In this thread:

1. What is the Sanctuary vs Nature Reserve?

2. Updated setup rules for the Goal Cards

3. Updated setup rules for Conservation Experts and answering the question of balance in their powers

4. Relocation Cards have been updated

5. Sanctuary spaces — can you have more than 24 animals in your Nature Reserve?

6. What is the updated rule on Climate Investment?

7. I've heard there is a 2-player variant, what is this?

8. What is the order of actions at the end of the round?

1. What is the Sanctuary vs Nature Reserve?

Your Sanctuary is the three spaces to the right of your player board with a heart icon on them. This is where you store your animals until you meet the requirements to safely release them into your Nature Reserve.

Your Nature Reserve is the main area of your board. This is where you release animals once you meet their food and protection requirements. If you're playing without the expansion, it doesn't matter where you place your animals within your Nature Reserve - they can move around freely. We recommend organising them in columns based on species type, to make it easier to see what you have in your Nature Reserve.

.

2. Updated setup rules for the Goal Cards

The original Kickstarter rules (and our how-to-play video) say to take one goal card. However, we've since updated the rules and now recommend playing with this rule instead:

At the start of the game, each player takes two random Goal Cards. Keep them secret from the other players. Hold onto both Goal Cards throughout the game, and at the end of the game, choose only one of them to score (you do not score the other).

.

3. Updated setup rules for Conservation Experts and answering the question of balance in their powers

The original Kickstarter rules (and our how-to-play video) say to take one Conservation Expert. However, we've since updated the rules and now recommend playing with this rule instead:

At the start of the game, deal two Conservation Expert cards to each player at random. Each player keeps only one. 

Are Conservation Experts balanced?

This is the other question we get asked a lot - and will you believe us if we say yes?! We've played the game thousands of times and don't believe they're unbalanced. The skill of the player, the cards circulating in hands, and the research cards on show all contribute to how strong a Conservation Expert is in any particular game. But averaging out over hundreds of games, they all have a pretty even advantage. The conservation experts abilities are not meant to have a big impact, your strategy and adaptability is more important. And as such, if things are going very well, you might not need to use your expert's ability very much at all.
We've had players message us about every single Conservation Expert claiming it's more powerful than the others - which we think demonstrates that they're all pretty well balanced. Some may feel more powerful than others in a given game, that's true, but none are objectively stronger based on our thorough testing.

In case you're wondering, our favourites to play with are the Diplomat (Zara) and the Zoologist (Matt).

.

4. Relocation Cards have been updated

We've updated Relocation Cards so you can no longer steal an animal from another player's Sanctuary. Instead, Relocation Cards now allow you to take a card from the discard pile for $1m, or sell an animal from your Sanctuary for $4m.

Why was this updated? Well mainly because so many people were confusing the ‘Nature Reserve’ and the ‘Sanctuary’. This led to players thinking it was way more powerful than it was and being a take-that action that wasn’t in keeping with the theme of the game.

.

5. Sanctuary spaces — can you have more than 24 animals in your Nature Reserve?

If, towards the end of the game, you've run out of space in your Nature Reserve because you've filled it with animals, you can use available Sanctuary spaces to extend your Nature Reserve. These animals can count towards your end-of-game score, so long as you meet their requirements.

When playing with the community protection in the Lodges Expansion, this is no longer the case: you are limited to 24 spaces.

.

6. What is the updated rule on Climate Investment?

To win the Climate Conservation Award - an extra 10 points at the end of the game for investing at least $8m in climate protection during the game - you need to have invested a minimum of $5m in achieving protection levels 1, 2, and 3 for climate. This means you can only invest up to $3m in the "3+" section of the climate protection board.

This rule is designed to encourage players to support climate protection throughout the game, rather than dumping money into the overflow area at the end just to secure the 10 points.

.

7. I've heard there is a 2-player variant, what is this?

The two-player variant has been added since our original Kickstarter campaign. During game setup, separate the Relocation action cards from the other action cards.

- In Round 1: do not deal any Relocation cards into the game.

- In Round 2: put 1 Relocation card into each hand.

- In Round 3: put 2 Relocation cards into each hand.

Relocation cards allow you to take cards from the discard pile for $1m, giving you access to more cards (remember that after dealing the hands for Rounds 2 and 3, cards are put into the discard pile - see p.2 of the rulebook).

.

8. What is the order of actions at the end of the round?

At the end of the round (after playing the 10th card), the order of actions is:

1) Discard
2) Complete research
3) Discard research cards
4) Invest

The intention here is that ALL players must complete ALL their research tasks before anyone invests on the 10th turn. It is not the case that players take turns completing the remaining steps one at a time. Instead:

- All players complete all remaining research
- All players discard their research cards
- All players invest money (this may allow them to play animals from their Sanctuary, but they won't be able to use those animals to contribute to research tasks)

This prevents a situation where a player could benefit from another player's climate investment mid-step. This rule is the same in both the English and German rulebooks.