Tips wingspan

Introduction

At its core Wingspan is an engine building resource management game. Your most finite resources is actions as you are limited to 26 (8+7+6+5) of these each game. So generally speaking you want to get the most out of every action. Play that bird before you take an action in its row so that you get an extra resource. There are of course exceptions to this e.g. if you need to move up in the rankings for an end of round goal.

Early Game

When the game starts take the time to analyze each of these goals as they will heavily shape what to go for in this game. Lots of egg goals? Investing more into the grasslands may be a good idea. Lots of bird goals? Investing more into the Forest may be better. These are both oversimplifications as generally speaking you will build birds in every habitat and take every action over the course of most games. There are many other important considerations:

• Many nest-specific goals means the wild nest birds are stronger
• Consider which nest goals exist and lean more on keeping and playing birds with that nest
• Varying location based goals (eggs or birds in one of the 3 habitats) means the flighty birds (when on the right change habitat) are stronger
• With all of the above in mind, specific pink birds become stronger too as opponents are forced into taking these actions or forgo end of round goals
• Weight the later goals more heavily since these are worth more points - there's nothing wrong with skipping the first goal or two if it means positioning yourself to win the last one or two

You should think of the bonus cards as additional private end of game goals. Consider whether one of your bonus cards aligns with later end of round goals as that increases its value. Then move to your birds. Cross reference the end of round goals and above info with your hand and the available birds. Ideally you want to plan out your first few turns. Some general principles:

• Brown and pink action birds are ideal in the early game when there is more time to trigger their ability. More specifically you want powers that generate additional resources - cards > food > eggs. With that...
•• Cards: this is the most important resource. Having a good card draw/cycle engine lets you find the birds you actually want to play often while scoring tuck points
•• Food: you need food to play your cards, but you don't know what food you need until you find good cards and you can discard cards for food. Over the course of a game you should be drawing (and pitching) a lot more cards than food. Caching food is basically always worse than gaining it until the last turn or two depending on what birds and how much food you have
•• Eggs: eggs are inherently less valuable than the other resources until the end of the game when eggs score points whereas cards and food do not. I say inherently because at every step you get 1 more egg than the other resources. So early in the game, you almost always want to spend an egg to draw (if you can) whereas later you need to think about it a bit more
• The best starting birds either draw you food or cards. If you get both, your early game should run very smoothly
•• You should obviously consider the cost of each bird when making this decision. That 3-cost food producer might be good early, but consider how that will impact your ability to play other birds.
• Note if you're going first as you are guaranteed your pick of the shown birds which may be better to start with than any in your hand - there's nothing wrong with drawing a powerful bird on your first turn
• Generally you should be keeping 1-3 birds. Keeping 5 should literally never be done and keeping 4 only makes sense if your hand is insane and/or you have a 1-cost forest bird going into 2 food production
• Be wary of any actions that benefit opponents equally to you. These are probably bad in almost all cases

Mid-Game

You should have a small resource engine hopefully consisting of birds that play toward at least one goal. Here are some principles focused more on the midgame:

• Routinely check your opponents boards and consider which remaining goals you have a realistic chance at winning. Compare how hard you have to invest into the goal, how likely you are to win it, and what you could be doing instead which might yield a greater long-term return e.g. maybe a later goal if players are less invested into it
•• You should check their resource count and engine power as this factors in to how much they can develop into goals. If you're not that far behind then you may see that their resources cannot (or are very unlikely) to outpace you
• Also check for pink birds. In some cases you should actually skip an action (e.g. predator) to prevent an opponent from gaining a more valuable resource (food is generally worth more than one point). But this is just a consideration - you can't skip playing birds in a habitat altogether but maybe you can wait to do it on the same turn as another opponent
• It is good to play bonus card birds in the mid game. This will give you time to play toward the goal while having less impact on your early engine
• If you have a good card draw engine, prioritize and collect additional play birds. Planning around big bird chains in the last round can often turn the tide of a game

End Game

As the 3rd round comes to an end and the final round approaches you should be able to plan out the rest of your turns. Make a final decision on which goals you can reasonably commit to and play accordingly. It's okay to not always get the highest tier goal. Maybe playing out your non-goal birds in hand yields more points. Keep in mind that every round you spend gathering food to play your birds is a lost opportunity for other ways to gain points so maybe you should be stocking your remaining birds with eggs instead. You should be able to calculate which route has the highest expected score. Good luck!