134 tucked

It bothers me the dickcissel costs 3 food when the bushtit and common grackle are 2 food cost. I think the bushtit is actually a better card with its higher egg capacity and it being a star nest. I don’t think it being a 4 point bird warrants it costing 3 food.

Here’s my situation. My girlfriend and I have dabbled in casual/strategy board games throughout our lives but it’s been a good decade or so. My 8 year old is really getting into them lately. I heard about wingspan months ago and was instantly intrigued. My partner finally had it recommended by strangers and is interested now as well.

The base game is $50 though I’m sure it goes on sale for cheaper. I’m a bit concerned that even though it isn’t the most complicated game, the rules and systems could be overwhelming for us to learn.

I like the idea of the PS5 version because I assume it would prompt each player when they need to do something, and there must be some sort of tutorial we could all play to learn the basics.

That being said, the ps5 version is on sale with both expansions which I would love - but I worry new mechanics from those expansions may be too overwhelming for a family starting out?

How would you recommend approaching wingspan as a young family of 3 casual players? Or is this not the game for us. Thanks all!

Edit: to clarify, when I say version I mean physical vs digital

What happens with Kakapo if at the end of the game, if there aren’t four bonus cards left to draw because they’re in play or in the discard pile?

What happens if there are no bonus cards left? Are you SOL?

I have the physical game with expansions and the full digital package.

I have played hundreds of rounds of this game on Switch with my wife and son.

My preferred way to play is with EE and OE - I think the game flows so much better with the nectar boards. My score is rarely under 100.

I have read a lot of players complaining or banning certain cards because some players think they are OP. The other night, my wife got a Raven early game and I had to chuckle. I laughed internally because I kept hearing about how people thought they were OP, so I challenged myself that game to win.

Here is the truth about this game - there are other really strong cards and strategies that are stronger than those Raven cards. The whole game is about creating strategies to *find* strong cards or synergistic cards. If you eliminate strong cards, you eliminate the fun and strategy altogether.

BTW, I beat her in nectar that game, no sweat. She is not a bad player, the issue was, and this is primarily the reason I don't play Ravens, is that she began to starve herself of needed eggs. In many situations, I don't find the loss of eggs for resources that compelling.

There is no unbeatable card. There are lots of strong cards and situations. I honestly do not find ravens more powerful or preferable than many others cards that I do enjoy and prefer. Perhaps if you think Ravens are OP, you need to learn new strategies or ways to play to unlock the fact that those birds aren't as OP as you think they are. Yes, leveraging food on the egg action is useful, but those aren't the only birds that can do it. There are tons of ways to eliminate the need for an action. Find them and use them.

This is a follow up to a previous question I had specifically for the Switch version but now I want to know if it’s the same for iOS and Steam versions of Wingspan: Is there no way to customize an online game so that you can filter out expansions and choose a number of players before being matched? In the language of other games, this is equivalent to creating and customizing a room that others may join in a lobby.

My friend recently moved cross country and still wants to play board games. are custom games where i invite people correspondence? i dont see an option for time control

My go-to way to play is against Automa on digital. I have noticed that the biggest impact this has is changing the value of pink powers because it changes the diverse triggers into all being activated by Automa drawing food. I think most pink powers are nerfed but a few are buffed.

Most nerfed

European goldfinch and snowbunting: these cards are so strong against real players. Tucking cards is extremely common especially late game. But against Automa I have gotten like 5 or 6 tucks max if I play them round one. I have also noticed against Automa pink powers active more in the beginning than the end which definitely works against these two

Spangled Drongo: I saw a post about how good this bird is which caught me off guard because I have never played it once. With real people this bird provides near endless nectar. Against Automa it wouldn't activate nearly often and doesn't come close to justifying the high cost and single point value

Most buffed

Vultures! These are some of the best early game birds against Automa. They are free to play and met a respectable amount of food early on when it's most needed. But. Against real people these are very likely to provide no food during the first round.

Every time I try to play the Eastern Imperial or Bonelli's and attempt to play three cards as the food cost, the green arrow button disappears. This is definitely a new thing as I've done this hundreds of times. Two cards and a rat is fine but trying to do three just seems to break it for whatever reason. Hope this gets fixed soon.

I’ve spent over 300 hours in this game and so far my highest score is still 17 points below the requirement.

Granted, if I had better bonus cards and micromanaged my once per round egg hatchers a lot better, I could have gotten a maximum of an extra 10 points.

However I refuse to give up and control the A.I. for an easy victory. I will achieve the fabled birdnado whether it comes in a year or a decade.

Folks, let me in on it. I must have played like 300 games of wingspan irl and on the app game. What about corvids makes people like orgasm over getting one? Raven, crows, I don’t get it? Why is getting rid of an egg for food like a boon? My partner and folks on this forum seem to lose their damn minds over them and I never pick them up or use them (carrion crow is an exception. Good round end goal!) please enlighten me

EDIT: Thank you folks for the clarity. I feel like my thoughts were validated. Ravens during the first round are actually a lynchpin for success much like getting the Eurasian goldfish on a first round pull. Crows are generally as over rated as I thought they were.

I also learned something about myself playing these cards and reading these answers! I value this game a lot more for the fun new ways you can find to succeed, and not because I know just know ‘how to win’. I played a few more games focusing on corvids and while I did win all of them, I found that I had significantly less fun after the first one. It seems I don’t like the cards because they take the fun out of it more for me- who likes using as many new cards as I can to find different ways of doing well.

This was a great insight. Thank you! Case closed. 👍🏼

Here is what my buddy Ted and I do instead - draw a random bonus card and score it on both of our boards, and whoever has the higher score wins. We score like it says on the card too - so if one of us has 4 and one has 5 on a nest card, it’s a tie. If a tie, or neither scores, draw another bonus! We have gone 6 or 7 deep sometimes, like a really fun round in War.

Whatcha think?

Ok, so the way we’ve been doing it is:

If the first roll was successful, roll again (if wanted), if successful, repeating a third time is an option.

If the first roll fails, you get nothing and the bird’s turn is over. If the second or third rolls fail, it all goes back to the supply and the bird’s turn is still over.

Is this correct? If it’s not, can someone explain it to me how you would your five year old? Please and thank you!!!

My wife and I have played over 200 games together, we’ve made a few adjustments to even the playing field.

Power 5 cards (ravens, killdeer, wood duck)

• we play with them, but we can’t start with them in our hand OR as one of the first 3 cards on the bird card tray. If we get dealt one of them, we shuffle it back into the deck.

Extra turns

• we take 1 extra turn per round. We have felt like it’s too hard to get our engines going on a two player game and find it’s way more fun with an extra turn!

Bonus Card Changes:

Historian

• 3 points per rather than 2 points

Birds with 4 eggs laid

• 2 points per rather than 1 point

Birds worth less than 4 points

• we changed it to worth 4 or less. The amount of birds you need to get 3 bonus points is pathetic.

Birds with tucked cards

• we lowered each tier by 1 bird. We found it’s very difficult to get that goal unless you have the chiffchaff or similar bird, which there’s other a few of them

We also reset the bird feeder after each round. Just seems natural if we’re resetting the bird card tray.

I’d love to know if anyone’s made similar changes!

Hey! I just got Wingspan and LOVE IT. I can't seem to find this answer online. Let's say 3 dice are outside the birdfeeder when I activate a bird with the "Roll all dice not in birdfeeder. If any are rat, gain 1 rat and cache it on this card." power. Do you roll the dice back into the birdfeeder? And then if at least one is a rat do you remove one from the feeder to collect the rat token for your cache? Or should you have all 5 dice in the feeder following this bird power? Thank you!!

Like the title says. I'm wondering what the theoretical highest score possible is with no birds played. I think you would need the visionary leader bonus card and spend nectar given by other players in the wetland. I think you would also need to get that bird that players can place in another player's preserve (I forgot what it's called).

Do you guys have any other ideas?

I thought I'd load up wingspan on my switch, and got very lucky with food generating cards and a bonus card giving me more points per mouse eating bird; which I spammed.

It turned out okay in the end, despite me neglecting nectar 😅

Hey all. I just got Wingspan through Steam and I love it! Especially finding random players to play with. But! I don’t want to play in Podium mode and so far every single online game I have done with random players is in podium mode. I can’t seem to get it to be set in feather mode except by custom making a game. Which I can’t really do because I don’t know anyone on Wingspan. I am currently playing with the Oceania expansion. Is this a thing with the Oceania expansion? Because the other expansions default doesn’t seem to be podium goals. Am I missing some way to change this? Thanks!

I just picked up Wingspan with Euro, Oceanic, expansions with the nesting box. I'm looking for the perfect fit style sleeves for my cards.

Does anyone know the size of have any suggestions on brand of sleeves to protect my birds?

I have thousands of perfect fit sleeves for my magic the gathering cards but they're too big.

P.S.

Enjoy this woodpecker shot in took this morning. He seemed to really be enjoying his refection on my neighbors truck window. With that Mohawk, I think he could be shopping for the Harley edition style truck 😀

Is there a way to filter out expansions when joining an online game, whether in real-time or asynchronous? I would like to play online but just with the base game cards and without Europe and Oceania expansions. Every time I queue into a game, I have European birds in my hand.

I’m aware that on iOS and steam there are achievements in the implementation of wingspan. Does anyone know why they aren’t present in the switch version? In most other ways it seems like the switch version is just a crappy port of the mobile game lol.

Hi. Any recommended online versions of wingspan (free) containing all expansions, so i can check it out before buying the real game?