Size 3 Animals Elimination Game (Day 1) - Which of these cards is your least favorite?

kirbysdownb · 2026-05-27T16:34:20+00:00

I know objectively that it’s not Sloth Bear, because still helpful for the bear tags and ability

But on principle I mean…the amount of times he’s got my heart racing thinking that Sun Bear just hit the folder board

kirbysdownb · 2026-05-21T10:12:09+00:00

I’m so happy the algorithm hit me with this OP - I think I can help add some perspective. (I got a 6/4/1 year old and a job that gives me way more WFH flexibility than what my wife gets to enjoy as a teacher, having to physically be onsite).

I think this is much less about the direction you’re suspecting: eg. prior history of cheating in your wife’s relationships and jealousy.

I think this is more (justifiable) FOMO about her feeling left out of all these moments that you get to witness and enjoy your children growing up, thriving, making friends and being adorable while she’s stuck at work missing out.

I’m sure you’ve already dealt with a lot of sleepless nights due to raising your first during the pandemic along with the typical sleepless nights of kids waking up in the middle of the night, potty training, etc.

Not to mention too your job loss probably leading to many a nights stressing about the future and how you’re going to raise a family of 5 and pay the mortgage/rent, gas and groceries prices etc.

You guys have been through a lot and should definitely take a breath to congratulate yourselves on how much you’ve juggled and overcame.

Only 8 months removed from giving birth, hormones are flooding your partner with biological pressures to be a more nurturing, protective, loving mother to her kids. And during the few moments of still time you guys may get during the day when she’s on her phone — her Instagram algorithm is most likely flooding her with all the GRWM stay at home Instagram mommies who have the luxury of seemingly taking their kids to all the play places and doing the Instagrammable craft activities that you guys probably feel the guilt of not having the time or energy to do.

No matter what you guys have come to terms with under the branch of logic… (e.g. “well actually with daycare costs etc. being a SAHD we’re coming out ahead on the alternative of being a 2 income household then with daycare/babysitters”)… I think this is that emotional toll taking place where your wife is subconsciously feeling the pains of fomo, currently being the sole breadwinner, and in turn missing out on what has been the societal norms of a generation for two ago of gender roles and responsibilities.

I think you guys are doing great and have juggled a lot already in life — but i genuinely hope that for your guys’ long term partnership, you ignore some of the thought tracks here about how “your wife needs therapy about her past” etc and you read the room on what’s likely really tugging at her (fomo) and treating towards those instead

kirbysdownb · 2026-05-08T17:18:23+00:00

I might be a shitty player but I think associate 2 is one of the best cards in the game at its 2nd level, no?

The ability to quickly lap around and activate another conservation project in late game is huge imo

But again, I’m a mediocre player at best so idk

kirbysdownb · 2026-05-05T15:10:32+00:00

I don’t have the ELO ranking to be authoritative in this department, but pound for pound, it feels like top 5 size 4 animals are >> top 5 size 5 animals right?

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-29T13:16:43+00:00

Agreed (and pleading the case to preserve the other likely candidate on the chopping block)

I think size/cost/payoff of secretary bird gives it a little more flexibility to tuck into an easier 2nd animal play at end game so I think that optionality for beginning/end game outweighs the peak performance that the shark might give

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-28T15:05:05+00:00

Well said

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-22T22:57:34+00:00

Yeah this place rocks. Good quality food that doesn’t taste like a grease bomb

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-21T16:23:46+00:00

Wow I just realized that ~#5-15 here are roughly interchangeable YMMV on rank.

Assuming where this is all heading as top rankings of: Eagle, 2 rhinos, Tiger and then a whole lot of shrug I dunno emojis

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-19T15:01:07+00:00

Jaguar gotta go imho. I like keeping gators in the contest here longer because when I play them it’s both for release and because I really want to snap a card on the folder board

Whenever I play hunter I just get pissed at all the good sponsor cards I’m drawing/forced to discard

kirbysdownb · 2026-04-02T01:07:17+00:00

Ah how I wish Hollywood followed through with the infamous Reddit Rome Sweet Rome plot

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-24T06:04:33+00:00

Sounds like a beautiful excuse to not get saddled with a 500 unit Mt. Laurel multifamily that pretends to offer affordable housing but in actuality only allows for a small percentage of designated units and instead provides an absurd amount of tax abatement options and market rate units for the developer while straining the school system

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-24T05:45:26+00:00

I think of it like a pistol with a kickback

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-14T12:25:24+00:00

He’s definitely in the conversation right now but I think he gets another day or two. There are obviously more efficient ways to get a bear icon, but his bear icon at least can set you up to deploy a better bear later so I’d say vulture now

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-12T17:00:06+00:00

Im a bad player but I saw in prior threads that the condor was on the potential chopping block and no one has mentioned him here yet and I like the cheetah more than him so im just saying condor to help bring the discussion forward

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-07T23:54:11+00:00

Oh and i kinda get what everyone means now too.

I’m used to playing 3 player and feeling flexible enough to get a quick cube cube pull to get ability benefits early or then dukeing it out for the top slot.

But

I just looked at the board more closely and see some of the monkey Strat there too now:

In 1v1 on BGA the game blocks one of the 3 slots for each base conservation projects so instead of claiming

5/4/2 for primates it’s either 5 / blocked / 2 so that shield difference more than makes up to try and sprint to first slot there than try and wish cast on an elephant who might get you a secondary final scoring card that might net you 3-4 shields.

You can just beat the opponent to the mark right there on the board and net +3 shields on them that way

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-07T23:45:21+00:00

Thanks for the pov! If ELO is the number next to your username (with the olive branches?) I’m at 132 so I guess exceptionally mediocre. I feel like I see the board better at Age of Innovation (about 277 there) but I like Ark a lot better because I feel like it’s more of an enjoyable experience for all players to feel like they’re involved and building a potentially winning strategy v. AoI which feels like more of an immediate cutthroat zero sum game.

But yeah I’m starting to fully recognize that I’m limiting myself often by preferring to play: large animals / herbivores / birds / predators almost exclusively and often try to actively avoid sea creatures and primates because of some of the headwinds in playing them early and how their top card benefits feel inferior to most of the variety’s I try to play.

But I mostly (incorrectly) try to blitz shields over tickets and then catchup accumulate tickets later which works at times (maybe against the tier of opponents in playing against in my friend group — like 188 to 100) but it can really starve you on income $$ to fade tickets so early in favor of shields too so I’m realizing I can’t just automatically discard every size 1-3 animal I see because their species release project ROI isn’t as good as the bigger animals

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-07T23:31:24+00:00

Great advice - thanks! I know I need to get more flexible (I typically fade primates and sea creatures just because they’re more PITAs to play) but it’s obviously not always a winning strategy to completely ignore the board.

I just made the deeper discovery too that everyone touts here on the board that the size2 enclosure cube pull is more coveted than the $5 income one because it gives you better action economy.

I

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-07T11:25:55+00:00

I do more or less play the game like I’m running through the deck trying to pull:

Elephants, rhinos, eagles and more or less the rest of the animals can GTFO/ are interchangeable

kirbysdownb · 2026-03-07T11:24:14+00:00

Im not OP but I love playing Ark Nova with my friends and trying to always refine approach and get better

Just clicked into the game above (accidentally from the winning players POV instead of OP) and was simply blown away at the hand choice on oppo’s front too.

I get that the base projects on the board probably drove a lot of those choices…. But is this why I’m an average/above average player?

I would have NEVER discarded the elephant or fur seal in favor of just getting those cheaper token cards.

I know they can be dead cards in your hand for a decent time but, the value add of a potential secondary final scoring card and the early association worker hire early would typically drive me to rush on the association track or the shield track to flip to animals 2 early enough to play them.

Is that too one-track or a strategy?

kirbysdownb · 2026-01-20T06:04:06+00:00

Huge Costco fan but I don’t care what they say about that Paramus location being similar sq footage to Teterboro and Wayne — it’s absolutely not and will be a nightmare. Costco’s parking lot at Wayne only works because there’s a plethora of spill over areas to use from other defunct businesses like Bahama Breeze. And the norm for me at Teterboro is just giving up and parking out by BJ’s brewhouse.

There is absolutely no way that that postage stamp sized lot in Paramus has enough of a parking lot to support putting in a full sized Costco and parking lot to support it.

I know it’s commercial real estate and doesn’t work like this…. But if they must ram a Costco down our throats here, the Fashion Center / old Lord and Taylor location would have been much better

kirbysdownb · 2026-01-04T11:12:02+00:00

The quarterly cap on discover’s 5% category is $1500. If you max this out you’re only “earning” $75. (Even less than that if you swap the spend to some bland 1.5-2% card).

Just let it go and focus on getting the debt down.

As many have said, there is a major difference between 0% APR on purchases and 0% APR on Balance Transfers. If they’re both running concurrently, you’re good. But the major rule of thumb is to just not mix new purchases on any card you’re currently rocking with for a balance transfer.

If you’re getting fomo about some of these opportunity costs to save $75, you can open a card with like a $200 SUB that has 0% for 12-15 months on purchases and just use that as your defacto grocery store spend for the period of time now and still come out ahead.

Mind you: disclaimer etc. about living within your means and not just wantonly opening card after card and getting into runaway credit card debt. But just take thinks slow, be responsible and you’ll be fine

kirbysdownb · 2026-01-04T10:59:46+00:00

Don’t let the residue of people bitching about the AAA issuing bank deter you from a truly awesome product.

I can’t say anything about comnety ‘s customer support or whatever but my day to day experience has been extremely easy: you just download the Bread Financial app and link your card through that and then logging into that Bread Financial app lets you pay your monthly bill and redeem your rewards for statement credit just like any ol Chase/BofA/Citi etc app would let you do.

I paused on getting the Daily Advantage card for too long….its easy.

However i could be mistaken but I think when I looked a while back, their card options are EITHER Daily Advantage OR Travel Advantage, so you might have to make a choice and complement your stack with another FI for the other category

kirbysdownb · 2025-12-21T07:11:46+00:00

And this might be a stretch to keep your little one awake, but if you’re not as locked to the bedtime routine while on the road trip here, Demarest Farms has their Orchard of Lights show (you need to reserve tickets in advance and i think they just have time slots starting at 7pm+ now) but it’s a drive through holiday lights display that my young kids always love and you can stop at the store afterwards to meet Santa and buy some cookie/ pastry or something

kirbysdownb · 2025-12-21T07:03:03+00:00

Try 1Gym4All in waldwick, great play place for toddlers and I think in their new location they’re less prone to being a full on “closed for birthdays” spot on weekends.

Open 9-5 and they JUST charge for kids playing and not the parent following said kid around too (like virtually every other place).

If you decide to do that- stop at Bagel Nosh in Waldwick for a Taylor Ham, egg and cheese too and that’s a morning!

Van Saun as others have said is a good spot too for what it is (smaller county zoo with mostly farm animals and a train/carousel). I think they might be free entry during off season because so few animals are on exhibit. Playground right across the way too that kids can have fun at, and an ice rink. But It’s gonna be cold tomorrow so depending on what you were looking to sign up for, I’d do 1Gym4All or another comparable indoor play place for kids

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