It is as important to keep cards your opponent wants away from them, as it is to score big points for yourself.
It is often worth your while to wait a turn and gain the right colors, in order to be able to use a card's bonus.
The most points that can be achieved in the game is if you get all of the deer and wolves. You do not need to play a deer+wolf strategy to win, but you will lose if you let your opponent have all the deer and wolves.
Other powerful cards to build a game around:
Beech Martins - play them while filling all 4 sides of a tree
Tree Ferns - Play them with Toads and Salamanders
Goshawks - Play them while playing lots of other birds
Oaks/Strawberries - Play them while getting all 8 species of tree
European Hares - Red Foxes: Generally a less power combination than deer +wolves, but can still get you a number of points.
Chestnuts - playing a lot of these is a good, especially if you can all get the orange Roe deer.
Sycamores + Red Deer - Play a lot of trees with these
The right mushrooms can help boost any of these strategies powerfully.
Secondary strategies include:
Butterflies + Hedgehogs
Bats and Dormice
Lynxes
Mosses
Easy to forget Rules:
- The “free play a type of creature” bonus does not trigger additional bonuses or effects
- The "Draw card" effect only draws from the deck (not the clearing)
- A card is added to the clearing when a tree/sapling is played, but not when a split card is played
There are 8 types of tree:
- Sycamore
- Birch
- Beech
- Douglas Fir
- Oak
- Horse Chestnut
- Linden
- Silver Fir