First impressions: first few games solo

Games Spirit Island
1

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. 

 

 

2

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?

3

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

4

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?

 
5

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).

6

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.

7

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?

8

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.

9

Yes, that's my opinion! Did you see the note at the end of the "First-Time Players" section?

10

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!

11

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.

12

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).

13

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.

14

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. :)

15

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

16

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

17

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?

18

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. 

19

[quote=Foote] Level 3 is aggressive, but it's certainly not the highest difficulty. It's in the middle. ...[/quote]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.

20

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.