|
I loving love Spirit Island. Here’s a thread about it, damned if I know why it didn’t exist already. For people who aren’t familiar: ----- Have you ever played a European colonization game and thought, “I wish I could play as the island,” but somehow haven’t heard of Spirit Island? Then I have amazing news.  The mechanics, visuals and sheer tactility are next to perfect. The difficulty scaling and game modes are both as wide as the sky, so you can get a good game out of it no matter how deep you want to go. BGG calls it a complex game but the individual systems are each very simple, so overall, I find The Teach™ to be much easier than I first expected. But if you’re worried about that, you can always go to Target and buy the Horizons of Spirit Island standalone, which strips out a bit of the crunch to be more newby-friendly, a lot like Jaws of the Lion if you’ve tried that. You can also port those spirits over to the base game if you want. There's also a video game adaptation, if you want to try out the full game for $10. Each player chooses a spirit to play as. There are eight in the basic game box, another two in the first small box expansion Branch and Claw that you’re really going to want, and then like 30+ more in the other boxes you can buy (the expansions are all fantastic and there’s another one coming with, what, 20 more?). Here are a few. River Surges in Sunlight, who forms a winding river across the board while creating wetlands to expand its options  Ocean's Hungry Grasp, who operates exclusively in the sea and at the shore, eating settlers and later spending them to fund its powers  Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares, who does exactly what its name says it does, seen here playing a solo game  Different spirits come with different strategies for killing or otherwise managing settlers. You can chase them around the island or lure them into killzones, cordon off zones of the island they can’t enter, blast their poo poo apart with lightning, drive them into the sea, build Silent Hill for conquistadors, turn every bird and bug on the island into their enemy, be a volcano—whatever you want, there’s probably a spirit for it. And all these different spirits are palpably, mechanically different but work together well enough that it still feels like you’re playing the same game, though you can do multiplayer solitaire too if you really want. You can also play solo. There are lots of ways to play solo. gently caress I love this game. You can also choose your opponent, like England, Brandenburg-Prussia, Sweden, France and Russia and others in the expansion, various options that all work a little differently, moreso as you raise the difficulty. Ragnar34 posted: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. ----- There’s a new expansion on Kickstarter right now. It introduces new aspects and cards for every deck, but most notably the incarna mechanic, where certain new spirits exist in physical form on the island in ways past spirits didn’t. Play as the Ember-Eyed Behemoth if you want to stomp around like Godzilla, play a giant tree that finally uses the vitality tokens that have been teased for years, a portal to a pocket dimension of pure darkness, just various things. Play a dog. It’s right here, and buy into it fast if you want it on launch, because it ends this Thursday. e: And I didn't know anything about this before just now, but it looks like this exists and people like it! ConfusedUs posted:Hey, OP, have you seen the fan-made Legacy system for Spirit Island? Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Apr 1, 2023 |
#
¿
Nov 14, 2022 01:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 10:04 |
|
|
Never played Horizons, honestly, but from what I've read it looks like most of the base experience is there. The core game has optional adversaries that introduce new rules and more involved scaling difficulty. There's also something called a blight card, where after you've placed two blight per player on the boards (six for three players for example) you flip the blight card from the "healthy island" side to the "blighted island" side, which represents a turning point in the fight and has a random ongoing effect. There are two blight cards in the base game and both of them are bad for you. There are eight spirits you haven't played, four of which are more complicated than any of the five Horizons spirits. One important thing you can do with the base game is get expansions. The Branch and Claw expansion in particular is where the game feels complete for me personally, with a more dynamic and changeable board, more cards for every deck especially the blight cards, and other things. At this point you're spending a fair amount of money, though. Wait, has anyone tried using Branch and Claw with just Horizons? I don't think it's supposed to be possible but maybe you can make it work.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2022 03:13
|
|
|
LaSquida posted:What makes Branch and Claw so important to you? Dynamism and variance. The event deck moves dahan around the island, as well as wildlife in the form of "beasts" tokens that interact with the new cards for every other deck, so the place feels more alive and the game less deterministic. When you get good enough at the base game, nothing ever really feels out of your control and your strategies can calcify until you're just going through the motions. Branch and Claw doesn't allow that. e: Just remembered Tabletop Simulator. It has the whole game and every expansion. I like the physical stuff because I've only had to buy stuff every couple years and I even got the base game when it was $20 cheaper, but TTS is a whole lot cheaper. Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Nov 14, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2022 06:26
|
|
|
I've tried "Choose one of these three starting spirits, I'll play this other extremely straightforward spirit so you'll understand what I'm doing, and we'll play a quick game where everything is basic and nothing strange happens." It works out fine, assuming they like one of the three. I don't think this works as well if they don't like any of the beginners, though. One guy latched onto BODAN and I let him roll with that. He always played either that or Ocean, didn't have trouble, and had a great time. So I figure the best way is to just tailor it to the players. I know someone who just grabbed Thunderspeaker, didn't see or care about any of the other spirits, and loved it. I know another guy who just really liked Stone. My girlfriend looked at River on her first game and, after picking up the rules in a few intro turns followed by a full game, basically showed ME how to play the spirit properly. Take one off energy and then blitz the plays track? That works?! Hell yeah it works, you don't even need that energy track disc, welcome to one of the strongest spirits in the core game. Thanks, girlfriend. The Lord of Hats posted:gently caress yeah, Spirit Island! It’s one of the go-tos for my weekly group, and I’m looking forward to [url= https://www.backerkit.com/c/greater-than-games/spirit-island-nature-incarnate]the next expansion[/url] tbh my takeaway is that this art is beautiful and the idea is cool. Mechanically I'll have to see it in practice a few times, but I'm sold.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2022 11:39
|
|
|
Storage chat My storage method for Spirit Island+expansions came from Lowe's, and I don't have it with me right now so I can't check the exact brand, but it looks sort of like this except yellow and I think the removable cups might be slightly different. Less than $30 USD. I don't know if it can fit the Horizons board in there too, but there's room in mine for new cards and pieces for when I can finally afford Nature Incarnate, so I'm not worried about that at least. The rule books don't fit, not that that matters, I have a phone and so do you.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2023 02:21
|
|
|
I bought a $25 modular box from Lowe's and it works great and has extra room. For Shadows Flicker like Flame, I would honestly just grab an aspect and forget the base spirit forever. It's not like you even need to own an aspect card, you can just pick one up front and tell people you're using it. All of them are better than the default. Reach is great for beginners. Personally I've got a soft spot for Amorphous, which feels like Shroud-lite in a good way.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2023 02:48
|
|
|
Volcano tip: the third growth ability is fantastic. I'm sure there's a good strategy that involves repeating growth 2 until you can wipe the whole island clean in one shot, possibly with two or more players, but I've never found it. I've had much more luck keeping it to occasional controlled eruptions of 2 pieces with maybe a 4-shot to end the game. It's the best way to take advantage of that sweet, sweet G3. Stone is great. It's like Earth, except gently caress you.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2023 16:20
|
|
|
  Tekopo posted:One of my favourite spirits is Keeper of the Forbidden Wild. The gimmick with this spirit is that your innates allow you to spread Wild, which prevents exploration, or if they do manage to infiltrate somehow, get rid of them from area with Wild tokens. The idea is that you build a wall of impenetrable green that is impossible for the invaders to encroach apon. Keeper was my favorite spirit for years and this run looks beautiful. If this happened to me irl I'd be tempted to return every deck to its exact previous state and then play it over again with difficulty a couple steps higher. Habsburg is an interesting invader thematically and mechanically. I'll need to see how Keeper feels against them I think.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2023 05:25
|
|
|
At this point my pro strat for Lightning's Swift Strike is to use the Immense aspect exclusively. The base and every other aspect feel awful to me, especially in solo where the speed boost doesn't matter as much and all you're left with is a spirit with more plays than it'll ever need. Yes, you're supposed to save up your cards for megaturns and/or do some G1, G2, G1, G2 weirdness, but you only get about 8-9 turns anyway, so every setup round feels like a significant sacrifice even when it's worth it. Hey, but you know what spirit I don't hear enough about? Spreading Rot Renews the Earth. Yeah, I know it's just an apocrypha spirit and Reuss says it's not as polished or as tested as other spirits, but it works just fine, I still think it's cool, and it does a lot of things I've been wanting. Just remember to round both rot loss and energy gain DOWN, not up like it says on the sheet.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2023 07:16
|
|
|
Those both look solid! Yeah, pandemonium is what I use when I feel like going back to the Lightning puzzle. I like defensive fear spirits, and fire+air has a lot of interesting minor cards imo.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2023 10:52
|
|
|
I can't read it very well either. The eurogame side ends up feeling more thematic to me just because I can grok what's happening at a glance, so I can more quickly and easily turn it into a narrative in my head. And my experience with the thematic board is that I abstractualize it all in my head most of the time regardless, at which point it all just looks muddy to me.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2023 14:42
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2023 06:58
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2023 07:59
|
|
|
Perry Mason Jar posted:Can these be added to the OP? Sure
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2023 02:50
|
|
|
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 |
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2023 04:11
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2023 04:22
|
|
|
In more general terms, personally my preferred way to play bodan is to fish for a decent aggressive major asap and then spam it until I win. There's not much reason to ever play presence from the bottom track, so it's not hard to predict how much energy you'll have from turn to turn, so you'll know when you can start looping your major every turn for the win. You don't have to be picky about your majors either, just something that can "kill" cities and maybe lets you stall with defense in some way, though the latter is secondary because this is a race. Bodan is a tempo spirit, in solo especially. The fact that cities don't move isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way. One city is easy to defend against with your starting cards, two is tricky but also gives you a place to aim your majors at for (ideally) 10 fear a turn. Two and a half fear cards, not counting any other thing you're doing! Drawing one fear card might or might not help you, but three should give you something to buy time with.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2023 23:49
|
|
|
My review of Shroud as a spirit is that I love it, and love hurts. No advice, I just wanted to chip in. I can't wait to see the aspects, because playtesters say they're a lot stronger. I can't believe Anyway I used to see Shroud as a pure fear spirit like Bodan, keeping enemies alive to farm fear instead of actually killing things, but now I think it's an offense spirit with supplemental fear generation as you chisel enemies down over a period of turns. It's still not that great at either. Some good news is, its energy generation is better than it looks. With fear farms and regular powers, you can get to 2 energy a turn in the very early game, and 3 consistently. Shroud is generally just not the spirit I thought it was, and not necessarily in a bad way. Although I still want those strife tokens. Discussion: I've heard it argued that fear generation scales poorly with player count in practice, and I've also heard that it's fine. I'm leaning toward the latter with the proviso that if only one player is generating any fear (some spirits are trying to win before fear 3, I feel) then you're facing an uphill battle to have a meaningful impact. Opinions? Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Apr 5, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2023 01:48
|
|
|
the holy poopacy posted:It was a bit more complicated than that. This is fascinating, thanks for saying something. It's amazing what that one little change could do. Also oh my god the man's name is right on the box 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 5, 2023 07:16
|
|
|
I dont have horizons, but i just looked at the sun-bright board and realized how good pure bottom track is. You could probably get Majors without having to go top track more than once. Bottom track will be more consistent, I assume, since there are going to be a lot of useless majors for SBW, but still. e: softly beckon is how you get away with playing only one card on turn one and lose nothing much. Amazing card. Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Apr 7, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2023 22:28
|
|
|
Oh yeah, Keeper is one of the strongest in the game. It's up there with Rampant Green. Team plant is outrageous, by the way, if you ever want a pairing for the highest difficulties, although it sounds like your teammate is already picked out for you. I usually rotate between all the spirits like you do, but there was a period where I played nothing but Starlight Seeks Its Form. Sharp Fangs has never clicked with me but it's one of the better spirits and I like the way you're constantly spalling off beast tokens so they can wander off and eat white people. It has a really interesting relationship with the event deck, sort of like Thunderspeaker does, when you get around to trying that. Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Apr 10, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2023 07:07
|
|
|
If the event deck feels unkind to Fangs, it's also an interesting spirit with no events since beast tokens become deterministic. I have trouble doing without the events though. I want events. Just thought of something. Switching the fear deck to a similar non randomized system could be really interesting for Shroud, which the fear deck can absolutely gently caress over if the game wants. Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Apr 10, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2023 17:33
|
|
|
I like to discard the card because it slightly narrows down the chances of drawing events I hate and gives me mildly useful info. I've made decisions based on this or that event I absolutely knew wasn't in the deck, like years of little rain or the one about missionaries. Then again, B&C still has strange madness among the beasts and a much smaller deck, so I could see not wanting to do it when you're playing Fangs.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2023 01:03
|
|
|
I can remove Outpaced? Oh hell yeah, that one is annoying.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2023 04:32
|
|
|
I'd play the hell out of some steam app SI goon games. I have never played Mist with another human let alone two, and I'm curious how that looks. Not possible on the steam app, I'm just saying. The support would be amazing but it feels like it'd dilute Mist's fear card income?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2023 19:15
|
|
|
I forget, are they allowed to put the Horizon spirits on the Steam app? I feel like they aren't but I also think it'd be a good DLC, like "oh yeah we're obviously already working on it" good.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2023 05:20
|
|
|
Meanwhile the other day I got owned by Hapsburg level 2 with Starlight, possibly because I decided Savage Transformation and Call of the Dahan Ways would be some kind of... combo? I don't remember what I was thinking except that the elements matched and Starlight's animal build is very solid in my experience. I always want Call of the Dahan Ways to have more of an impact than it does. Maybe I should just get it out of my system and play a round of Downpour with that card right on top of the minor deck.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2023 17:59
|
|
|
Perry Mason Jar posted:Not if I'm stubborn enough! Kept faceplanting as Sharp Fangs against France and Prussia because I wanted so badly to make bottom track work out. I also did only just learn that I was misplaying his first innate, thinking I had to meet the second level threshold before activating the level 3, so it was a smidge harder than necessary. Playing that correctly I think will mitigate bottom track problems a bit, but still I think full top track is always gonna be the star. Basic strategy for vital earth: 1. Your recovery gives you growth too, so there isn't that much opportunity cost to recovering when you still have cards in hand. Looping one or two good majors is probably your endgame, so remember to keep fishing. 2. The bottom track gives you a lot less bang for your buck than the top, clearly. I suggest getting 2 plays and 3-4 energy asap, then 6 energy, then you het to choose between 3 plays or maxing energy, depending on what your majors look like. 3. The innate is a niche tool at best unless you're using that one aspect. I usually ignore it completely, to be honest. That said, Draw of the Fuitful Earth + Rituals of Destruction will trigger the first step of your innate, a good aggressive move if you have a turn to breathe plus 4/2 on the growth track. So turn 3 at the earliest or more likely turn 4. Something to aim for. 4. Vital Earth is one of the weakest spirits in the game, so you probably upped the difficulty a bit by picking it. Half a point maybe. I might just be telling myself that though.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2023 19:40
|
|
|
Yeah the downside to having the event deck is that every once in a while you get hosed. At that point I might have just rewinded to see if the next event card would have changed anything, like you said, because honestly did that loss really have anything to do with your decisions? Personally sometimes I try to keep certain events in mind when I play, especially the ones that make ravages more dangerous, but if I don't have the resources for it then I'm not going to fuss about it. And then the card comes up anyway and now there's an infinite blight cascade and oh god.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 16, 2023 04:17
|
|
|
Meanwhile my problem is that sometimes I look at the elements first and the text when I actually play the card in the slow phase.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 27, 2023 20:12
|
|
|
You don't need to fit the targeting requirements to benefit from the elements so that's a 
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2023 00:16
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I also forgot Stone's Unyielding Defiance, who loving owns. Hit me, and I'll hit you twice as hard. Half as hard plus two, actually
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2023 02:55
|
|
|
Putting together an irl playgroup always seems to be frustrating. Good luck.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2023 17:29
|
|
|
Perry Mason Jar posted:I also missed that Ocean's energy changes with player count and so did my brother, so he was stupid fat for no good reason. Fellis posted:Once I played Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds, I learned everything I needed to know about sparing the Dahan. Similarly, once I played Heart of the Wildfire, I learned everything I needed to know about the island getting blighted. I like how both these lessons could be summed up as gently caress 'Em. It really is thematically weird that the Dahan are so expendable, but this is inherently a game that encourages an instrumental approach to the invaders, because we are trying to win. Maybe this is just a particularly on the nose example of board games's colonialist roots showing? Okay too real. Can't wait to see NI on store shelves!!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2023 04:44
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:
Ugh, I may have to buy this sooner than I thought. SettingSun posted:Anyone want to pass along any juicy spoilers for us non-discord people? I'd help but I'm on my phone and my laptop is busted.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2023 18:46
|
|
spoilers are live on the discord
|
I want the aspects so much. I'm surprised how restrained the Shroud one is, though. I'd heard that it was super good, but the presence movement feels less interesting than the old rule without being much stronger, and isolate is an effect I don't see having that much of an impact on Shroud's usual approach. I guess I should just try it out and see what the difference is. Imo, Shroud's weakness is that it's at the mercy of the decks. A couple of ineffectual fear cards or bad blight card can cost you the game even at mid-level difficulties. I figured the aspect would have to help with that and the isolate is the closest thing I see to a defensive tool, so that part must be pretty impactful.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2023 21:01
|
|
|
I have no idea how but one of these days I'd like a spirit of ice. I guess it's have to be a whole other expansion set on an island much further from the equator, with maybe another spirit of fishing or whales, and an alternate tribe to the Dahan with slightly different mechanics. So like if Eric could get working on that soon, that'd be good Ragnar34 fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jun 24, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2023 20:50
|
|
|
I'm going to miss tipping point, is that weird? I'm usually a little relieved to see it. There are much worse things in that deck. It hits some spirits harder than others of course, so maybe the problem is that it can be unfair.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2023 21:53
|
|
|
Now Growth Through Sacrifice I can understand. Hot take, you could put that in the majors deck unchanged and it'd still be a good pick.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2023 23:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 10:04 |
|
|
Okay yeah that isolate on Shroud is great. You're stopping one explore per turn, which in solo is fully half of them. I was at the 3 "slow and silent death" threshold only one turn in the whole game and I still did fine, which makes me think it'll be stronger when I get more of a feel for what I can get away with now. And the replacement for "mists shift and flow" is barely weaker at all, so the aspect feels like a pure buff. Like with Shadows Flicker, i dont see myself playing without an aspect anytime soon. Are the other aspects this good? Speaking of Shadow, dark fire looks nasty strong.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2023 04:47
|
|