How to win at wingspan

My girlfriend's family is full of bird nuts and boardgamers, so what a delight when we discovered a multi-award winning boardgame based on building a bird sanctuary. Wingspan deserves the accolades. It is beautiful, wholesome, deep but simple to play, competitive without being nasty, and educational. We burned through a lot games over Christmas, and because I am mildly austic or something, I had to break it. I have a problem and I need help. Anyway, after dominating proceedings I decided to write up my stratagems for you to benefit from. Voila!

1.     Only build good birds

A critical determinant of who wins is who has the most bird points. High point birds don’t necessarily cost more resources than low point birds, so place a strong priority on building 4+ point birds and try to avoid building birds worth <3 points.

More importantly, prioritise quality abilities. The top abilities are anything that generates more resources than the ability costs to activate. The obvious winners here are birds that generate food (especially from supply), eggs, or draw a card whenever they are activated, and the pink abilities like the cuckoo and Kingfisher than generate eggs or food whenever your opponent acts. Even better, typically, are the birds that trade 2 for 1, e.g. the raven who trades 1 egg for 2 of any food, and the ones that allow you to draw 2 and then discard one. The “repeat a power” birds are also top tier, unless they repeat a hunting power. These birds all accelerate the rest of your game plan.

Belted Kingfisher = best bird in the game. Free resources, 5 points, star nest

The best birds in the game are the crows/ravens and cuckoos (pink ability), especially early. The cuckoos are worth a lot of points, don’t cost that much, and generate eggs without you doing anything. The ravens/crows are cheap-multi, high points, star nest and get you the exact food you need from supply. If your first two plays are a cuckoo and a crow the game is yours to lose. 

The mid-level abilities are 1 to 1 trade birds, especially draw a card to tuck a card as these improve the quality of your hand, get an extra bonus card, birds of prey that draw from the deck (<100cm killing birds are some of the best mid-late game cards because of high points and generating more easily but not so good early because they don’t accelerate your resource generation), and what I call flutterers—the birds that change habitat when activated. Flutterers require a lot of forward planning and micromanagement but can accelerate production dramatically and are typically worth a solid number of points.

"Bonus Card" birds like the Puffin and Spoonbill are great late game, generating massive points.

The bad birds are anything that eats fish/rodents (too low probability), most “activate when played” birds (not a big enough effect for the resource investment), things that give you and everyone else resources (unless they are 1 food for 5 points with a key nest, which makes them mid-tier), and food cachers. Food gathering birds are usually 2 points and activate 4–5 times in a game. That makes them 7 points total with no abilities. That’s a terrible early-play bird, and if you play them late they don’t have enough time to cache.  

In the early game it is critical that you build resource generating birds, with cards being the most important followed by food and then eggs. I will explain why in a moment. Mid-game the “extra bonus card” birds come into their own if they are cheap and high points and have the right nest/habitat, but mostly you just keep building resource generators, including cyclers like draw 1 tuck 1. Mid–late game you want the big birds of prey, high point birds in the right habitat with the right nest, and high point bonus card birds.

2.     Cards (and thus the Wetlands) are king

If the most important thing in the game is building good birds, then it follows that you need to get the good birds, hence the wetlands are the most important habitat. You want to get 2 birds down here ASAP so that you can draw 2 without resource cost whenever you activate. If you can also get down a “draw 2 discard 1” bird then you’ve got a card drawing engine that puts you in a great position to win the game.

The other best bird in the game

After wetlands you want food in the early game and eggs late game. Eggs are cool because they generate points, but birds also generate points and have abilities, so I mostly only get eggs when I want to build birds, or I’m in a rush to an end-of-round objective. After such an objective you can whittle those eggs down. Having an egg generator in a different habitat is ideal, because then you get the eggs you need to place birds without needing to invest in or activate grasslands. You need more eggs late game because all birds cost 2 eggs. Ideally you want 3 birds in the forest and at least 1 generates a food when activated. Flutterers can help tremendously with efficiency in the forest/plains by helping you to never have to trade resources to generate +1. I usually aim to build 1 flutterer (aim for 3+ point flutterer). 

 

3.     You need to get your bonus card and to win at least 1 round

So much of the game comes down to getting pipped for an objective or having to split it with somebody. My approach is usually to aim for 2^nd on 3 objectives. One will end up being left uncontested and you will cruise into 1^st, while one of the other two will get taken from you in a big contest. When you feel an objective slipping just let it go unless you are 100% confident you can win it outright. Splitting points is very inefficient, especially if you have to build inefficiently to claim it.

I usually ignore the first-round objective in order to build my base. It’s only worth 4 points and is no easier to win that later rounds where getting pipped and coming 2^nd or even 3^rd still gets you points. Playing the long game and planning to go hard on rounds 3 and 4 is usually the way to go.

If you notice early that there is just no way you’re going to be competitive for the round objectives, then swap quickly to “bonus cards” instead i.e. prioritise drawing and building birds that generate additional bonus cards, and focus on achieving those cards. Aim to get at least 4 and build a lot of high-point birds. The bonus card birds are fortunately typically high point birds. This approach can be quite effective because you can completely ignore your opponents and just focus on maximally efficient build order. Your opponents will often also underestimate your position because you are not contesting rounds, and they will leave bonus card birds in the feeder. Indeed, it is increasingly my default strategy, especially if I get a flutterer early or get a run of high-point but weak-ability birds early.

Bonus cards are worth a lot of points and are not hard to score if you pay attention, with some exceptions (like birds that hunt rodents is a terrible card).

 

4.     Build evenly early but then try to ignore 1 habitat

The first bird doesn’t cost eggs, and the next 2 only cost 1. Remember that all eggs are 1 point and building eggs often costs a turn, so be efficient and build evenly in round 1/2. An ideal start is one bird in each habitat and a flutterer. Then you can get 2 of each resource each turn without having to trade another resource because the flutterer helps you out.

Through the mid-game, you hopefully have one habitat that generates a different resource when activated. For example, you will have a quail in the wetland who generates eggs when you draw cards. Down-prioritise whichever habitat you are getting anyway and spam the cross-habitat instead, especially if it is wetlands. This way you can get 2 habitats going at the 2nd level of generation without resource expenditure quickly without getting stuck. 

 

5.     Make hard trades round 1 when it is slow

Everything is inefficient in round 1, notably food and card generation, so don’t squander your starting allocation. If you get 4 good birds in your opening hand, keep them all. A bird costs a turn and so does food, but birds are random while food is less so. Equally, if you only have 1 good bird, drop the other 4 and keep those 4 foods so that when you do draw a decent bird (out of the tray hopefully so that there is no risk on your precious draw 1 card) you can build it straightaway.

If a decent bird is in the tray in round one draw it. Paying a turn to draw a good bird is a bargain. Round 1 is basically a write-off. It’s all about setting yourself up for the next 3 rounds. Let other people fight for the objective. Your objective is to get at least 2 good birds built and be set up for a third. Then you’ll find that you accelerate sharply in round 2 and end the game with lots of high-point birds.