Nature vs Evolution: Comparison and Changes
We get asked a lot what’s changed in Nature from Evolution. At first glance, they both look pretty similar, as Nature started as a second edition of Evolution. The differences ended up being pretty significant though, particularly to the core architecture. Here’s a full comparison between the two:
Gameplay Differences:
– In Evolution, species eat the same amount of food regardless of their Size.
– In Nature, species eat according to their Size, allowing you to take more by investing in Size.
– Evolution has predator cards mixed into the deck. Sometimes you draw three when you wanted a defense. Other times you won’t draw one when you need it.
-Nature has the predators in a separate deck. You can choose to become a predator at any time.
– In Nature, you can discard a card from your hand to add food into the watering hole before you feed.
-In Evolution, you cannot play two copies of the same trait on a species.
– In Nature, you can add multiple copies of the same trait to a species, given many more combinations.
– In Nature, you draw 5 cards from a pool of 8 traits, making your draws much more reliable.
– In round one of Evolution, you won’t draw a defensive card once in every 3 games. For Nature, that happens once in 1,428 games.
Expandability
– In Evolution, none of the expansions are compatible with each other
– In Nature, modules can not only be combined, they also interact with each other, affecting the value of the Traits of each Module.
– In Evolution, you shuffle all the cards together for the expansion together. This made the deck diluted, and made counter cards (such as Camouflage and Good Eyesight) difficult to get when you needed them.
– In Nature, you choose to draw from each module deck, making deck choice part of the strategy.
– The 6 traits of an Evolution expansion account for 27% of the total cards in play.
– The 5 traits of a Nature module account for 39%, allowing them to more dramatically impact the game.
– In Evolution, there are 2 expansions, giving you 3 different ways to play.
– In Nature, with all 6 modules included, there are 48 different ways to play.
Balance
– The traits in Evolution are fairly well balanced with the exception of Cooperation which is over-powered. In Flight and Climate, there are a few highly situational cards that rarely get used.
– In Nature and the Modules, traits are exceptionally well balanced. We’ve been playtesting them for the past 4 years, and we have thousands of games of data from the digital app to spot outliers in terms of usage and strength. The result is asymmetrical cards that offer many different paths to victory.
Runaway Leaders (Snowballing)
– In Evolution, if you lose population to starvation or predation, you’ll get less points that round and start the next round with less resources than everybody else
– In Nature, If you lose population, you’ll get less points that round but it comes back on your new species in the next round.
– Evolution gives one extra card for every additional species you have, giving more resources to players already in the lead.
– Nature gives you 5 cards per round regardless of how well you’re doing.
In Evolution, mistakes carry forward to future rounds by having fewer population and drawing fewer cards. It’s not unusual to feel like you cannot win after a big mistake in the early rounds. In Nature, at the start of each round, every player will have the exact same number of resources distributed across population, size, traits, and cards in hand. You’ll score fewer points during the round in which you made the mistake, but will begin the next round with equal resources as the other players. This allows the possibility to outplay others on future rounds to make up for an early mistake.
Content and User Interface
– In Evolution, we built out a campaign for the base game, but didn’t have an expandable map to add one for Flight and Climate
– In Nature, we built a campaign for the base game and one for Jurassic, Flight, and Arctic Tundra.
– In Evolution, we added a lot of features after the initial design, resulting in nested submenus for each game option such as Pass and Play, Challenges, and Async Games.
– In Nature, we built the Challenges directly into the campaign, and combined Pass and Play into the Local Game Setup Menu and Async Games into the Private Games menu, keeping the menus clean and straightforward.
-In Evolution, we had achievements for placing three traits on a species, which felt pretty random as to when they would happen.
-In Nature, achievements are for winning a medal in the challenges, giving a straightforward way to earn them and correlating better with your skill and progress in the game.
Summary
At first glance, the two games look pretty similar. But under the hood, we’ve rebuilt the engine to reduce “luck of the draw” frustrations, make an architecture that allows for massive variety, and reduce runaway leaders.
It might sound like we’re biased toward Nature . The truth is, I’ll always love Evolution—it’s the game that started this journey, and we will continue to maintain it for the players who love its brutal volatility.
But, after playing Nature, it’s hard for me to go back. The depth and variety in Nature feel like a true leap forward. We hope you’ll give it a try and let us know what you think!
