for all of these analyses i find the mantra of "does it give me something in the biome that it normally doesn't provide" to be great birds, like lay egg in forest or wetlands or draw a card in the forest
Great video, could easily see a couple spinoff videos in this format. Like an "It's a trap" video, handpick birds that seem good that either don't pan out or help the table more than you know. Or a "best early" or "best late" or opposite. Or this bird is great IF...
Love the video! I'd much rather have the Mourning Dove than Lesser Whitethroat. LW is more of a late game point generator and MD is more of an early game resource generator. By turn 15 of the game (last turn of round 2), LW may have only given you only 1 egg (unless you took inefficient egg laying actions to build out a habitat in round 1 - it usually forces you to do this but that inefficiency has a cost). MD has probably given you 5 or 6 eggs by now and helped you build out your habitats without needing to use the grasslands. You may get 5 eggs at the end of round 4 from the LW but those are egg points rather than eggs as resources for playing birds. You also have to focus your attention on building out and clearing eggs on specific habitats, which may take attention away from round goals, bonus cards, and nectar races. I do like the LW but would rather have an egg-laying forest or wetland brown power.
Good points! I think that extra focus you mentioned on clearing out eggs can be a big deal (or distraction) for me sometimes, and dictates my turns more than it should.
I think the rating of birds changes based on number of opponents. I’d nominate Sacred Kingfisher as the best 0 point bird if playing with 5 people. If you can pair it with Eurasian tree sparrow/ Drongo or Golden Oriole, you never have to use the forest.
I rated all of mine based on 1v1s. In multi-player setups, the turkey vulture and black vulture are insanely good cards for the reasons you just mentioned
Fantastic Vid, you guys always have some great insights --but I gotta go mourning dove over whitestart: MD is just such a good instant tempo hit and if you find a hummingbird or something next turn can be a fast start to a full-tuck.
Sacrilige. You are correct that it is a super good wetlands start, but whitestart still works with full tuck setups, just need to use your tuck engine to get some birds to clear off the eggs
It's hard to decide these kind of things because birds serve different functions. Do they generate points? do they complete bonuses? Do they hit end-of-rounds? Or are they just a point-bomb? All of these things can be broken down into their end-of-game value and the timing of when you play it. All that in mind, you're probably right that Galah is best 5-pt engine card.
Agree with lots of the "obvious" ones for early game quick start, you had me rethinking the ChiffChaff and Noisy Miner, those are usually trash birds for me unless but maybe I gotta give them a go just not quite as early in the game.
Great video, i really like your content As someone who lives in Australia and is constantly surrounded by hundreds of noisy miners... i hate that bird. They are native but invasive and incredible agressive and kill other native birds. They attack people too.They also make incredibly annoying noises, especially the chicks. Thsnkfully the game went with one of their more tame noises. But still I will play it, though, but i have to turn off the sound for that game.
really?! i did not know that. i always think of australia having all the cool animals. but that’s kinda how i feel about geese and mockingbirds here. thank you for watching. really appreciate the support!
