When I first played Ark Nova, I got absolutely wrecked. Not just beaten—I was my zoos’ flamingo enclosures and tortoise exhibits, and my friends’ apple sunglasses-charm filled conservation zones won with added eye trinkets worth numberless extra points. I lost with a score of 87 points to my 35. Sad.
And of course – I did blame my failure to understand the quite shocking and illogical action selection system. To me, the system Ark Novauses seemed unbelievably simple—pick a card, do the action, move it to the rightest no-slot, everything moves. Turns out, I was wrong on all fronts.
This grind continues the next morning, so I decide to claw my way out of it by calling Patrick. This strategy-to-me-life gives me a sense of freedom akin to when you tell a closeted friend that their new haircut shows combination plates. With this in mind, I change my tone and mildy helplessly force for a rematch.
We played it 7 times in a single month—seven! Linda, my wife, began to refer to Patrick as my “zoo boyfriend” because of the frequency with which he came to our house. But those repeated plays were quite revealing. With every game played, the action selection puzzle became clearer to me, exposing patterns that I had previously overlooked.
Here’s what I’ve deduced, economically speaking, after 32 plays (don’t worry, I track everything, it’s part of the job when you manage a strategy gaming site) and trying to understand why some zoos operate like thriving metropolises teeming with animals, while others exist as somber enclosures filled with mere meerkats and parakeets.
Before anything else, the order in which you set up your action cards for the first time is much more critical than it seems. Most novice players, including former me, overestimate the value of the first five cards and treat them as equal options. That is, unfortunately, the action that almost guarantees failure right away. In that first turn, you should be placing your most crucial early-game actions so that they are positioned in an order that reduces wasted turns. For me, that usually means prioritizing cards, building, and association in the first few slots.
I tracked my first-round choices for the last fifteen games, and there seems to be a pattern with the game’s overall score and how I placed building and cards in slots 1 through 3. Getting an early enclosure and filling your hand creates exponentially more options as the game progresses.
The cadence of the action cards is what makes Ark Nova enjoyable. It is a different galaxy if you are simply choosing the next action in the optimal way; you’re supposed to plan several turns in advance. In two rounds, will you have the “cards” available to see your board then? If you took “cards” right now, which other parts of the board will be available then? I have been trying to envision small decision trees, for example, if I decide to take building now, I’ll be needing animals two turns later, so animals should be placed for easy reach.
Planning ahead is even more important for the association action. A lot of new players tend to take association whenever it is up for grabs, and that is not the best use of resources. There is a pacing to when the university partnerships or conservation projects should be taken, and it is never right at, when the card simply lies in the leftmost position.
My friend Jim didn’t understand. He would pick the action that offered him the most value, even if it was the furthest left on the chart. By mid-game, his action row would not match in any way with what he actually required. We still tell him about the “Monkey Disaster” when he drew six monkey cards in a row but could not use his animal action card for three more turns. Those monkeys tortured him for life, I am certain.
The building action is without a doubt the most misinterpreted. It seems to me inexperienced players view it simply as making room for animals which is vital, yes, but the building action is actually the primary way to build your engine. It’s far more important to get ongoing effects or action improvement than create additional enclosures. My win rate increased significantly once I oriented my focus to action enhancing structures instead of just housing the animals.
The breakthrough came during the 14th game (which I played at our cabin during what was to be a relaxing weekend but turned into an Ark Nova marathon — Linda loved it). I concentrated almost exclusively on the actions that enhanced my card and animal actions rangers. By mid-game, I was drawing 7 drawing 7 cards and retaining 4 after the cards action. The engine, after that point, more or less constructed itself.
Let’s discuss the breaking point idea. Almost every engine-building game will have an instance where your machine tips from struggling to powerful. In Ark Nova, this moment usually comes when you can reliably perform 2-3 very synergistic actions back to back. It is the “zoo momentum moment.” It is now an obsession of mine to pinpoint precisely how and when to push for it.
Typically, that for me is the breaking point where I have optimized a cards action to at least draw 6, have 2 or 3 special buildings running, and animals of 4+ appeal are consistent. If you’re not intentionally crafting towards this state, tussle out with animals and sequentially drop them onto the battlefield, which is not a winning move.
I tried many approaches which led me to try new strategies to win. It’s true that this approach, one that involves associations, works, but you have to select schools carefully. Another example is building-centric strategies. They can be highly effective, but extremely challenging if you do not discover the right specialized buildings early. A full-on animal stampede works too, although you would need certain cards to be shown during the right time. None of the strategies can be regarded as ‘the best one’ because that is the core reason why the game is so enjoyable to play multiple times.
Animals. There are more important things than a high appeal. An eye-catching design is synonymous with a money trap, such a thing is foolish if associated. In the past, I was obsessed with obtaining animals with high appeal and would usually go bankrupt, but nowadays I’ve switch priorities, targeting animals that help my conservation track or enable powerful card effects. That unappealing animal may not look good but will end up becoming a prerequisite toward a conservation project worth 10 points.
Last summer, I managed to win my game after I intentionally selected animals that had low appeal but high conservation value. My friends now refer to this as the “ugly animal strategy”. Ended up collecting a heap of endangered toads alongside lesser-known reptiles and small primates. The zoo wasn’t visually stunning and probably would go unnoticed by tourists, but the conservation win was impressive.
Card action is a critical factor in executing a strategy, but it shifts as the game progresses. In the early game, volume is usually prioritized, which means maximizing all available cards in order to identify key components. In the mid-game, selectivity reigns supreme – fewer cards are taken, but maintaining a higher percent of useful cards is often preferable. By late-game, I find myself using cards primarily for action improvements rather than for actually taking many cards. This shift isn’t apparent at the start, but it is fundamental if one is attempting to optimize their strategy.
I once stubbornly spent an entire play session circling the same tier and continually attempting to draw the max cards every turn. The end result was a hand that could compete against being in an actual petting zoo instead of a conservation center. Well, not the best showcase of my skills.
Break timing, or rather when you take suboptimal actions to restructure your actions, is another advanced technique. Strangely enough, the worst available action can sometimes serve as the correct choice if setting up for a strong sequence in the next 3-4 turns. This move is what distinguishes the inexperienced and experienced in Ark Nova, the latter wont simply optimize for immediate tangible gain.
I note down the breaks in my gameplay and there seems to be a strong correlation between strategically placed breaks during rounds 3-5 and winning the game. One’s ability to give up short term wins to fortify one’s position in the long term is, without a doubt, the most significant skill and the hardest one to cultivate.
The design of the map adds another layer of strategy that overlaps with the player’s choices. I have seen that producing adjacency bonuses often validates a slightly inefficient action being taken. When kiosks are placed properly, they offer exceptional value and income generation, often making mid-game sponsorships unnecessary.
Sarah, my friend, is unmatched at this. From maximizing bonuses to inefficient zoo layouts proposed by my drunk cousin city planner which make it look like at best a bunch of toddlers were let loose with markers and forced to draw the zoning maps for some sick twisted Digimon cityscape. Personally, Sarah’s zoo isn’t a single zoo. Its multiple zoos, each more sprawling, elaborately organized, contained within ever-spiraling sets of parentheses nested ad infinitum, waiting for clever mathematicians to discover more ways of sneaking into their inner depths.
With partner cards, the overall strategic depth gets a plethora of options. For a new player, the more obvious appeal of tackling immediate priorities blinds the underlying strength that synergized partner selection offers. If an action sequence is planned, selecting skilled partners whose abilities fit the sequence makes all the difference. If there is an association action heavy barrage, partners from the university enhancing that branch become invaluable despite dismal base stats.
For this one, I have been tinkering with what I like to call “partner driven strategy,” which is a tailored approach based on specific partners that show up at the start of each game. It is not built around mid to late game balance, so the strategies can feel less consistent, but when it hits, it hits extremely hard. My personal best scoring game was around 100 points, which stemmed from a luck driven strategy where I had the ideal supporting cards.
Conservation projects are important to consider. One of the deviations is going after animals that are “matched,” but a better strategy is to focus on animals that you suspect will be up for selection and will help you finish off high value projects. That kind of intention and strategy early on helps dictate the final score.
The very first game comes to mind when I think of this and how I ignored all logic with an opportunistic approach. I went in expecting that there was going to be a lot of possible animals that I could collect, and was instead met with a random assortment of animals. Since then, I have stuck to two or three possible project paths which with few starting moves help guide my overall strategy.
Finally, do not underestimate the value of end-game timing. Unlike many engine builders, knowing when and how to trigger the end in Ark Nova is an art in and of itself. Sometimes you want to play that final conservation project, and other times you will want to wait to have one last mega action scoring frenzy. This is especially relevant in the mid to late game where there is a higher player count and you have less control over the end of the game.
Anyway, that’s where I would draw the line when optimizing actions in Ark Nova. It quickly climbed up the list of my all time favorite games, as it combines strategic depth, meaningful decisions, and thematic elements that never fails to draw me back. Every game has so many new interactions and approaches that reveal themselves from outside the box thinking that I haven’t thought of previously.
And yes, eventually I was able to beat Patrick. Quite handily, I would add. With my conservation focused strategy scoring 92 to his 63, which only makes me roll my eyes constantly when mentioned at socio-appropriately inopportune times. But who doesn’t love friends?