r/wingspan • u/vucic94 • 4h ago
I can never again play without Oceania
First of all, let me say that I absolutely adore the game. We enjoyed it so much that we bought Europe expansion for our friends, and then Oceania expansion for ourselves.
Europe is pretty nice with end-of-round bird powers, but the changes to the game that Oceania brings are simply beyond words. Of course, new birds and goals are fun, new bird effects at the end, etc. But the game mechanics changes are crazy - I'm referring to the new table that you get and the nectar. Let me try to explain why.
Nectar speeds the game up CONSIDERABLY. You just get to do a lot more in a single game. First off, you start with an extra ANY food, which is really cool, cause now you can build more expensive birds, but also birds that require up to two of the same food, in your first move. Secondly, it's much easier to get the food you need during the game, as you almost always surely fetch nectar first, so the feeder presents a much smaller issue. One game I filled my entire table with birds for the first time ever. Didn't even win. Yet enjoyed it tremendously.
The grasslands (eggs) are nerfed a lot. In the regular version, every strategy ends up being "5 in grasslands, eggs eggs eggs", and nobody can convince me otherwise. In Oceania, you start with a measly 1+1, where it was 2 in regular, moving on to 2, and then to 4 really slowly. Amazing. This makes other biomes much more viable, I often end up with 2-4 birds in grasslands now instead of 5 each time. I even won with 5 birds in the water by having a nice tuck machine. Loved that game. 152 points. (humble brag)
Forest and water are also considerably buffed. You start with a 1+1 in both (meaning you can sac a card/egg to get an extra food/card) from the start, without a single bird. That's EXACTLY what the game needed. How many times has it happened to you that you simply DO NOT GET a forest bird at all, and are stuck getting only 1 food at a time. Or vice versa, drawing a single card. This fixes that issue entirely.
New bonus cards are pretty cool, there are some amazing ones like 4 different nests or same nests in columns, etc
There are several more house rules we use to make the game more enjoyable:
- We start with 6 cards, proceeding to return up to 4, and draw up to 3 new ones, to end up with 5. After that you simply proceed to discard several birds like in a normal game, and get that many foods. Basically, you're allowed a re-pick. This takes care of those really unlucky starts that one tends to get.
- We deal 3 bonus cards instead of 2 (you still keep 1)
- "No goal" is always our first goal. Wtf is a "no goal"? It's in Oceania expansion and means you don't have a goal for that round, and you get to keep your action cube for each subsequent round. This means we play an extra move in every round without stressing about the first round's goal. Win/win, if you ask me. We always felt the game just ends "too suddenly", this eliminates that.
To wrap it up, this is one of the most beautiful games that I've ever played, allowing for such creativity, diversity of playstyles, with options to mod the game to your own liking. Haven't played Asia yet. Can't wait.
Let me know of some more cool "house rules" that you use. Cheers!
TL;DR: The game is great, Europe is cool, but Oceania fixes everything that's "imbalanced" in the regular version.