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First impressions: first few games solo

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Foote
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First impressions: first few games solo

So I have been dieing to play this game for a long time and I didn't want to wait to learn it with friends, so to teach myself I fired up a few solo play throughs. 

 

As per per the rulebook instructions I set up a solo, one spirit game with 1 island board, no blight board, and a low complex spirit with the power suggestions. I choose the river spirit because it looks badass. i didn't much mind how badly I lost the game, but seeing as how I just dove right in, I wanted to see how all the mechanics work. 

so thinking I had a solid grasp on what to do, I reset up for a 2 spirit game. I kept the river spirit and added thunderspeaker because, again, it looked baddass. I lost again pretty miserably. 

I was losing to blight. Both games I think I underestimated just how bad Ravage is and spent a lot of time trying to thwart the building. 

i reset that same game again and won but it wasn't easy. Thunderspeaker got a major power that gave the natives wings and could basically mass teleport huge numbers to anywhere on the island. That felt extremely strong given the dahan focus of the spirit. 

 

This game was was so much fun I continued to play two spirit games with everyone. I didn't lose a game after the first two and think I have a good handle on basic strategy though I really feel like I'm missing optimal play styles with some spirits. 

 

River: I think out of all of them, river felt the weakest to me. Not just in game power, but in thematic connection. It's so strong for other spirits and this one left me wanting. Great synergy with Thunderspeaker though with its ability to create more dahan on the map. 

thunderspeaker: fairly hard to play and understand at first, this spirit utilizes dahan unlike any other character and turns them into a major focus. Once I picked up on that i felt like I had a lot of control and defense on ravages. 

Moss: this one I really didn't get to make good use of his special ability to thwart building and ravages, but it's ability to just have resilient presence everywhere while having reliable building chip damage is great. I struggled early since the first rounds where all in mountains and sands where it has a hard time getting presence in, but I felt like I was consistently able to do good things. 

Nightmare: I thought this spirit would be incredibly hard to play as since it can't actually destroy invaders. But playing this spirit really taught me just how valuable cumulative fear effects are. I had so much energy and not enough ways to burn it I think I coulda played him better, but his ability to churn out fear while converting it to defense was crucial to victory. 

Wildfire: I played this one twice to try and get a hang of it, and honestly I'm still at a massive loss. I never am really able to use of the better levels of his innate powers (don't have the elements) and trying to spread your precence while tightroping blight management was very hard. I always felt I was hamstrung by low card plays or low energy and reclaiming powers for your growth feels like you just slow your progress to a crawl. I would love some advice on how ppl play this spirit as it didn't come to me as easy as others. 

Ocean: dude, I friggin looooooved this spirit. I had so much energy from drowning stuff I couldn't spend it all if I wanted to. It really needs help on the inland, but the superior control it has on anything coastal is so satisfying. I wasn't sure if other players could push invaders into the ocean or if you could only push from powers originating from the ocean spirit. I played that we could, but I'll admit this was not clear. 

Serpent: the opitome of a super late game characters. I felt like i was just bearly tredding water needing to use the mass shield every turn since there was little else of value I could do. I played this with wildfire for a game so obviously spreading presence became a huge issue due to blighted land everywhere. I never really could get the innate powers working and am not sure how I could have gotten the elements to make that work. But as soon as your past the cross section of your track, that spirit just can't be stopped. 

 

 

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I'm glad you're enjoying it! And I'm impressed you're able to handle two spirits so well.

What difficulty level were you playing at?

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dpt wrote:

I'm glad you're enjoying it! And I'm impressed you're able to handle two spirits so well.What difficulty level were you playing at?

what do you mean? There's a difficulty level? Did I miss a rule? Haha

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River: I think out of all of them, river felt the weakest to me. Not just in game power, but in thematic connection.

It's much more about flooding and manipulation and control than other spirits. It can be a little tricky until you understand how to use the Invader's actions against them.

Nightmare: .... I had so much energy and not enough ways to burn it...

Generic advice in this situation: Gain some Major Powers.

Wildfire: I played this one twice to try and get a hang of it, and honestly I'm still at a massive loss. I never am really able to use of the better levels of his innate powers (don't have the elements) and trying to spread your precence while tightroping blight management was very hard. I always felt I was hamstrung by low card plays or low energy and reclaiming powers for your growth feels like you just slow your progress to a crawl. I would love some advice on how ppl play this spirit as it didn't come to me as easy as others. 

First off, you have to be unafraid to spread some Blight, as painful as it seems. (Things really go downhill fast if the Blight Pool gets too empty.) Try to think like a joyful spirit of fire that is pleased to be let off its leash...

Agreed that reclaiming cards is losing, since just spreading your Presence is so powerful. Use your early Presence placement to pick off Explorers. Later on, once you're causing Blight and can do some damage, switch to parachuting in to nests of invaders, and then using your Presence in a Blighted land to wipe things out. If you alternate between the growth option that gives energy and the one that lets you gain a power card, you can go a good long while before needing to reclaim.

Ocean: ... I wasn't sure if other players could push invaders into the ocean or if you could only push from powers originating from the ocean spirit. I played that we could, but I'll admit this was not clear. 

You can! I'm looking at the wording now, and not seeing why its unclear about this point; it doesn't mention anything about "your powers" or anything like that.

(We went through that wording so many times...)

Serpent: the opitome of a super late game characters. I felt like i was just bearly tredding water needing to use the mass shield every turn since there was little else of value I could do. I played this with wildfire for a game so obviously spreading presence became a huge issue due to blighted land everywhere. I never really could get the innate powers working and am not sure how I could have gotten the elements to make that work. But as soon as your past the cross section of your track, that spirit just can't be stopped. 

Right, Serpent + Wildfire has some difficulty this way. Your only way to get a Presence in to blighted land is to move it when you reclaim (or from the one innate). Early game it ends up providing a significant (perhaps subtle) boost to other spirits; I don't know how much you were appreciating this. In terms of the innates, you understood how the "any" space works, correct? And you noticed you could pick two growth options?

 
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Foote wrote:
dpt wrote:
I'm glad you're enjoying it! And I'm impressed you're able to handle two spirits so well.What difficulty level were you playing at?

what do you mean? There's a difficulty level? Did I miss a rule? Haha

Just, past your first game or two, I recommend playing against an Adversary, and then you pick the level of the Adversary (and you should check out the difficulty chart in the back of the book to see the difficulty levels).
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For wildfire, do you think it's best to just place presence from the energy side of the track until the fire/grass spot open up then go for additional card plays? At the same time, without more card plays, I have 0 idea how you're ever supposed to use the higher ranks of the innate powers. I'v never gotten to use the 3 grass option, nor have I have gotten 2 airs or 7 full fires for the other levels of firestorm. Maybe I just need a few more games with it. But my first game was nearly a loss because going into Blighted land penalties every turn is really painful to deal with.

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dpt wrote:

Just, past your first game or two, I recommend playing against an Adversary, and then you pick the level of the Adversary (and you should check out the difficulty chart in the back of the book to see the difficulty levels).

Ah, I thought those were just alternate modes of play. Is it your opinion that Adversarys are the better way to play once you have the basics down?

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Foote wrote:
For wildfire, do you think it's best to just place presence from the energy side of the track until the fire/grass spot open up then go for additional card plays?
I don't generally do that; I usually uncover that second fire spot on turn 3 or so. (The Blight is not great, but 2 fast damage for 0 card plays is not to be sneezed at.) But going up the energy track might also be viable; I haven't tried it so much. The innate would indeed not trigger so much, and going that route I would be aiming to gain Major Powers.

My personal play style tends to lean towards more card plays and triggering innate powers, but that may not be best with all spirits.

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Foote wrote:
Ah, I thought those were just alternate modes of play. Is it your opinion that Adversarys are the better way to play once you have the basics down?

Yes, that's my opinion! Did you see the note at the end of the "First-Time Players" section?
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Some spirits I find it crazy hard to activate innate powers (serpent, Wildfire). Some just come really easy and naturally (nightmare and ocean). I feel like I'm playing them "wrong" if I can't find ways to get those innate powers to activate but I guess the games go longer with adversaries where thats more possible?

I will have to give the adversaries a try tomorrow!

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Foote wrote:

 

dpt wrote:
Just, past your first game or two, I recommend playing against an Adversary, and then you pick the level of the Adversary (and you should check out the difficulty chart in the back of the book to see the difficulty levels).

 

Ah, I thought those were just alternate modes of play. Is it your opinion that Adversarys are the better way to play once you have the basics down?

The adversaries both provide additional (and adjustable) difficulty, and also change the strategic dynamics of the game.  If you just want a harder version of the main game, Brandenburg-Prussia accelerates the invader clock without changing the strategies too much.

 

Regarding River Surges in Sunlight - I haven't played anything but the PnP, but I never fully grasped how to fully use slow powers until I played a few solo games with River.  Pushing at slow speeds seems really weak, but you can use it to really dominate the island by herding all the explorers into one or two territories.  Then grab a major power and smite those territories hard.


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Adversaries are the primary way to increase the difficulty. I would introduce an Adversary as soon as you feel you are ready. Go for Brandenburg Prussia first - most of their changes are during setup, so you don't have to learn new rules the way you do with the others.

Difficulty level 0 on each Adversary means that you're just using the alternate loss condition (if it has one) and the stage II escalation effect (this happens whenever you reveal a stage II invader card with the little flag symbol on it). To make it more difficult from there, you choose one of the numbered difficulty levels and apply that rule and all of the rules above it (e.g. if you choose level 3, you would use the alternate loss condition, stage II escalation effect, and rules 1, 2, and 3).

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Foote wrote:
Some spirits I find it crazy hard to activate innate powers (serpent, Wildfire). Some just come really easy and naturally (nightmare and ocean). I feel like I'm playing them "wrong" if I can't find ways to get those innate powers to activate but I guess the games go longer with adversaries where thats more possible?I will have to give the adversaries a try tomorrow!
It varies! Some Spirits get their innates much more easily than others. This is maybe most obvious with Vital Strength of Earth, who it looks like you haven't tried yet. It has a lot of trouble triggering its innate, in pretty obvious ways. But it can get a lot of power in other ways.
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I keep banging on about the River/Ocean combo, but that one is very fun. Shoving invaders into the sea to feed Ocean is very satisfying to me. :)


Just assume I'm always doing that.

Damn it, Ronway!

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I'm looking forward to Green/Snake, and blasting through Snake's presence track like there's no tomorrow.


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Ok just tried the adversary recommended as the first one. Started at lvl 3

Im determined to learn wildfire so I used that and a new one I hadn't touched, shadow. Fire bros right?

wrong. 

Them together isn't a very great combo for the extra speed of invaders. Both are decent at picking off small invader groups like lone explorers or towns, but at the speed this adversary ramps up, they both struggle to keep it in check. 

wildfire. Oh man. This is my fourth game with it, and I blew through 14 blight to lose this game, and a lot of that came from wildfire. The detriment that comes from blighted land penalty is far too great for the rather small upside of wildfires offense. I'm really struggling to find ways wildfire is more good than a burden. It's likely operator error, but I'm really not seeing a reason to ever play that spirit over others who can do more and not put the game in immediate jeopardy due to blight. 

Shadow could be good with other spirits, and he creates a lot of fear which is great. I need to be better with his pushes because it's all he has until the fear starts coming in and I can draft some damage bombs in major powers. 

I have my next attempt at this same adversary lvl3 tomorrow. I'm gonna rock oceans and thunderspeaker and see if I can't have more luck

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Will you be at Gen Con? I'll show you how Wildfire is done there, if so. It's one of my favorite spirits! But I might hold off on playing that spirit for a bit; there's a reason it's a promo and not in the base game.

I might also steer you a little more towards the introductory spirits. By my count, you haven't played Earth or Lightning yet.

Level 3 is a quite aggressive step up in difficulty, was that too much?

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dpt wrote:

Will you be at Gen Con? I'll show you how Wildfire is done there, if so. It's one of my favorite spirits! But I might hold off on playing that spirit for a bit; there's a reason it's a promo and not in the base game.I might also steer you a little more towards the introductory spirits. By my count, you haven't played Earth or Lightning yet.Level 3 is a quite aggressive step up in difficulty, was that too much?

i must be doing something wrong but I just can't figure it out with it. I want to like wildfire but it's causing me to lose games from blight and I rarely find I have the card plays to gain enough element to remove it. 

 

Level 3 is aggressive, but it's certainly not the highest difficulty. It's in the middle. I may need to adjust my strategy from just the base game to account for the speed. Iv been so "focus on preventing and defending ravages" heavy and maybe I need to be more worried about build early due to the speed. And not all spirits will be as good as others for different adversaries I'm guessing

i will not be at gencon, so I'm hoping I can get more detailed wildfire strats and play styles as more people receive the game and dive into it. 

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Foote wrote:
 Level 3 is aggressive, but it's certainly not the highest difficulty. It's in the middle. ...
The difficulty curve for this game is much deeper than in almost any other modern game that I have played. The difference between an introductory game and a Level 6 Adversary is just stunning.
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When first using Adversaries, I'd suggest climbing up them one level at a time until you're at the challenge level you'd like. Levels 1-6 aren't "easy, medium, hard"; they're successive summits to scale - even just the difference between "no Adversary" and "base Adversary" is relevant, as Stage II stops being a plateau for the Invaders (while the Spirits continue rising in power-level).

Of course, you never *need* to add difficulty. I'll tend to recommend boosting difficulty if the Blight Card never flips over - that tends to be a sign that players are dominating the game and could easily handle more - but even then, some folks prefer a low-pressure romp.

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Thanks! I'll keep that in mind!

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Well Foote, I'd love to help crowd-source this issue, but I'm still here trying to be patient.

*runs off to check porch again*

Yep, still being patient.

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Also being patient.  In a particularly aggravating turn of events, my game was supposed to be delivered yesterday, only I used my work address, which isn't open on Saturdays.  So now I have to wait until Monday, and pray that the failed delivery didn't screw it up in their system.


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Earth and Lightning are probably one of my favorite combos I've found. With 3 natural defense in Earth's sacred sites and the ability to gather Dahan and explorers, if done right can lead to the invaders attacking your defense and the Dahan wiping out the invaders. Then Lightning picks off the stragglers left behind and whatever is too big to risk with a sacred site. Basically it's a roving caravan of maruading Dahan protected by the earth itself with backup from some lightning.

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I beat the lvl 3 first adversary!

Oceans and Lightning. 

I gotta say, oceans is brutal strong. Sure it can't touch the inlands for the most part, but the entire island coast was just dominated from the start and really eased the pressure that normally comes from stage 2 escalations (yeah just put those towns on the coast and imma eat them no problem). 

Lightning was very useful, not only for the building control, but it's reach across the island was amazing for me. Not only that, but lightnings ability to speed up the slow and overly strong ocean powers put me in control early in the game. 

The early 3rd stage was painful this game. I had a stage 1 jungle followed by a mountain/jungle stage 3 into a jungle stage 2. In the far corner of the island was a jungle that ended up having 2 cities 2 towns and 3 explorers. The blight flipped the card to unhealthy side and we were on the clock there as blight was gonna be a huge issue. But luckily ocean grabbed a major power with a huge reach, defense, and a devolve mechanic for cities. That plus lightning picked up the major power that turns blight and adjacent blight into a damage bomb basically saved the game as that area was gonna cost us the game from a massive cascade. 

ultimatly we won the game through fear stage two win condition of no buildings as we were able to pick off (and devolve) the few remaining towns before the invader phase where we would have lost by blight. 

 

Im freakin loving this game. 

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Awesome! That triple-whammy on terrains is a hard one to overcome, but sounds like you did it fine.

Oceans is particularly strong against Brandenburg-Prussia, for the reason you mentioned--I noticed that myself recently. The escalation effect of England, for instance, is much worse, since most likely the land with the most buildings will be well inland.

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This thread is just making me want to play this game. D: Hopefully I'll be able to find it if I ever get Spirit Island, lots of great strategy here!

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For Adversaries, Is it almost necessary to bring spirits that excel in building destruction? Oceans and lightning are some of the best with straight up town/city destruction in their Kit.

How does someone play something like shadow and or river and not get overrun by blight from ravages 

like wildfire I may need to spend more time to learn them and characters like ocean just fit my play style better so they are easier to grasp. 

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There are a lot of different strategies that you can use. Spirits like Ocrean and Lightning are good at dealing with towns and cities, once the Invaders are already somewhat established.

River, which is more pushing focused, can move explorers and towns around so that the invaders never even get to build new towns and cities. It's generally a less expensive way to deal with threats further in the future, but it also means that you aren't generating much fear by destroying buildings, so you'll have to find other ways to scare the invaders away (Shadows is obviously good at this).

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Foote wrote:
For Adversaries, Is it almost necessary to bring spirits that excel in building destruction?
Different Adversaries are very different, and require very different strategies. Brandenburg-Prussia isn't as focused on buildings as, say, England; denying exploration or killing explorers before they build can be quite effective against the Prussians. (One tip: getting one damage on a slow phase may seem weak. But that's enough to kill an Explorer. You don't know where the Explorers will pop up, but you do know that they will pop up somewhere.)

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...characters like ocean just fit my play style better so they are easier to grasp. 
It is definitely true that certain spirits fit certain play styles better!
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Prussia is just really fast. Everything they do is just an uptick in speed from the base game. Preventing builds is good and all, but how do you deal with the blight cascade from secure strongholds when you finally get into the 2nd ravage and the early stage 3 invade double whammy with shadow or river?

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Foote wrote:
Prussia is just really fast. Everything they do is just an uptick in speed from the base game. Preventing builds is good and all, but how do you deal with the blight cascade from secure strongholds when you finally get into the 2nd ravage and the early stage 3 invade double whammy with shadow or river?
You need to clear out those strongholds before they get in to the 2nd ravage...
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Right. How do you do that with shadow or river?

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Shadow has a card to either reduce a city to town or a town to explorer. The most effective  found though early game is to gather many Dahan huts right in that stronghold the gather 4 Dahan cards is very good for this and will cause fear if used properly and then play the extremely effective card that denies damage on Dahans. 4 Dahan's hut = 8 damage cleans up very nicely and the whole any range as long as a smurf house is there makes it extra scary as you can pull that off right in your partner's land. The innate Fast gather 1 explorer also steals a build phase if used properly. At some point you might need some direct damage but I also was lucky enough to find a defense 10 that cost 1 as my first extra power that game so could do either one death trap per turn or 2 death traps in a turn River also helped eith those strats by concentrating invaders and Dahans but in the nd pulled out the major power big guns.

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@Foote

Have you played with any of the expansion stuff yet (Events, tokens, etc)?


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Paul wrote:

@FooteHave you played with any of the expansion stuff yet (Events, tokens, etc)?

i have not yet. There's so much to dig into in the base box alone that I haven't even considered adding the expansion yet on top of it. Reading through the content, the expansion is rather large for how small the box is. 

I will get there eventually though!

 

had my first game with England at lvl2 today. Lots of buildings. Using both Green and Speaker I was able to secure a comfortable fear1 win right before stage 3 exploration came up. Speaker has some great internal combo bombs and, for the second time, got the major power of dahan wings which might be the best power it can pull. Green was its usual resilient self offering a lot of control where I needed it. 

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That's a good call! Once you do want to add it, I suggest playing a basic game (no Adversary) with spirits you already know, but add the Event cards + tokens. Then, step it up into the new spirits, and then finally add an adversary back in.

FWIW, Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds from the expansion is my favorite spirit :)


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Paul wrote:
...I suggest playing a basic game (no Adversary) with spirits you already know, but add the Event cards + tokens. ...
Personally, I always like having at least a Level 0 adversary (flag effect). The invader's growth curve is just a bit too flat otherwise.

The design philosophy with those escalation effects was to have, per board, two areas of threat at stage I, three areas of threat at stage II, and four areas of threat at stage III.

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Foote wrote:
... got the major power of dahan wings which might be the best power [Thunderspeaker] can pull. ...
The Trees and Stones Speak of War is pretty clutch too, though it would be better if it had +Air.
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I am liking Thunderspeaker. But yet to win a game with it.

After getting used to the rhythm I been winning my game. It didn't help that we used Major powers wrong. One day I will get all the rules right.


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speedyolrac wrote:

I am liking Thunderspeaker. But yet to win a game with it.After getting used to the rhythm I been winning my game. It didn't help that we used Major powers wrong. One day I will get all the rules right.


What were you doing wrong? If you don't mind me asking.

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speedyolrac wrote:

One day I will get all the rules right.

I'm still waiting for this day.

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I've played a few of single spirit solo games (four total) and fear cards were pretty clutch in the first two victories. I haven't added any of the optional bits yet.

 

River Surges was my first play, and I really was feeling pressure from the fact that pushing is great, but it only delays the problems. Then I pulled "The Trees and Stones Speak of War" and started wrecking house, because on a single board it was pretty easy to gather and create Dahan so I had armies popping up across the board and causing signifigant damage (I don't think I've ever played that card for less than 6 defense, which is 3 damage immediately and 6 damage after the fools try to ravage me)

 

Rampant Green was my second play, and I thought with the massive presence on the field it would be a much simpler win. However, green never got a lot of energy or card plays, which for a solo game really hurt me and if not for a clutch turn with fear I think I would have ended up losing that one. The inate ability to prevent builds and ravages was amazing, but it actually felt hard to get to the places I needed to be for some reason.

 

 

The only game I lost was a forfeit. I pulled Serpent in a solo spirit game and it just went bad fast. I stopped on turn 2 or 3, and really I don't think it is possible to win with Serpent alone and no other spirits. You are just too slow and weak to prevent that Blight from overrunning the island. I also feel like Ocean is impossible to win with in a solo game, because you have a hard time reaching the back half of the board, so the invaders are just going to hang there wrecking the island with you unable to reach them. (Interesting question I may look up, if a land blights and cascades, but the cascade can only hit a blighted land, does it just continue traveling until it finds an unblighted land?)

 

 

My final game was also my easiest. I went to my boy Vital Strength of the Earth and we wrecked everything. I seriously wonder if Vital isn't OP. With every other solo game I had, I ended up having to buy major powers and quite a few minor powers to eek out a victory. With Vital Strength I bought a single minor power, which was the one where you animate the stones, and it allowed me to copy the power. Defend is so powerful (at least to my play style) that the sure amount of stuff Vital Strength can stop from happening is staggering.

 

 

Tomorrow I'm heading to a friends house and hopefully we play enough games that I can pull out the Expansion and end up trying Forbidden Wilds.

grysqrl
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Chaosmancer wrote:

The only game I lost was a forfeit. I pulled Serpent in a solo spirit game and it just went bad fast. I stopped on turn 2 or 3, and really I don't think it is possible to win with Serpent alone and no other spirits. You are just too slow and weak to prevent that Blight from overrunning the island. I also feel like Ocean is impossible to win with in a solo game, because you have a hard time reaching the back half of the board, so the invaders are just going to hang there wrecking the island with you unable to reach them. (Interesting question I may look up, if a land blights and cascades, but the cascade can only hit a blighted land, does it just continue traveling until it finds an unblighted land?)

You can definitely win solo games with any of the spirits. Ocean certainly requires pulling strong powers with some reach, but it's totally doable. Or just push fear hard.

It's been a while since I have played Serpent solo, but I've done it multiple times without much trouble. It has pretty strong defense, and absorbing its own presence lets you burn through your presence tracks a lot faster (since you are keeping your presence on the island low).

If you add blight to a blighted land, it cascades to an adjacent land. If it cascades into a land with blight (either because all adjacent lands are blighted or just because you choose a blighted land), it will cascade again.

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I have won playing every spirit solo except for Sharp Fangs in the Leaves and Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds from the expansion.  Serpent was definately a pain and a half, but Operation Beach Party met with success.

 

And yes, cascades can trigger extra cascades.  And if the entire island is blighted you can trigger a theoretically infinite cascade (although practically you'll run out of blight almost immediately).


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I found Serpent solo surprisingly easy. In addition to the strategies above, Remember you can use your 'aid other Spirit' cards on yourself. Use it to reach the second level of 'Serpent Wakes in Anger', which is an amazing accelerator.

Also, you didn't say if you did this, but Brandenburg-Prussia, by its nature, is a difficult opponent for Serpent at higher levels.

Chaosmancer
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dpt wrote:

I found Serpent store surprisingly easy. In addition to the strategies above, Remember you can use your 'aid other Spirit' cards on yourself. Use it to reach the second level of 'Serpent Wakes in Anger', which is an amazing accelerator.Also, you didn't say if you did this, but Brandenburg-Prussia, by its nature, is a difficult opponent for Serpent at higher levels.

 

I haven't used any adversaries yet. Maybe I chickened out too soon, and I do wonder if I set up the prescence track wrong (I was tired and it looked like the entire top track needed filled in but maybe it doesn't)

 

IF it is possible then I'll return to it a few times til I get the hang of it. It could have been as simple as bad prescence placement, because I was staring down the barrel of being reduced to only my sacred site with a lot of blight around me which is what made it seem like I couldn't possibly get enough momentum to overcome the invaders before they blighted 5 times. I did have an awesome turn 1 though, giving myself a power which I was able to play immediately, which led to some good fear very early on.

 

 

edit: read operation beach party and had a thought. I think I have a mental block on remembering that I can place prescence more than 2 high on a land. It doesn't help you in any special way, and I feel that generally the extra reach from spreadin out would be more valuable, but that may be a strategy to remember that you need to create an area with 3 or 4 prescence or continously place in one spot and then slowly move to others to get the reach you need.

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Re: Presence Tracks

You need to fill in everything but the left-most space on each track (the 1-energy and 1-card play spaces remain uncovered) - this should always take exactly 13 presence, including your initial presence placement.

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Vital Strebgth of Earth is my only solo loss, I have yet to do well with it.  One of my favorite aspects of this game is how different people's experiences with the Spirits are.

Chaosmancer
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grysqrl wrote:

Re: Presence TracksYou need to fill in everything but the left-most space on each track (the 1-energy and 1-card play spaces remain uncovered) - this should always take exactly 13 presence, including your initial presence placement.

 

Figured I had done that wrong, next time I got out the game I was planning on looking at the board more closely. That probably really hurt me, since my first prescence was used to uncover that 1-energy space.

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grysqrl wrote:

Re: Presence Tracks

You need to fill in everything but the left-most space on each track (the 1-energy and 1-card play spaces remain uncovered) - this should always take exactly 13 presence, including your initial presence placement.

Yeah, I like how the setup is on the back (so it's out of the way once gameplay starts), but it's easy to miss it. 

Also, I LOVE how the circles that start with a presence token on it are dashed lines -- those that start without presence are solid. laugh


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