Board Gaming on Board Game Arena

I've been playing a lot of board games on Board Game Arena lately with some friends - and old boss - from the UK.  We are currently playing Agricola, which may be one of the oldest games on my shelf.  I think the last time I played it was gaming with Sean before either of us had kids.  Kids who are now in college.  My current strategy involves eating everyone's sheep.  You can't really win by having storehouses of food, but it does make it easier not to worry about starving with the extra family members.

We played Beyond the Sun, which I played with Klund IRL once.  I'd pretty much completely forgotten how to play.  The first round I lost because I didn't start fiddling with the ships/colonies until too late.  In the second game, pictured below, I had a nice early colonization and heavy on the tech tree which left others having to catch up by chasing further afield colonies and jockeying against each other while I relaxed and aimed for that fourth tech which really gave me a bump.

We played a couple games of Ark Nova, which I've generally avoided IRL because the setup looks exhausting.  I took second both times but really enjoyed it.  Since then, I've probably played 100 solo games treating it like solitaire.  I win more than I lose, so my strategy isn't too bad.  The expansion involves fish and some modifications to the core cards, but doesn't change things too much.  This win, below, was peculiar because I went so light on conservation points and made most of my points with a ton of sponsors and research icons/victory. Very little of the zoo built up - but I talked a good gam to investors.

I should add, I got a lot of value for their annual BGA fee.  I think a copy of Ark Nova would run me sixty dollars or so, so I pretty much bought a game I play semi-obsessively without having to keep it on my shelf.

And speaking of solitaire, I enjoy the solo variation of Bonsai, a game I played at Con of the North.  It's not particularly complicated.  You're crafting your bonsai tree via tiles and a combination of resource + play, play, extra resource, extra capacity, bonus, and victory cards with only a certain number of turns at your disposal.

I have to say, the bonsai you cultivate is not always very pretty.

This might be the ugliest one I've grown.  I don't think this  would be a good look if you had professional bonsai visitors.