Tips forestshuffle

1. The game is a race, as soon as the second winter card is out, if you are ahead it's often better to try to increase the lead a bit than to prepare for a bigger turn that you might not get to play.
2. It is as important to keep cards your opponent wants away from them, as it is to score big points for yourself. Be aware of what your opponents need.
3. To do this you can discard those cards when the clearing (enough to get to 10 and clear it) or their hand are full (9 or 10).
4. 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.
5. Moles can overturn games with huge turns, to set it up, make sure you have trees with room and a full hand.
6. Free-turn cards can help you clear a seemingly full hand before picking up something an opponent discarded thinking you could not grab.
7. 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.
8. Other powerful cards to build a game around:
   • Beech Martins - play them while filling all 4 sides of trees
   • 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 if lucky. (Combine with a Silver Fir for more points, and a mole to play the hares quickly)
   • 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.
9. Secondary strategies include:
   • Butterflies + Hedgehogs
   • Bats and Dormice
   • Lynxes (compliments 🦌 🐺)
   • Mosses
10. Easy to forget Rules
    • The “free play a type of creature” bonus does not trigger additional bonuses or effect.
    • 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
11. There are 8 types of tree in the base game:
    • Sycamore
    • Birch
    • Beech
    • Douglas Fir
    • Oak
    • Horse Chestnut
    • Linden
    • Silver Fir
12. The Alpine expansion includes 2 new tree types for a total of 10
    • European Larch
    • Swiss Pine
13. The Alpine expansion also makes makes butterfly and bird strategies more viable. Expansion tree colors are a bit more rare and may be confused with some base game ones if colorblind.