Trip report: Second game of Marine Worlds

I got a chance today to play a 2nd game of Ark Nova's Marine Worlds expansion - here's a recap of my experience.

My opponent was playing his first game of Ark Nova altogether - I gave him Map 0 and took two random maps for myself, happily picking up Silver Lake.

The variant actions I saw were unexciting - I ended up taking a "Build +1" variant that helped a small amount, and a Cards variant with a Clever kicker that I never paid for.

My initial draw was the Reef Dweller dream: A Shark I could play as my first Reef Dweller, along with two other solid Reef animals. I played an Expert on Asia as my first Sponsors and snapped up a 4th Reef animal, planning to go all in for the Sea Animals conservation project.

The Caribbean Reef Shark was not as incredible as I had hoped - while strong, the ability is limited to animal cards in reputation range, which heavily limited what I could eat from the display. Despite grabbing a 2 Reputation University, I could only only eat a 6-appeal animal for my initial Shark Attack, making the Shark an 8-appeal card - not bad, but not amazing.

I triggered the break and played two more Reef animals - there was a Coastal Manta Ray in the display which I would've loved to play, but had no aquarium space for. My opponent didn't interfere with my plan and I was able to score 4 appeal from eating it (a stronger opponent likely would've seen the play coming and denied me the card)

My 3rd Shark Attack was significantly less impressive - without refreshing the display, there were two animals left within reputation range - a 0-appeal Sheep, and a 2-appeal Eurasian Lynx. I ate the Lynx, leaving with me with a total of 8 appeal from Shark Attacks (2.3 appeal on average - barely better than my opponent's Orange Clownfish)

 

My card draw saw no playable Sponsors card, so I slammed another full strength Sponsors action to trigger another break. This gave me enough money to play my 4th (and final) Reef Dweller - the Ray, whose Digging ability has a nice bit of synergy with Shark Attack (dig from the display to get your preferred target within eating range). This last Shark attack ate a 9-appeal Saltwater Crocodile, for a final total of 12 appeal from Shark Attacks (3 appeal per attack on average). This made the Shark a 20-appeal play, making it thoroughly excellent value for its cost. I had 1 Aquarium space remaining but never saw another Reef Dweller - though perhaps I would have if I had taken the Sea Animal University.

One point worth noting about the Shark - it had this unexpected tension between "do I eat this very large animal, or do I try to play it?" The crocodile, for instance, would've been a viable play in a Reptile House which I wanted to build for other reasons, and would've been a candidate to release with the Sea Cave project I was holding. I ended up eating it, because I can't turn down free value, and the other animals I had were just as good.

I did see another Sea Animal - a Green Sea Turtle - but this one wasn't a Reef Dweller, and also didn't fit within my aquariums after playing the Ray. Despite want a lizard for my Sea Cave project, I couldn't justify building a Reptile house for this one animal, and it ended up being discarded.

Having mostly filled up my aquariums, I transitioned into building an Aviary and played a sequence of birds, each one enabled by the last:

This gave me far more cards than I could hold, with the bonus reputation quickly getting me to the maximum of 15. I grabbed a Franchise Business to synergize with my chosen final Scoring card, leaving me with the full 5 kiosks to my opponent's 1.

With all of this extra card draw, I had neglected to use my Cards action, leaving the Break token at a meager 2/9. I triggered a break with 2 x-tokens and collected my income (well north of 50$ thanks to all the Kiosks!) and planned out my last few turns. The elephant I had grabbed proved to still be entirely too expensive for me to play, despite sitting on more than 50$.

Instead, I went for Silver Lake's notorious Determination bonus thanks to a now buffed Large Animals conservation project (pro-tip: the Caribbean Reef Shark is a Large Animal), following it up with whatever animals I had left in my hand to close out the game.

My opponent, despite being on their first game, ended up a mere 6 (!) points from my final score, a score he would've easily trounced if not for that Determination ability ending the game before he could support a conservation project of his own.
Some misc notes:
The bonus tokens proved to be VERY underwhelming - the only one that saw any use was the +2 reputation token, which my opponent took. All others (snap/+handsize, take 3 cards, filter scoring cards), sat neglected in favor of the basic alternative of 5$. Even the extra shift token, one I would consider quite strong, ended up useless due to being only available at the top of the reputation track.
Upgraded Association proved extremely valuable this game - providing 2cp in cheap donations, as well as allowing me to play two Conservation Projects from the display at convenient moments. Moreover, upgraded Association was the perfect dumping ground for my x-tokens - my 2nd-to-last action was Association 9 (!) to support a conservation project and take a 3rd university, getting 2cp and 2 reputation from my Spokesperson. 
Expert on Asia is amazing - he was my first card played, and provided 6 pavilions over the course of the game - even more valuable due to my final scoring card.

Catered Picnic Areas seems like a very easy scoring card to aim for - any strategy that upgrades Build early can benefit from extra kiosks and pavilions, and by the time you have two of each you're spending 4$ for every conservation point (with the Kiosk likely paying for itself in the next break). With all of the other Kiosk/Pavilion synergy cards out there, it seems very hard to go wrong with this one.