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Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

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What Spirit Islands are you comboing?

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04 Jul 2021 20:54 - 04 Jul 2021 20:57 #324422 by Gary Sax
In honor of the US holiday, we faced England lvl 4. Boy this is tough. On a different level than the other difficulty 7 setups we've dealt with.

First game we got flushed early, spouse was using wildfire so we flipped blight early and lo and behold it was a 2 blight per player one so we immediately went out a turn later.

Then we matched up with me as lightning, spouse as her favorite, deep lure. This was a slobberknocker, another two blight per player but we didn't flip till late game. We came inches from defeat several times until we put the hurt on them late game when my spouse started drawing major powers. Lightning is such a tricky spirit at high difficulties, it's really focused on getting you to understand how and when you can double presence grow and when you have to settle into reclaiming over and over. Grow too little, and you'll be starved out when you reach your power draw cycle. Grow too much and you simply won't have cards to play. Lightning puts you in situations early game where you don't play to your card limit and it is tough. Lightning can also get skunked by abnormally bad card draws easily with its purple orange requirements.

My absolute least favorite thing about later England levels is that the luck of the draw can easily create automatic build/ravage consecutive order blight you can't do anything about. If something is in build 2 slot *and* in ravage slot, you may just be hosed since England is going to have big stack territories to activate the build with its no explorers power, no matter what you do.
Last edit: 04 Jul 2021 20:57 by Gary Sax.

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09 Jul 2021 23:01 #324564 by Bernie
Gary, you need to give Serpent a try. Super fun spirit. Just make sure your partner is cool with giving you some presence. They will get tons in return for it.

It’s a great spirit at two. Very unexpected to have an old spirit still I played at this point. Exciting as well. Will love to hear your thoughts about it. Serpent is one of my favs.
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08 Aug 2021 22:13 - 08 Aug 2021 22:13 #325354 by Gary Sax
Playing France lvl 3, who is tough, my spouse just suddenly clicked in with Vengeance is a Burning Plague and dominated. Mostly had to do with being totally comfortable letting a ton of her presence die to become disease. Real high wire act, I can't pull it off.
Last edit: 08 Aug 2021 22:13 by Gary Sax.
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10 Aug 2021 07:25 #325389 by Jexik
I picked this up to play with my girlfriend. So far it looks pretty daunting. A year ago she was an “I like games but yahtzee and munchkin are about as deep as I’ve gone” kind of gamer. We’ll play games to death when we get the hang of them, but the initial hurdle looks tricky here.

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10 Aug 2021 08:23 #325391 by sornars
You can read about my journey to appreciating the game further upthread - I essentially had to brute force my way through a confusing experience many many times before I came to understand and appreciate the game. If the initial play matters to your partner a lot, the best thing I can recommend is playing a few games alone beforehand so you'll have a good grasp of the systems, letting you take over on admin while they focus on their hand.
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10 Aug 2021 10:17 #325399 by Gary Sax
It took us 5 games or so to get into it too, I wish I had better news. And my spouse is a very enthusiastic coop gamer.
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21 Jul 2022 19:27 #334390 by Ah_Pook
A target exclusive Spirit Island is coming soon. 5 all new lower complexity spirits, and lower quality components to make it cheaper (punchboard instead of minis, presumably). All compatible with everything else.

greaterthangames.com/announcing-horizons-of-spirit-island/

SI seems like an insane game for Target shelves, but it's interesting at least.
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21 Jul 2022 19:34 #334391 by Gary Sax
That is wild! Seems like a dumb idea, Spirit Island is to me an anti-Target game because it can seem impossible and make you want to quit for your first couple games until you wrap your brain around the pace of the timing and planning aspect.

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22 Jul 2022 03:13 #334395 by mezike
The story behind it is kinda fun, with Target saying “we like your game, can you make a simpler version of it for us?” - “no, not really”

I may have to beg for a Huckleberry on here at some point, availability outside the US is a few years away and uncertain. We’ve been playing a lot of SI recently and at a point where we are really craving some new spirits.
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22 Jul 2022 07:23 #334396 by WadeMonnig
Spirit Island: Jaws of the lion?

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22 Jul 2022 09:38 #334397 by mezike

WadeMonnig wrote: Spirit Island: Jaws of the lion?


Given the naming conventions for spirits in the game I'd expect something more along the lines of "Lion Jaws of the Island Spirits"

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22 Jul 2022 10:55 - 22 Jul 2022 10:56 #334399 by Gary Sax
I dunno, this is my most played game so I'll buy the thing just to move the spirits to my old box.

@mezike let me know, I can buy two copies.
Last edit: 22 Jul 2022 10:56 by Gary Sax.
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22 Jul 2022 12:31 #334402 by mezike
You’re the best, thank you! That would be awesome if you could grab a copy for me. I’ll pm you to sort out payments etc.

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22 Jul 2022 12:37 #334403 by Gary Sax
Yeah, I'll talk to you more on discord but just plan to pick up a second one when I see it on Target's website.

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28 Aug 2022 03:32 #335274 by mezike
GarySax was talking about his first game with Serpent in another thread but it feels like this is a better place to continue the conversation.

I really enjoy Serpent but, along with Finder in particular, it definitely changes the tempo of play. I feel like both of these spirits lean heavily into the co-op angle as you really need to get into each others plans when it’s around. They are a bit weird which is why it’s no surprise they started out as promo items.

I feel that the primary goal is getting up to that juncture point in the track where you wake up and turn into an absolute monster. That’s the point where you can single-handedly win the game in one or two turns with the ability to play multiple majors and to easily hit element thresholds. Up until that point it’s a design choice that you are half asleep and not yet fully effective so you have to lean in particular directions and it’s therefore additionally important to pay attention to elements when gaining power cards - the considerations being ‘how does the waking Serpent manifest itself?’ and ‘how can I prepare for maximum efficacy when everything opens up?’

Because you need to get up to that junction point I don’t rely exclusively on absorbing essence, which is slow-going, and am therefore often cavalier with placing presence in the way of blight as it’s an effective method for keeping you under the cap; Serpent is counter-intuitively a spirit where you want to lose presence as it leaves fewer on the island and keeps your growth going. Presence destruction events and blighted island cards are often a welcome sight and there’s a good reason why growth through sacrifice is one of ‘Serpent’s’ power cards. Absorbing your spouses presence just before it’s about to be lost to blight is also a valid move that might change her focus and is less of a feel-bad than asking for the sacrifice without anything to offer in return. It depends a lot on spirit pairings as well though, Rampant Green or Shifting Memory make for fun times with placement acceleration and element control respectively, both of which Serpent loves to see.

Digging for placement powers is a worthy endeavour, there is that major that grants two which is Serpents best friend.
The ‘defend all adjacent lands’ power in your starting hand is wild, it can shut down the first ravage completely which is great as you can then focus on preventing builds and really set the invaders back a step.

I’m thinking about trying a Serpent + Finder game at some point, feels like it will make for a tight race of mega-cities and hard blight until the snake shakes the island clean.
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