Cascadia Solo: I Thought I Was a Thrice-Ascended EcoArchitect, But I Cheated

Moments after publishing this post, I finally spotted the reason why I was able to rack up such an obscene score: I took too many turns. There are 26 animals placed here. So, regarding the text that follows: It’s all erroneous. I forge on humbled, still in pursuit of an Ascended 110+ score.

What do I do with this game now? Frame it? File it away? I’d been chasing the 110+ “Ascended” solo score ranking of Cascadia all summer, notching 100+ games regularly. A 110+ score seemed like it required a subtle extra layer of calculation I just didn’t have.

Then this. I gasped when I totaled the top half of the sheet. 93 points. I checked it again. And again:

• Bears (Card C, Families): 18
• Elk (Card B, Formations): 15
• Salmon (Card C, Families): 10
• Hawks (Card D, Territorial): 25
• Foxes (Card D, Dynamic Duos): 25

I didn’t realize I’d hit the Bear Families bonus until my next to last move, but I had focused on building diverse axes of animals that I could bookend with Territorial hawk pairs. In the back half of the game, owing to the vagaries of the draw, I did something else I usually don’t do: Went for a third pair of foxes, which turned out to be massive.

Add 40 points of terrain/nature token leftovers and I think that’s 133 — 20+ points in excess of any of my best-ever games up to that point and a mark I don’t imagine I’ll hit ever again. So I quadruple-checked the score. Took a pic, swept my eyes around the room to note the jarring gulf between what just happened on this table and the oblivion of the remaining day, then packed it up.

What a morning. What a game.