Savernake Forest

To set up Savernake Forest, each player receives a random animal card. This card specifies which food types will grant victory points (PV) to that animal, with varying point values for each food. It also indicates a storage capacity for food items and provides a base number of victory points. Players will use these animal cards as the starting point for building their forest.

The main objective of Savernake Forest is to be the player who has optimized their forest the best by collecting and storing the most valuable food items for their animals. This involves strategic card placement to create efficient paths and maximize the points gained from each animal, ultimately leading to the highest total victory points at the end of the game.

During your turn, you must select one card from the available offer. Once chosen, you immediately add this card to your personal forest grid. Your forest can only be a maximum of 4x4 cards. Cards must be placed adjacent to at least one other card by their sides, and it is permissible to 'cut' paths by placing cards that don't perfectly align. Additionally, taking certain cards from the offer grants special bonuses: taking the card in front of the rooster makes you the first player for the next round, the card in front of the goat gives you a water token, and the card in front of the armadillo gives you a burrow token. The rabbit allows you to take another animal card for your forest.

At the end of the game, scoring begins by calculating points for each animal. Each animal receives its base victory points. Then, for each animal, you sum the points from the food items along its path, up to its storage capacity. For example, if an animal has a storage capacity of 3 and its path contains two worms (3 points each) and one egg (2 points), it would score 6 points for the worms and 2 points for the egg. Any food items beyond the storage capacity are not scored. If multiple animals share a path, only one of them will score for that path; you must choose which animal to score and flip the others over.

The game concludes when all players have successfully built their forest grids to the maximum size of 4x4 cards. At this point, players proceed to the final scoring phase. During this phase, a crucial step is to identify any animals that share a common path. For each shared path, players must choose only one animal to score points from that path, flipping the other sharing animals face down. After this, each animal's points are calculated based on its base value and the food items it collects along its unique or chosen path, considering its storage capacity. The player with the highest total victory points is declared the winner.