Out of curiosity, how long did that take?
My main goal for gen con this year is a 6 player game. I'm trying to get enough games in that I won't drag down the table skill level.
I'm in! :)
THERE IS NO WAY I'M DOING A SIX PLAYER GAME. At least not until my play level gets much higher.
I like the game a lot, but I am still on single digit plays and haven't moved ANY of the levers yet -- just a plain, vanilla game at the easiest difficulty.
I hope everyone gets tons of chances to play Spirit Island at Gen Con! I am absurdly busy at the show, so I will not have nearly the free time that most of you will have. However, I am so excited about this game that if anyone is playing within walking distance of the convention center and would be interested in having me play, feel free to text me literally any time of day or night. I'll let you know if I'm available or not, and if I'm asleep (which is rare at Gen Con), I'll just ignore it. My phone number is 3143241112 :)
3 hours. This included teaching 4 out of the 6 players about the expansion contents, and teaching 1 player the whole game (!). It was not the gentlest first game experience, but I gave him Vital Strength of Earth on the largely successful theory that this would keep him confined to one corner of the board.
I hope to post a full game report soon.
One thing I like is how many different levels you can engage the game at, and many people will have a lot of fun playing the vanilla game for a long time, like you say. I've been trying to figure out how to word a FAQ question to that effect, so that people don't get intimidated by reports of people beating England level 3 on their third play.
Wait, I'm not sure I understand; are you saying you like the game? 
(BTW, time for a thread split?)
I'd be seriously interested in a 6 player game at Gencon, I'm fairly confident in my level of play, especially if I can choose a spirit whose style I've got a good understanding of like Vital Strength or Keeper of the Wilds.
I'm also mostly free later in day for Gencon, since most of my volunteer work for Mythical Eras of War will be early in the day. I also will admit I signed up for a Spirit Island demo to make sure I had a chance to scratch the itch.
I've only played Wildfire solo, and at a low level, but in the game I did best I went straight for two card plays, followed by 2 Fire, and then up the Energy track so that I could remove Blight at about the same rate I was putting it out.
Pretty much this for me when I've been using Wildfire solo. Of course, I'm still playing at the basic 0 difficulty and without an adversary level right now. Wildfire just has so much abilty to wipe out towns and cities, that once I hit terror level 2 it is pretty much game over for the invaders on that turn or the next.
Yeah, solo that method is awesome, but on big maps you don't want to flip the blight card just to clear your board. Going energy is slower clearing your own board, but you can end up being a positive force against blight.
That card play strategy is what I usually adopt, but again that may be related to my psychology. On a larger board it's less likely to actually flip the card, since there's a larger pool. You need to weight the tradeoffs of how much extra Blight would be added if you state at the 1-Fire level.
Going for extra plays first is the most conservative strategy in terms of managing blight.
I played Wildifre tonight, it was a relatively easy game, but I quickly ran into a problem
There were no invaders close enough for me to hit. In fact, I never got to use Firestorm because where ever I had prescence, the invaders had already been cleared out.
It's a good problem to have, but it made me kind of sad.
Also, I think Guard the Isle's Heart is amost an easy mode of the game. Removing all towns after set-up is finished just makes the board so much easier to deal with, and if they aren't building in the inner lands (which are only those four that touch in a four player game) then you can even ignore the extra explorers for a turn or two.
I haven't played any of the scenarios yet. But I suspect that it depends. Guard the Isle's Heart gives the spirits a significant starting handicap, but couples it with an instant-loss condition which isn't all the difficult for the invaders to achieve. I would imagine this makes games more swingy - either you compound the early advantage and win quickly, or you lose control over the board and you lose quickly.
It's thematic to feel sad. Wildfire gets disappointed when it doesn't get to burn things down.
(It's also typical. The targeting restrictions are the hardest part of that power.)
I've noticed, doing a solo game right now and the fact I can never reach targets that need to be hit is frustrating me. I'm making it work, but every time I think I have a plan I see range 0 in a land with Blight and groan in frustration
It’s sad, being fire. I find myself playing blight-removal powers and then going, hmmm, do I really need to remove this blight? This blight is fine. This blight is my friend.
You have to remember that sometimes you need to let blight go, so you can make new blight. Being too sentimental can weigh down your artistic creativity.
Until you play against Sweeden haha. Wildfire has to be super careful against them due to the extra blight they create as you might find yourself losing by having no blight left on the health card.