Harmonies Strategy: Terrain Overlap, Animal Patterns & Space
Editorial analysis: Harmonies rewards shared geometry. The best terrain cluster should score as landscape and satisfy several Animal patterns rather than serving only one card.
Take token groups, not individual colors
You always draft a bundle. Evaluate whether all three tokens have useful destinations; a perfect mountain can be poor if the accompanying water and field create dead space.
Choose Animals that share terrain
Two Animal cards with overlapping color/height requirements can reuse the same landscape cluster. This reduces the number of specialized structures you need to build.
Protect vertical development space
Trees and mountains gain value from height/structure. Do not trap their bases where future stacking or adjacent habitat geometry becomes impossible.
Use low-value terrain to connect scoring zones
A token that is mediocre for its own terrain score may be essential as one color in several Animal patterns. Judge placement by combined value rather than isolated landscape points.
Do not take more Animal cards than your board can support
An uncompleted Animal card consumes attention and card capacity. Take a new one when your existing landscape already provides part of its pattern or when the required terrain matches your broader plan.
Endgame: complete cubes over speculative structure
When only a few drafts remain, direct Animal-cube placements and finished terrain structures are safer than building the first half of a new habitat.