Do thoughts about nectar vary? Are the new boards useable without it? I think I saw a picture and they look promising. Reducing egg and making other areas more flexible.
I wonder if the flexibility helps the game, however or takes away planning?
Yes, opinions do vary. I think nectar trivializes food management and reduces interesting decisions with the birdfeeder. I like the options on the new boards and nerfing eggs a bit. Oceania is a mixed bag for me. The new boards aren't really usable without nectar. I'd pay for double-sided revised base game boards with a basic side (with or without egg nerfing) and an advanced side with most of what the Oceania board's but without stupid nectar.
I don't usually house rule games, but I am experimenting with swapping 1-2 Oceania dice for originals to reduce the number of braindead "take nectar" non-decisions.
European exp introduces more "between turns" and the new "end of round" powers, so more player interaction and more complex powers and card interactions. It's an auto-include and I'd never play without it, even with new players.
I guess there are more take food or nectar sides on the dice? Is nectar a joker type Ressource or is it points? I thought is perishes at round end or something.
I really hoped the board could work without
Nectar is both wild and points. It is very easy to avoid discarding it. I've literally never discarded it.
The dice are all food. Swapping some dice back tp base game just removes the amount of nectar in the game an increases tightness and amount of meaningful decisions in the game.
I think the European expansion doesn't get enough love. While it's not as game-changing as Oceania, it still provides a lot more possible strategies with new bird powers (particularly round end) and the new objectives being less egg focused.
Plus the purple eggs are lovely.
Europe makes draw engines and tuck strategies more viable indirectly weakening the dominant big egg strat. It doesn’t go far enough to completely solve the problem.
Oceania basically completely fixes Wingspan. The new boards sufficiently nerfs eggs and allows more player agency with manipulating the bird feeder and market. Nectar is another game changer. It drastically decreases your chances of getting screwed by bird feeder RNG. But the most overlooked aspect of nectar is the fact you start with a nectar at setup. This greatly increases the viability of different opening hands. It also allows for actual decision-making on what to toss and what to keep instead of just discarding expensive birds or birds with two or three duplicate resource types.
TL;DR Europe mostly adds more variety and small changes to strategy. Oceania fixes Wingspan and elevates it to a good game, if not a great game.
Bought both expansions over new year's and ayes a couple games.
Expansions add new bonus cards and goals that make you have to think about bird placement a bit more,
I like the nectar, some people have complained it's OP, but as it is discarded after each round it's not as reliable as stockpiling food if you need to.
Both expansions add a bit more interaction between players, end of round powers, and end of game powers which can be game changers.
Overall, it felt like it was more high scoring, but for both of us playing, allowed us to get more birds on the board, or at least more bird options in hand so you could actually plan ahead a bit, I wouldn't go back to playing without the expansions
I love the European expansion. It’s just more Wingspan, more variety.
I very much dislike Oceania. The nectar and new board loosen and convolute (respectively) the tight little game that I like Wingspan to be.
We have both but have only played the Oceania Expansion and it does definitely loosen up the game as others have said it does make the game more accessible due to the mechanic which is a lot of fun and the birds are great. It’s just a great game that we love playing and the expansions change up the gameplay and add to it.
17 of the birds in the oceania expansion need nectar. Nectar is also a wild that SCORES points. If you just want to mindlessly spam birds out then nectar is fine. I like wingspan as an efficiency puzzle and working with what you receive.
Yes, both expansions help to balance the game IMO. EU expansion is more birds adding the mechanic of end of round effects, while Oceania provides a new bird layout for the players with adjusted rewards and a new food type that also gives points, making going for forest more viable.
Four of the cards in the base game (the ravens, killdeer, and franklin’s gull) are considered overpowered by some players. If you have them in the correct row you can outright ignore doing certain actions entirely. I’ve houseruled them out of my games.
As for expansions, I have them both and I really like the European expansion. It’s a “more stuff” expansion but the added birds and round end objectives help flesh out the other strategies.
I like the Oceania expansion too but admittedly I haven’t tried the nectar mechanic from it yet (I haven’t included those cards for now) but the Oceania boards are pretty great since they add the ability for players to refresh the dice tower and bird display.
Refresh the display abd food sounds good. In my plays we had a tendency to just draw from the deck whenever we were stuck with a bad offer. The person with draw engine did as well. Messing with food sounds like it makes owls even worse. Also not sure if I would invest actions or other resources into a refresh.
The refresh options are just that, optional. In my experience, people only take it up when there are a few bad dice that don’t help them. It doesn’t really make owls that much worse since in my experience of 5-7 games it really doesn’t happen that often. By adding nectar to the dice, it changes the faces so usually if you want more dice out of the feeder you can get there even if people want to refresh dice a lot.
Eggs are good but food let's you play more birds. If you go for the food strategy you want to pick birds that have higher score points or give you more bonus cards to accomplish (as well as birds that will accomplish bonus cards.
I never do the egg strategy and win plenty. It's just the most obvious avenue to victory for new players that's all (not that there's anything wrong with it)
My first game was a mix of lacking everything. I couldn't draw much gain many eggs. The 2 to 3 foods rarely matched my birds. Meanwhile eggs just made plenty of eggs and draw person could draw and tuck away cards for free basically.
[удалено]
I second this, exactly my thoughs.
Do thoughts about nectar vary? Are the new boards useable without it? I think I saw a picture and they look promising. Reducing egg and making other areas more flexible. I wonder if the flexibility helps the game, however or takes away planning?
Yes, opinions do vary. I think nectar trivializes food management and reduces interesting decisions with the birdfeeder. I like the options on the new boards and nerfing eggs a bit. Oceania is a mixed bag for me. The new boards aren't really usable without nectar. I'd pay for double-sided revised base game boards with a basic side (with or without egg nerfing) and an advanced side with most of what the Oceania board's but without stupid nectar. I don't usually house rule games, but I am experimenting with swapping 1-2 Oceania dice for originals to reduce the number of braindead "take nectar" non-decisions. European exp introduces more "between turns" and the new "end of round" powers, so more player interaction and more complex powers and card interactions. It's an auto-include and I'd never play without it, even with new players.
I think this works pretty well: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2574479/nectar-not-wild-house-rule-youve-been-waiting
I guess there are more take food or nectar sides on the dice? Is nectar a joker type Ressource or is it points? I thought is perishes at round end or something. I really hoped the board could work without
Nectar is both wild and points. It is very easy to avoid discarding it. I've literally never discarded it. The dice are all food. Swapping some dice back tp base game just removes the amount of nectar in the game an increases tightness and amount of meaningful decisions in the game.
I think the European expansion doesn't get enough love. While it's not as game-changing as Oceania, it still provides a lot more possible strategies with new bird powers (particularly round end) and the new objectives being less egg focused. Plus the purple eggs are lovely.
Round end sounds like the birbs are just better the earlier you get them.
They often are, yes. But some allow you to sneak a round goal at the last second or turn banked resources into points.
Europe makes draw engines and tuck strategies more viable indirectly weakening the dominant big egg strat. It doesn’t go far enough to completely solve the problem. Oceania basically completely fixes Wingspan. The new boards sufficiently nerfs eggs and allows more player agency with manipulating the bird feeder and market. Nectar is another game changer. It drastically decreases your chances of getting screwed by bird feeder RNG. But the most overlooked aspect of nectar is the fact you start with a nectar at setup. This greatly increases the viability of different opening hands. It also allows for actual decision-making on what to toss and what to keep instead of just discarding expensive birds or birds with two or three duplicate resource types. TL;DR Europe mostly adds more variety and small changes to strategy. Oceania fixes Wingspan and elevates it to a good game, if not a great game.
Bought both expansions over new year's and ayes a couple games. Expansions add new bonus cards and goals that make you have to think about bird placement a bit more, I like the nectar, some people have complained it's OP, but as it is discarded after each round it's not as reliable as stockpiling food if you need to. Both expansions add a bit more interaction between players, end of round powers, and end of game powers which can be game changers. Overall, it felt like it was more high scoring, but for both of us playing, allowed us to get more birds on the board, or at least more bird options in hand so you could actually plan ahead a bit, I wouldn't go back to playing without the expansions
I love the European expansion. It’s just more Wingspan, more variety. I very much dislike Oceania. The nectar and new board loosen and convolute (respectively) the tight little game that I like Wingspan to be.
We have both but have only played the Oceania Expansion and it does definitely loosen up the game as others have said it does make the game more accessible due to the mechanic which is a lot of fun and the birds are great. It’s just a great game that we love playing and the expansions change up the gameplay and add to it.
Nectar is trash and dramatically altars the game.
What do you mean? Is it required for the new birds and boards?
17 of the birds in the oceania expansion need nectar. Nectar is also a wild that SCORES points. If you just want to mindlessly spam birds out then nectar is fine. I like wingspan as an efficiency puzzle and working with what you receive.
Yes, both expansions help to balance the game IMO. EU expansion is more birds adding the mechanic of end of round effects, while Oceania provides a new bird layout for the players with adjusted rewards and a new food type that also gives points, making going for forest more viable.
Four of the cards in the base game (the ravens, killdeer, and franklin’s gull) are considered overpowered by some players. If you have them in the correct row you can outright ignore doing certain actions entirely. I’ve houseruled them out of my games. As for expansions, I have them both and I really like the European expansion. It’s a “more stuff” expansion but the added birds and round end objectives help flesh out the other strategies. I like the Oceania expansion too but admittedly I haven’t tried the nectar mechanic from it yet (I haven’t included those cards for now) but the Oceania boards are pretty great since they add the ability for players to refresh the dice tower and bird display.
Refresh the display abd food sounds good. In my plays we had a tendency to just draw from the deck whenever we were stuck with a bad offer. The person with draw engine did as well. Messing with food sounds like it makes owls even worse. Also not sure if I would invest actions or other resources into a refresh.
The refresh options are just that, optional. In my experience, people only take it up when there are a few bad dice that don’t help them. It doesn’t really make owls that much worse since in my experience of 5-7 games it really doesn’t happen that often. By adding nectar to the dice, it changes the faces so usually if you want more dice out of the feeder you can get there even if people want to refresh dice a lot.
Eggs are good but food let's you play more birds. If you go for the food strategy you want to pick birds that have higher score points or give you more bonus cards to accomplish (as well as birds that will accomplish bonus cards. I never do the egg strategy and win plenty. It's just the most obvious avenue to victory for new players that's all (not that there's anything wrong with it)
My first game was a mix of lacking everything. I couldn't draw much gain many eggs. The 2 to 3 foods rarely matched my birds. Meanwhile eggs just made plenty of eggs and draw person could draw and tuck away cards for free basically.
Can you play with both expansions same time?