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If I want a chill game I’ll keep the difficulty around 5, which is really a little more or less depending on the adversary. I’ll set up level 6 on any one of them if I want a challenge. And if I want to feel pain I’ll set up a high average dual adversary.
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Mar 24, 2023 21:22
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Would also be interested if anyone has a setup to recommend that’s lower difficulty on paper but actually more challenging!
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Mar 24, 2023 21:51
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I prefer to play with one adversary with their special loss condition, their escalation rule, and their first-tier ability. At this level I usually win, but it's rarely a blowout. Anything more than that and I struggle. A lot. Less and I tend to simply win without it ever being in question. My girlfriend usually plays with me and dislikes the adversaries at all; she likes destroying some colonizers. I complained a bit that it was too easy, and she said "yeah, they never had a chance, and that's how it should be." She's quite bloodthirsty.
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Mar 24, 2023 22:03
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I'm glad this thread exists! But I'm absolutely terrible at this game, the times I've tried it. Are there any videos or anything you'd recommend with hints about sucking less?
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Mar 24, 2023 22:15
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My friend and I bounce between level 3-5 because I like a challenge but my friend likes winning.
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Mar 24, 2023 22:15
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ConfusedUs posted:My girlfriend usually plays with me and dislikes the adversaries at all; she likes destroying some colonizers. I complained a bit that it was too easy, and she said "yeah, they never had a chance, and that's how it should be." She's quite bloodthirsty. Gotta play with one of the adversaries that puts out tons of stuff, and then a spirit with good AoE. In that blitz volcano game (vs England lv.4) I had three powers that did 1 to all city/town or invaders and being able to just wipe a space no matter how much piled into it is awesome. Also volcano is awesome, I did a 6 token explode in the center and SUD used a major to wipe the coasts. I wish I had taken a photo of the before and after, because we generated like 28 fear to chew through the remaining cards to Terror lvl 3 and managed to kill all the cities and pull victory from what seemed to be a loss. Again though, blitz mode takes out so much of the really challenging sequencing that it was like Spirit Island Arcade.
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Mar 24, 2023 22:34
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dwarf74 posted:I'm glad this thread exists! By absolutely terrible, do you mean at the base game (no adversaries/scenarios, no events, no tokens -- the last two things are from xpacs if they don't sound familiar)? I'll briefly answer as though you said yes. 1. Most of the best powers in the game are slow; you have to plan on how to use them. You know where a town will be built, right? If you can't move/eliminate the explorer in a build terrain with a fast power, then use a slow move power to get that town out of the land once it's built, so it doesn't ravage next turn. 2. Dahan and especially blight are resources to be consumed. You don't lose until the last point of blight comes off the space (assuming you're not playing with blight cards -- you don't lose when the blight card is flipped, but it's often unpleasant). Some lands will just have to blight sometimes. Better to stop two lands from building than one land from blighting, most of the time. (Also, official errata: add 1 extra blight to the initial blight pool, whether using the blight space or blight cards.) 3. You're mainly playing a stalling game to uncover your tracks, but you also have to be making some progress against the invaders while this is happening. Once you get a certain number of track spots uncovered and power cards received, a tipping point is reached where you can generally slaughter the invaders faster than they can propagate -- just make sure this doesn't happen too late. 4. Take major powers only if you can pay for them. There's nothing sadder than early River with a 4 point major power trying to play it when they could be doing so much more with their basic cards and minors. But most spirits will need majors to deal with cities and clumps. Don't be afraid to take majors early if you can pay for them (Earth, low-player count Ocean). 5. Your first targets should be inland towns, all other things being equal. If you can remove those, that's one less place explorers can propagate from. 6. If you can, try to hit your innate power thresholds ASAP. This is easier for (e.g.) River than Earth. Innates are like having another power that requires no energy or card plays.
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Mar 24, 2023 22:36
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Thank you - I'll try it out again this weekend. This is all good advice. I think I'm worrying too much about the micro scale of getting any blight at all, etc.
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Mar 24, 2023 22:46
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dwarf74 posted:I'm glad this thread exists! All of my knowledge is focused on 2p right now, not sure any differences for others. You have to be ok with allowing some blight/bad outcomes to progress your game state. You don’t want to ignore Ravages, but after one that land type isn’t going to be important for awhile (typically). Focusing on screwing the build action, and specifically cities, usually is the best return on card/energy investment, think of “Push 1 Explorer” now being equivalent to “Do 2 Damage” next turn. The sooner you win the better, and if you can keep cities off the board, then you can win at terror level 3, just as stage 3 invaders is breaking in a lot of situations. For spirits, additional card plays are the most important as they give you elements that enable your innates, which are functionally free card plays themselves. That isn’t true for all spirits but higher complexity spirits are usually more innate dependent. I think its better to do some less efficient card plays and trigger the innates regularly than the inverse. I usually look at the elements first when picking a card and then look at the effects, and there has to be a really good effect for me to pick an off-element card. Play some spirits that are mean to the Dahan and shed your loyalty to wooden mushrooms. I recommend Keeper of Forbidden Wilds and Volcano Looming High (both expansion spirits) E: slow phonepost beaten  E2: if you think detail focus is getting in the way, think of the theme. You’re a nature spirit with 1000’s of years to recover from a little bit of Fellis fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 24, 2023 |
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Mar 24, 2023 22:59
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Our trio plays a bunch (steam app, in person, TTS app) but aren't as good at the game as we should be considering how much we've played it. I bounce around between spirits like I do games in general and hobbies beyond that, so I never stick with anything long enough to get good at it. So our trio is usually me playing whatever random spirit I haven't played in ages (I do like basic river, spread of rampant green, the rainfall one, and many minds move as one), our host/the game owner playing hummingbird timelord or build-a-bear to challenge himself, and our third member is always Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds. We'll usually do enough of an adversary to get the loss condition, the T2 flag, and 1-2 extras. Sometimes we're joined by an oceanographer friend who usually plays... Ocean's Hungry Grasp. I think its cathartic for her too.dwarf74 posted:Thank you - I'll try it out again this weekend. This is all good advice. Don't sweat it too much if you do get blight, some spirits can remove it or abuse it, and even if you go blighted island it's not always bad since there are some good blight cards and it can take the pressure off a bit. That said sometimes a bad blight card can pile on with bad event cards and really kick you while you are down.
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Mar 24, 2023 23:05
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dwarf74 posted:Thank you - I'll try it out again this weekend. This is all good advice. Yeah, obviously you don't want blight, but it's not the end of the world. What you want to avoid if possible is a blight cascade, because then you have to designate another adjacent land that gets blighted (important: not all adjacent lands!), which makes you more vulnerable to blight cascades AND running out of blight Something Fellis said that I missed that's key: towns are 5x easier to deal with than cities. Lots of basic or minor powers can push/gather/destroy a town; generally, only majors can move (or more commonly) destroy a city. Stop the snowball! Also, about the Dahan as resources, I talked too much about blight. First, if you can save Dahan, do so, but not if it interferes with anything an iota more important. Second, sometimes Dahan dying isn't the worst thing. In a ravage, an explorer and a town vs. 2 Dahan (assume no defense) equals a blighted land (Dahan don't defend or soak up damage, a common misunderstanding), a destroyed town, a dead Dahan, and a wounded Dahan who recovers at the end of the turn. Optimal? No, but that kills the town (a source of explorers) and generates a Fear Point. They're there to do damage; let them when they need to.
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Mar 24, 2023 23:28
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Fellis posted:What difficulty do folks play at, or what general setup variations do you do to keep the game spicy? I’ve been doing 2p games for a few months as me and a friend wanted to play through all the Jagged Earth content and we were bumping it as we went and we settled on 7 as a nice level to have to think a fair bit, but still typically eke out a victory (maybe win 80%?). I occasionally play 2p games at difficulties 4 band 5. If I played more often, I could see ramping up to higher difficulties. We also use the scenario randomizer at Spirit Islander to mix things up. I recall playing one a couple months ago where we got absolutely trashed. I know Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares was the other player's spirit, but I don't remember my spirit. I believe the scenario was Powers Long Forgotten. We were using the official Steam app (so no Jagged Earth), and I recall that the powers from the scenario did not always behave the way we expected.
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Mar 25, 2023 01:01
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All good advice. I'll report back once we try it. My boys want to play more euchre, though, this weekend, so that may be in order instead.
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Mar 25, 2023 01:29
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dwarf74 posted:I'm glad this thread exists! I recommend Kalen Noreth's videos; he's done some primers on the spirits from the base game, and does a good job of explaining his thought process and strategy as he goes through his games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3LV-fp16g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF_BLgVju6c
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Mar 25, 2023 06:29
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Difficulty talk, there's a sort of semi-official difficulty chart of all adversaries, adjusted for de facto difficulty in a couple cases as Isaac and the community decided this or that enemy is under- or overtuned. Going by that, I usually like to play 6-8 depending on how hard I want to work and whether I'd be mad if I lost. I'll bump the difficulty up if the blight card didn't flip the previous game but I want to keep the setup the same otherwise.
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Mar 25, 2023 06:58
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My friend group includes one of the play testers for the most recent kickstarter content and we basically always play on max difficulty unless we are in a rush. We don’t always win.
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Mar 28, 2023 17:36
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dwarf74 posted:I'm glad this thread exists! It's not a video, but I just started a screenshot Let's Play with strategy commentary. I'm starting out at the introductory difficulty which may or may not be beneath you, but I do plan on tackling harder difficulties as well which should hopefully help some.
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Mar 28, 2023 20:14
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the holy poopacy posted:It's not a video, but I just started a screenshot Let's Play with strategy commentary. I'm starting out at the introductory difficulty which may or may not be beneath you, but I do plan on tackling harder difficulties as well which should hopefully help some.
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Mar 28, 2023 20:15
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Did 2p on 3 boards tonight, with lvl 3 Sweden vs Many Minds Move as One and Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds. We won on turn 9 (I think) by killing all the cities and managed not to flip to blighted. It’s not clear what the difficulty of +1 board is but it felt like a 7 in total +1 Board is a lot of fun and gave us so much more to think about, the game took us like 45-60 min longer than it usually does. The two spirits are a great combo, Many Minds is strong out of the gate and disrupts/defends pretty well, bought a lot of time for Keeper to grow and start liberating the island permamently from invaders. I took a fair number of pictures, I don’t know if I’ll have the motivation to do a more substantial writeup, but I’ll try to post them with some captions. Looks like I neglected to take a before shot of the event that was the killing blow, we got Strange Madness Among The Beasts right after Many Minds reclaimed and just discarded/forgot their whole hand (with some help) to save 8 animals and do 16 damage across the island that killed the cities and almost did the fear needed for Terror 3. Fellis fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 03:01
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Good job, two spirits on three boards w/ no fractured days is hard. That's how I play when I want to spend 30+ minutes on every turn and then lose anyway, though I'm playing solo, so I guess that's different since optimal teamwork is just a matter of handling the cognitive load (oh no  ).For a couple weeks my white whale was: two spirits on three boards, no Fractured Days France, as high level as I could manage Guard the Isle's Heart This was interesting, though France+guard the isle's heart can instakill you if you get unlucky and you're not on the ball. It took me like 15 tries and I think I had to drop it down to, like, France 2, using the some of the easiest and strongest spirits. River and Green? I don't remember the combo but I remember being a bit embarrassed and just wanting to finish the challenge so I could say I did it. And I started out with such hubris! Shroud and Shadows (Amorphous) because I thought Guard+France+the two-board challenge rules would be cheesy (France starts MUCH weaker with this arrangement) and I wanted to have to put some thought into it.
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Mar 31, 2023 07:59
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Fellis posted:What difficulty do folks play at, or what general setup variations do you do to keep the game spicy? I’ve been doing 2p games for a few months as me and a friend wanted to play through all the Jagged Earth content and we were bumping it as we went and we settled on 7 as a nice level to have to think a fair bit, but still typically eke out a victory (maybe win 80%?). Very late, but: spice up your life with Brandenburg-Prussia 6 and the Blitz scenario!  That was the board state after setup with a 15 blight Ravage incoming  (I feel the rule book saying DON'T on this combo is there for a reason)
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Mar 31, 2023 09:23
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Hey, OP, have you seen the fan-made Legacy system for Spirit Island? It's quite something! https://old.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/11t3bxm/homebrewed_spirit_island_legacy_system_new/ I love the idea of unlocking spirits and having some kind of continuity between games.
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Mar 31, 2023 15:04
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Ragnar34 posted:semi-official difficulty chart ConfusedUs posted:Hey, OP, have you seen the fan-made Legacy system for Spirit Island? Can these be added to the OP? 
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Mar 31, 2023 17:12
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Fellis posted:Would also be interested if anyone has a setup to recommend that’s lower difficulty on paper but actually more challenging! Just came across a reddit post asking the same question I did here, but playing at a much higher level. He also asked for challenges similarly 2 years ago and got one from Eric Reuss himself which is just evil, but also shows exactly how well Eric knows his game. I think the conversation in this thread about the details of what was causing difficulty/pain is very interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/mgv6oj/comment/gtt4i1w/ e: here was the challenge Eric Reuss posted:Interesting challenge! How about : Fellis fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 31, 2023 |
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Mar 31, 2023 18:48
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That challenge is absolutely vile and I love it.
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Mar 31, 2023 18:54
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I was wondering, "Why stop with level 1 adversaries, except to make the game reasonably winnable?" Of course that sadistic SOB had his reasons.W. Eric Reuss posted:
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Mar 31, 2023 20:14
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Can these be added to the OP? Sure
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Apr 1, 2023 02:50
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Cheers, much obliged. Just beat my first Difficulty 1 game! I've worked up from a bunch of Horizons (no blighted island cards, no adversaries, no scenarios; everything else is the same in terms of difficulty) games, to a bunch of difficulty zero games, to finally difficulty one. Went with Thunderspeaker against England. Thunderspeaker I've always found the easiest to pilot because her first innate power is so abusable. The unique power card she has, Sudden Ambush, that gathers a Dahan and destroys an invader is nutty too. I actually played three times before winning but I made a bunch of upkeep/ordering mistakes in those games (playing physical) so I'm not counting them. Also one of those games I was playing Difficulty 3 by accident (by including England Level 1), lol. Ended up winning handily by drawing out one important minor, Gift of Living Energy, which opened up the whole game. I grabbed Pillars of Living Flame at the same time and held it until I was able to obliterate a wetlands with the kicker (having placed presence to reveal the 4th Fire same turn 😎), letting me remove two towns and two cities in one fell swoop and win the game. Considering I won with five presence left on tracks and no blighted island I can probably move on to difficulty two. On the other hand every game where blighted island card has flipped on me has been pretty much an insta-lose (only have the two from the base game). They do seem a bit too punishing...?
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Apr 1, 2023 03:11
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I think the common thought is if you didn't flip the blight card, the game was too easy for you. The two blight cards in the base game are really punishing though. I usually pull them out and play with the much better expansion cards.
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Apr 1, 2023 04:05
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Those two blighted island cards are easier to handle than they look, although I guess it depends how many presence and/or power cards you can actually spare, I guess. Sacrificing presence isn't that big a deal for Thunderspeaker so long as you've still got two or three to keep your central army up and running. Losing cards isn't usually too bad either so long as you've got a core combo or two that you can ride to victory. A fully armored and operational Thunderspeaker puts out some of the biggest damage numbers I've ever seen in this game. Manifestation of power and glory for 20+ damage, hell yeah, light the sky with their burning cities. Interesting thing about TS, you're one of those special spirits that basically STARTS with a major. That reminds me, I get the impression some people see this as cheating (not me), but if anyone wants a leg up for reaching intermediate play, there are popular openings for each spirit in the same way there are openings for Chess and Through the Ages and such. BGG has at least one for each. Should I link those in the OP too? e: Oh do people see the original two blight cards as punishing? I'm usually happy to see them if anything. This isn't a humble brag, a couple of blight cards in the expansions have given me insta-losses. The "immediately destroy three presence each" can combine with blight cascades in nasty, nasty ways, and I see that one as not-that-bad too. I'd go through the deck right now and pick out the ones that tend to kill me, but I have a cat on my lap. Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 04:11
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It depends. If the base game blight flips really early it's usually very bad news. Some spirits don't particularly mind the presence loss though, and even if they do it usually takes a few turns for it to become noticeable. They're very rough for Heart of the Wildfire IMO, because you easily flip the blight card + have bad presence placement + really want presence + it's prohibitively expensive to replace presence where you used to have it. For most spirits I find that the risk from blighted island events is worse than what the base game blight cards do. In my book the worst blight cards are the 3-blight cards from B&C. They're nominally supposed to be a mixed bag but the benefits get really inconsequential at higher levels while the penalties can still hurt you, and then you get left with a pretty thin safety net. I would happily take the base game blight cards 9 times out of 10.
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Apr 1, 2023 04:18
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I think I can agree with all that, although I'm so bad with Wildfire that I can kind of see why I wouldn't know anything about it. I hated seeing three-blight cards as Wildfire, I know that. Three blight on the card means I've only got two more ammo until I can get my cleanse effects online.
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Apr 1, 2023 04:22
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Ragnar34 posted:Those two blighted island cards are easier to handle than they look, although I guess it depends how many presence and/or power cards you can actually spare, I guess. Sacrificing presence isn't that big a deal for Thunderspeaker so long as you've still got two or three to keep your central army up and running. Losing cards isn't usually too bad either so long as you've got a core combo or two that you can ride to victory. I say add them with a spoiler tag. For some spirits like River the openings are basically non-negotiable.
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Apr 1, 2023 07:18
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What helped me get better at Spirit Island was spending some time with a single spirit figuring out openings and then writing them down. I have a google doc with spirit openings and notes for high difficulty adversaries. It is really hard to get better if you are struggling with the basics every time you play.
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Apr 1, 2023 18:50
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Another difficulty one under the belt. Prussia vs Rampant Green. Comboing an upcosted Tsunami with a The Jungle Hungers - LMAO - was some of the most fun I've had in a game. Won on the next turn after that bomb. Definitely gotta ratchet up difficulty, was just checking; didn't add a single blight ahah. Gotta be the easiest spirit I've piloted so far though. The remove presence to block ravage/block is stupid good, especially with the free growth and two unique power cards that add presence. Something I quickly learned and I'll note it for new players is that complexity generally means just that - complexity. The spirit has less buttons and levers. It doesn't mean that the spirit is easier to win with! Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Apr 2, 2023 |
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Apr 2, 2023 04:17
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When I’m teaching new people to play the game I always play rampant green. Really emphases how strong putting extra presence on the board is while also letting them feel very powerful and impactful.
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Apr 2, 2023 05:10
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That's smart, I'm gonna do that too. Now to convince someone to learn the game... ahaha. (Kidding, I taught one person, they're coming over tomorrow). Just wrapped up a difficulty 2 as Fathomless Mud who has a similar emphasis on the strength of presence and holy sites. Actually flipped the island card this time but I won literally immediately after flipping it due to the final city being taken out during the same ravage. I'm happy with my progress, I was really struggling strategy wise at first but the last few games have been solid - haven't seen a level 3 invader card, little to no blight, etc. The Rampant Green game was my first ever with RG but I've felt really comfortable with Mud and Speaker since the first game I played them. Excited to play tomorrow! Last time we played was November (  ) and we had a blast with him on Ocean's and me on BoDaN. Immediately obviously it was an S tier combo but we didn't know that before selecting, haha.
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Apr 2, 2023 05:33
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I play a lot of SI, usually around difficulty 5-7. Can anybody help me not hate BoDAN? I love spirits with serious tradeoffs, like Wildfire and Ocean, and special abilities that change the game completely, like Downpour. But I just don't get BoDAN.
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Apr 2, 2023 21:30
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1secondpersecond posted:I play a lot of SI, usually around difficulty 5-7. Can anybody help me not hate BoDAN? I love spirits with serious tradeoffs, like Wildfire and Ocean, and special abilities that change the game completely, like Downpour. But I just don't get BoDAN. As an experienced player, is it the undertuned tracks (especially the plays track) and inability to push cities (I mean, I get it thematically, but it's a big weakness that has to be managed with Dread Apparition, a costly power)? Or is it something else? Because I think those two problems are enough to really handicap it at higher levels of play. I love the theme and the gameplay of BoDaN at lower levels of play, but I'm not sure I've even taken it against any mid-level adversary given its troubles.
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Apr 2, 2023 22:18
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1secondpersecond posted:I play a lot of SI, usually around difficulty 5-7. Can anybody help me not hate BoDAN? I love spirits with serious tradeoffs, like Wildfire and Ocean, and special abilities that change the game completely, like Downpour. But I just don't get BoDAN. BoDaN is tricky because you have to balance doing the bare minimum of invader management vs. mashing the fear button as hard as you can. Dream-killing two cities does absolutely nothing to control invaders or prevent blight (barring favorable fear cards) but that's your fastest road to victory. It can get pretty boring sometimes, especially in solo; at least with another spirit there you can coordinate to set up bigger dream kills.
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Apr 2, 2023 22:28
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