I actually recorded this video underwater to get with the whole Marine Worlds theme. For those who don't like the immersion of that - the sound gets fixed up at 21:37. Enjoy!
One play you missed with the penguin is if you can release it you have to free up an aquarium space. So if you have the combo, build a standard enclosure and an aquarium with both rock and water to get more reef cards. Will it ever work? No. But you can dream.
For what it counts: in one of my Marine World game i was going to play the sharknose goby and we were unsure if it applied to any card or only anilmal card so we checked the glossary: the Symbiosis only applies to marine animal cards, not sponsors. It's stated in the glossary.
I think you underrated Conference on Australia a lot. You can increase the enclosure of the Australian animal that you just played, meaning the card effectively gives two extra appeal to every Australian animal that you play, plus filling an extra spot on your map. You get the placement bonus of only the new hex you just covered (but not what was already covered by the old enclosure). And if you release the animal, you're essentially getting a larger enclosure back for free. This is double the point efficiency of Expert on Asia, which is only one appeal and one spot per Asia icon. This is on par with Meerkat Den and Penguin Pool, and it's easier to get out Round 1 without the 3 rep requirement, plus higher upside on the end game bonus (5 points compared to 3). You don't necessarily need Expert on Australia to combo with, as a bunch of Australian animals plus some new cards also give pouching. Yes, in current base game, Asia, herbivores, and birds are all better than Australia but I think this card adds much needed support for Australia to bring its power back in line with the rest of the continents. I always prioritize taking Conference on Australia if I have any Australia icons I want to play.
Maybe the best comparison for it is Baboon Rock? 2 appeal is undoubtedly a huge bonus. Given how balanced the animals are, getting +2 appeal on any will swing them into the strong territory. There are games where Baboon Rock can be an S-tier card, but I think most people would agree in general it's weaker than the other appeal boosters because of the type of animal required. I view Conference on Australia similarly - but would be very happy to be proven wrong as I (obviously) have a soft spot for Australia!
I've played Ark Nova live almost 100 times. Marine worlds in an expansion that adds to the game without making you feel like you're playing a different game. The addition was seamless. You could leave out the upgraded action cards for new players and play with all marine world content right away.
That's awesome. Even as an experienced player I think I'd prefer to play Marine Worlds without the upgraded action cards. Envious you have the group to play it with live so much!
I regularly just leave out the upgraded action cards. I feel that they just add one too many layers to think about as people try to maneuver around each other's bonuses and makes the game take longer for thinking. Even without them it's an amazing expansion pack
The upgraded actions can't be really balanced for high level play, but they are very fun imo. Tier list of them could be fun, but rating them without having them seen in play is hard. Some look stronger than they are in play
Regarding card distribution stats at the beginning. The % Change might be better visualized as a percent gain/loss over its previous distributon. For example Herbivores going from 13.68% of deck to 11.65% of deck means you are approximately 15% less likely to draw a Herbivore on any give card draw in the expansion. However the math gets more complicated when you factor in the additional card draw options of the expansion. There are 30 cards with wave icons, this means you will on average see 11% more cards appearing in the display (this does not mean seeing 11% more cards total during game as many will be seen by drawing from deck). This indirectly makes drawing/digging/playing from display produce 11% more cards, Which could be both good or bad depending on if your searching for something or wanting to deny opponent options. The new animal universities (as well as "Monkey Gang" and the new "Management Plan" projects) let you get specific species much more easily which should sigificantly increase the overall availability of species you actually want (Monkey Gang + Primate university = 4 primates from essentially 1 primate). A big thing to note with species draw abilities is that it will on average take around 10 draws to hit (might not be unusual to see 15-20). These draws are public and can lead to significanly more information as to whats no longer available due to being tucked under deck (effectively out of the game).
Great video as always Sam! Can you clarify the immediate Appeal gain for Landscape Gardener? I play a Pavilion… then 1 Appeal per Pavilion. Do I get 1 Appeal for playing a Pavilion, and then a 2nd Appeal for 1-per-Pavilion? Or does the instant Pavilion only count once?
Play a Pavilion (1 appeal as normal), get an x-token, then count up all your Pavilions and get X appeal. So yes, you double-dip on the instant Pavilion, which is consistent with every other sponsor (e.g. Expert on Asia as your first Asia tag still gives 1 appeal).
NoWonders analysis indicates that 3 of the top 5 animals from the new expansion are Austalian: Sand shark, clownfish (reef ability), and the hawkfish. Asia, arguably a more vital component to the planet's "reef health" with Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines lying in that "zone", is the continent that appears to be underrepresented.
@@macc.1132 I don't make the cards, I just rank them 😛 But from a purely balance point-of-view, Asia is very overrepresented in the base game, so I understand them not wanting to add to its power too much.
I am not convinced the Amazon House is that strong. It has hard requirements, which means you will play it mid to late game. But, the problem is in mid game your map starts to fill up and its difficult to fit in oddly shaped tiles. 11 points from sponsor is amazing, but it wont be as playable often. It reminds me of Waza Special Assignment in that regard
The requirements look daunting, but in reality I don't think they're that bad. Double uni start into upgrading Animals and Sponsors gives you the 6 rep in round 2. Then it's just a matter of finding an Americas animal. The only downside is going to be drawing it too late when it can no longer fit in your map, but get this early enough and it's 100% worth playing around for that amount of points.
@@NoWondersTV seems to be a matter of timing. Card rating are never in a vacuum, but rating every card as if it's in your starting hand doesn't work either. The timing Windows for some strong cards like this are quite small, kind of similar to excavation site
They make Australia animals bad because of their synergy with the Australian sponsor I feel. It’s like developers almost saying that, nobody should play Australia animals unless there is a conservation project they achieve or they already have an Australia sponsor out very early. If both aus sponsors are out, each Australia icon is potentially 5 additional points (2+1 tuck + 2 for expanding a filled enclosure), and most aus animals have tuck by itself anyway. This is of course provided you have a way to boost your card draw over the course of a 30 turn game. Turtles are quite situational, sometimes you just need that extra help for that last sponsor card or research icon and having a way to fish for 1 helps.
It feels like the extra Australia sponsor is a way of buffing the continent because of the fact that they can't rebalance the original Aus animals. I think if a rebalance were to happen now then we'd see a few Australia animals cost less / give more points. 2 card combos should be powerful and shouldn't be a reason to make a type of card bad - see: Birds
which could be the main reason to upgrade sponsors over other action cards? is it just based on you needing money? if you got the sponsor cards with the flipped symbol to play? or if the deck is letting out many sponsor cards in to the display?
All of the above. The meta at top level play is leaning towards upgrading sponsors more often than not. You would upgrade it early if you had a card like Explorer or Talented Communicator. Otherwise later or not at all
I actually think the Extra shift reef animal is the most busted animal in the entire game. There are actually disgusting usage cases where you can use it to grab a partner zoo, extra shift your worker, and then support a project, a breeding project or something. I really think this card is literally busted. Worse than Shark attack. Shark attack is going to roll 3 or 4 appeal on average use and is probably unlikely to be used super often. Extra Association uses are super busted, especially if it's for projects. Game defining busted levels of broken.
It will be interesting to see how things turn out in high level play. My thoughts are Extra Shift is much stronger early game, but falls off after you have your Unis and Partner Zoos. Late game when you have 3-4 workers anyway - meh. The main advantage may be letting you stall out a round longer because you're able to support 3 projects. Shark Attack is going to be consistently strong at all stages of the game (albeit hard to play early game) and can help you cross with a higher score. I'm looking forward to seeing it in practice
@@NoWondersTV Yeah, Shark attack is better late game and has some real boom potential, Extra Shift can be busted early game. Again, my opinion (I'm about a 500 elo player so not as good as you) Extra shift can be game-breaking busted.
From what I can see compass jellyfish is great if its the only sea icon you are planing on playing. It gives theoreticaly 10 apeal for 14 money. With the right opening hand it is one of the best starting animals in the game. It do have an high opertunety cost. But if europe is on the test its good enough. If not dowrigh fantastic. Will you skip it a lot of times? Yes. Is it bad? No!
That's what I mean when I say all the animals in Ark Nova are playable. There will always be situations where the Jellyfish is above average, same as the Emu or Mandrill. Yes it is very point efficient provided you have those Sea Animals in hand to discard!
Not a huge deal I think, nearly all of them can be released with the continent releases anyway. They feel strong enough already that they don't need the release + breeding program projects to help them
I completely disagree on Farm Animals. It's not that easy to play 7 kiosks and pavilions before you reach 25 appeal, so it's not that often that you're getting maximum value there. And if you *did* build a lot of early kiosks and pavilions, you would have placed them next to each other, for income, which reduces the potential shields the card can get you. Building a bunch of late game kiosks with nothing around them for a couple of shields just does not seem good to me. Yes, with Naturalist Zoo it might be a thing, but I would not put a card in B-tier that had such situational use.
farm cats seems like a lethal endgame scoring sponsor, its endgame is basically twice as easy to achieve compared to native’s i dont value kiosks particularly highly but being able to convert them into shields seems worth
I agree you won't have 7 kiosks/pavilions most of the time. 4 seems like a reasonable number to have before 25 appeal. Then it's 3 appeal and a predator icon for 5 strength, slightly worse than the Playgrounds which I consider A-tier. Like dwarvintime said though, think of it like another endgame card. 3 CP is a huge ceiling, and it is something that you can always achieve because it doesn't rely on card draw. Trying to go for 3 CP every game may compromise your zoo too much, but I think a card that can give 3 appeal and 1-2 CP is good enough for B tier.
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