(Finally almost) won at Ark Nova

As a number of people have pointed out, and I’m finally hearing — the board game Ark Nova is a sprint. There are three objective cards (conservation cards) dealt at the onset of the game, that have tantalizing conditions (e.g., if you have 8 small animals in your zoo, you can claim four conservation points) that you should really only consider the smallest condition for (e.g., if you have two small animals, you can claim two conservation points) before running to the next objective. If you manage to get a high-level objective, great, but don’t plan on it.

Taking this strategy got me my best multi-player score with something like 20 points more than I usually score, which, in Ark Nova, is a lot.

Well, and my friend who beats me so regularly at the game might be so tired of winning that he took a really weird strategy just to entertain himself — and he still won. But he only beat me by six points. Either way — this new strategy worked.