CP from partner zoos yes. But really even if you upgrade association you rarely get that, 4 partner zoos is just too time consuming typically to do unless you upgrade association and get a lot of X tokens somehow. I definitely think worker from CP track was the way to go there, you had 2 upgrades coming in fast anyway, did you really need a 3rd upgrade fast? I just don't see the need why you would ever need to get a 3rd partner zoo this game and snapping looked very useful at that point.

Haha, I just wish they would fix them up. Last few weeks have all had bugs

It got quite the mixed reaction in the top secret discord server. Some even saying keep all 4 sponsors! For me I think you have to keep Koala/Deer/Breeding Program at least. It's a very safe opening and there's not much that can go wrong. Starting 3 or 4 sponsors can run into problems if the opponent starts aggressively breaking on you. Very fun game though, thanks for pushing Adam to send it in!

Hmm, maybe! Knowing how the game turned out, that Eagle came in very clutch at the end of the game. Plus the 1 extra money from x-ing cards and breaking 5 becomes relevant later!

This is true, and you can probably say the same about half the games I review. Ark Nova is a game full of ifs!

I definitely needed to draw something good there. Rhino wasn't my only out (a smaller herbivore or any flocker maybe would have been enough) but yeah I felt behind that whole game.

Sure, I think the only issue with the Rhino snap is that tactically it put Spokesperson in range for the opponent. But it's interesting, right. Tsong Chen has had sustained success valuing Rhinos that highly. Everyone knows they are good of course, but even I wouldn't have snapped a Rhino in that spot either. Maybe this game it didn't work out, but it's a mental note for me to value them higher than I currently am. I think the 5 money reward also relates to the Rhino. It makes both animals playable first round but then also sets you up to play the expensive Rhino later. If his hand was only cheap animals he probably takes worker or snapping instead.

Happens to all of us. We all make mistakes, higher elo just means they happen less frequently.

Up until the Macaque play I was thinking there was no way. I even knew the result and didn't see how it was possible!

Hmm, possibly. Contesting the donations would make it harder for the opponent, but at the same time, Tsong Chen did get good value from the cards upgrade. Cards is the safer option for me, and when you have a massive income lead like that, I think safe is the right way to play.

Really bad might be an overstatement, I think unlucky to not find a nice releasable bird sooner! But as they say, a bird in the hand...

The Capuchin draw, the primate pilfer. You could not ask for a better start!

very scary

It is a word irregardless of whether you think so or not 😉

It's a perfectly cromulent word

Standup Comedian or TH-camr. Both perfect if the end goal is to disappoint your parents!

@@NoWondersTV Lol. Just show them how loved you are among your TH-cam viewers!

Hopefully it doesn't give anyone PTSD from stupid work meetings 😬

oh my

Hopefully it's tongue in cheek not to seriously offend anyone. The general idea is just to raise a laugh if possible. There is no way I can actually come up with artwork and design for a serious idea, but want to publish a game none-the-less. I'm guessing the other games have a similar idea.

@@ricardorix73 I had a feeling you might drop by 😉 And yes, I completely missed all the flavour text as I haven't played your game yet! I totally just judged a book by its cover. I will give it a go, promise!

I saw Cucumber! Nah completely normal