I've got pretty much nothing to do this whole week, so I was thinking I might enjoy trying out this playing-online thing, although I worry it may be too difficult for me. I have only a vague idea how the whole process works. From what I'm gathering, it requires all the players to be online at the same time, with a copy of the game set up next to their computer, and they need to all own all the sets that anyone is using in the game. So since I don't own Rook City or Infernal Relics, I couldn't join any game in which someone was playing Mr. Fixer or Nightmist. Then it's just a matter of players taking turns, posting what they do, and then sitting there clicking Refresh until it gets back to their turn? How do you go about finding players? Who gets elected to operate the villain, and can that person actually play a hero in the game too? I'm sure there are other logistical puzzles associated, so if someone has written a primer on the subject, please direct me to it.
If you are talking about G+, they have organized games where everyone is online, I haven't done one, as my kids rend to ruin any dedicated block of time activities, but if you want to do one, I'd go on there and see if anyone is planning on running a game.
The forum games don't require everyone to be on at the same time, you just check the game when you can and play when it is your turn.
Okay, as a person who plays and organises Google games, here's how things go.
1) Join the G+ community. https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117769941955241654989
2a) Wait for someone to set up a game - you'll get an invitation which will link to the event page and you can click yes/no/maybe. You'll also get a reminder when the games about to start if you said yes or maybe.
2b) If you're impatient, set up your own game instead by clicking "events" on the community page, new event, and add in the details. You'll need to change the advanced settings to have the event be hangout-only thing. It should invite everyone in the community.
3) Get your cards ready. You DON'T need every expansion. We tend to randomise the heroes we play but of course it's fine if you want to choose specific ones instead. I played for weeks before I got Unity and Scholar, and every time those characters came up I just chose a different one. It's easy to just play heroes that you actually own. If someone else is playing Fixer or a character you don't have, it's fine, you don't need to have the cards. There are enough of us that have everything so someone can always run the villain/environment too, no problem.
4) The event page at the scheduled time will have a button where you can "join hangout", and so will the notification you'll get. It's best if you have a microphone, but a webcam isn't necessary. Headphones help to avoid echoes.
5) Say hi! Somone will have a copy of the spreadsheet we use to track cards played and effect. You just play your own deck as usual, declaring what card you're playing, who you're attacking, etc., and the spreadsheet person will do appropriate things to the sheet - it'll be screenshared with all players so no refreshing necessary - you'll see changes in real time.
It's really easy and a lot of fun, so do try to join in some time. :)
Also some people choose to watch for a little while to see how things go before taking the plunge and joining in. That's fine too.
Your games (such as "Episode 12: La Capitan") are the ones I was referring to.
The forum games don't require everyone to be on at the same time, you just check the game when you can and play when it is your turn.
It may not be strictly necessary to play at the same time, but it makes the difference between completing a game in six hours and doing so in six days. People can play chess by snail-mail, making one or two moves per week apiece as they wait for each other's replies, but far fewer do so now than before the telephone was invented. Maybe for someone who can only be online one hour a day, the post-and-wait method works, but I have a solid week (and only that week) to spare, so I would need to arrange simultenaiety, or be stuck waiting in limbo for far longer than I can stand to.
I'd only need to arrange to have one person in front of their computer at the same time as I'm in front of mine. I can play two heroes to their one (unless they feel up to doing more), and run the villain and environment; it'd still be vastly less lame than me playing solitaire. (I've been live-blogging my solo games to a microscopic audience, which I've probably already bored to death, just as an excuse to play the game by myself more than the one time a week that I meet up with other gamers. This only barely suffices to prevent it from being so lame that I can't stand to do it. To its credit, Sentinels is far MORE non-lame than most games could manage to be in this context, but it's still me sitting alone in a room and flipping cards to amuse myself because I don't have friends I can invite over, and thus remains lame by definition.)
Okay, I'd rather not do that. I might suck it up if it'll get me access to an endless supply of games at all hours of the day or night, but I really despise signing up for websites. (Is it too much to ask for "plug and play" functionality? I don't mean SOTM, just the Web in general; I'm sick of corporations handing out mandatory virtual paperwork and fishing for my personal information before they'll provide services. Kind of a millstone of mine, don't mean to take it out on you guys.)
You DON'T need every expansion. We tend to randomise the heroes we play but of course it's fine if you want to choose specific ones instead.
Well I don't know the game by heart, so I'd find it impossible to play a game in which someone was playing Mr. Fixer if I didn't have a Mr. Fixer deck that I could use to track what they were playing. I don't have to know what cards are in their hand, but tracking their cards in play with just posts on the board would make my head hurt. (This whole topic came up because I was trying to follow along with "Episode 12: La Capitan" and my brain just melted after the first full round. I still want to figure out how the hell they beat her, since my impression when playing against Maria Helena was that even her non-advanced mode was as tough as the Chairman and virtually impossible to win against. But until I have my own copy of Rook City, this will remain mysterious to me.)
It's best if you have a microphone, but a webcam isn't necessary. Headphones help to avoid echoes.
I have none of these. Just a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and physical copy of the game. Thusly, I don't need people to type out the text of their cards, but I can only talk by typing.
5) Say hi! Somone will have a copy of the spreadsheet we use to track cards played and effect. You just play your own deck as usual, declaring what card you're playing, who you're attacking, etc., and the spreadsheet person will do appropriate things to the sheet - it'll be screenshared with all players so no refreshing necessary
That would definitely make my head hurt, possibly even more than the post format Phantaskippy's games use. In my experience, the only way a spreadsheet doesn't drive me to the verge of gouging my eyes out is if I created it myself (and did so fairly recently at that; my own documents become the work of a stranger if I age too much after making them). Without an instinctive recognition of where all the info belongs and what it means, I just get tied up in logical loops trying to figure it all out, and develop the Avoidance derangement for long periods thereafter (hence my earlier attitude about joining G+).
Hm? How does that work? You can't add players in the middle of a game; it would change the value of H, so Citizen Dawn would have retroactively had more Citizens in play all along. I suppose some villains might be written in such a way that the math is doable, but I can't think of any except maybe Spite (since all he does is increment and decrement HP, but even there, you might be changing which hero was the highest HP when he attacked).
This usually doesn;t matter. You can still hear everyone and type your words.
I highly suggest you take a look at the Mezike's document. Everything for every character is already built in. All you have to do is select which card.
It can't be uploaded here, so here is a link to download it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19hhkdw7glhogg9/Mezikes%20SotM%20Online%20Game%20Aid%20V3.2.xlsm
She meant that you watch one game to see how it works, then you can join the next game.
Nothing is automated in the G+ group, it's all handled by someone adding or removing HP/cards from a screen-shared spreadsheet. People watching is no more intrusive than a real world game with someone watching, you might be aware they are there and answer questions from them but the fact that they are there doesn't impact the mechanics of game.
EDIT:Pydro answered this far better than I
For future clarity, playing online and Play By Forum denote different things, you are looking to PbF and will get a lot of 'useless' information about the online gaming done via G+/Skype with your subject line.
EDIT Ninja'ed!
If it helps, I was playing in that game and I'm not entirely certain what happened 
As it is the games on the forum take days and days, but if you do want to play a quick game I'd suggest just posting a thread asking for someone who'd be online at such-and-such time and willing to play. Maybe no-one will bite, but you'd probably get at least one person if not more. Then just play! 
(This whole topic came up because I was trying to follow along with "Episode 12: La Capitan" and my brain just melted after the first full round. I still want to figure out how the hell they beat her, since my impression when playing against Maria Helena was that even her non-advanced mode was as tough as the Chairman and virtually impossible to win against. But until I have my own copy of Rook City, this will remain mysterious to me.)
I can answer this.
Dark Visionary was stacking the villain deck to keep us above water, while Omnitron-X ate the destruction and Vis got Wrest the Mind on Siege breaker and from then La Capitan was pretty well toast.
Dark Visionary would have died or had to give up WtM shenanigans but Oxygen leak came out and with TtE Vis turned the damage she would deal herself to fireso she didn't take any, everyone was able to get set up during this time and Omni ended up blowing her up with a self destruct, after a salvage yard let Omni get all his stuff back out of the trash.
Bunker played an adhesive grenade to start, and haka did a Haka of Battle Smash to set up Omni's self-destruct.
It was really rough until we killed La Paradoja Magnifica, because it shuffled the villain deck before playing the card. After it was gone Dark Vis controlled the cards and everyone rebuilt.
Dark Visionary is really powerful with Turmoil, I prefer the base version of her because of that.
Also her advanced version isn't much tougher than her basic version.
I'd rather everyone was typing, so I don't have to try and make out what people are saying; a lot of people don't talk very intelligibly, and I'm not the best at either hearing or listening (due respectively to my lifetime of loud music and my general reclusiveness and unpersonability).
I'll fix that.
That was more or less where I was going with this thread, past the initial inquiries.
So, how does one beat La Capitan without using a probably-overpowered promo hero that very few people own? Also, you got lucky having the villain deck waste an All Together Now so early; we killed the ship TWICE in our game and it was a complete waste of effort, because after she gets her whole crew out, she just keeps shuffling and churning through her deck, and the same One-Shot can come up like four times (in our case, Temporal Thief and Plunder were the ones which did so, and maybe Walk the Plank, but we got ATN twice and were fried as well as losing all our progress against her team).
while Omnitron-X ate the destruction
I get that OX is pretty good at playing extra cards, but can he seriously keep ahead of how fast Cappy slaughters table cards? I remember us losing them in chunks of 4, much faster than we could get them back out.
Dark Visionary would have died or had to give up WtM shenanigans but Oxygen leak came out and with TtE Vis turned the damage she would deal herself to fireso she didn't take any
That certainly helped. I've found that the first four Environments tend to help the heroes as often as hurt them; merciful Oxygen Leaks and Meteor Storms make Mars a pretty friendly place in my experience (apart from the annoying Self-Destruct that keeps coming back on).
after a salvage yard let Omni get all his stuff back out of the trash.
Interestingly Fixer was in our game too, and Scrap Yard was the one and only useful thing he ever accomplished. I'm not likely to play him against Cappy again, but it's interesting that virtually the only contribution he can make to that match occurred in both cases.
Dark Visionary is really powerful with Turmoil, I prefer the base version of her because of that.
Visionary is really powerful regardless. She's the Hero I tend to be reluctant to play because of how good she is at turning the villain into a sniveling pathetic cur; Turmoil is just overkill IMO (it pretty much shuts down any villain who doesn't play extra cards, IIRC), and I'd honestly rather have the fun and team power of Enlighten instead.
Also her advanced version isn't much tougher than her basic version.
Due mostly to the IMO ill-considered ruling on her Split Across Time side; I definitely think your first shot should bounce off her, even if she has cards. It's just more fun that way. I mean, you're probably not even going to want to take the last card off her, since it switches her back into her more aggressive form. So the advanced text might almost just as well not exist, and that's lame. Still, I'll want to prove she's actually beatable before I do any house-ruling to make her tougher.
This is semi-related - I had a boring Sunday afternoon today, so I broke out the old project of wanting to have an online virtual tabletop for a play-by-whatever SotM game. It won't know anything about what the cards do or how anything interacts, but you'll be able to set up the game's state, see how many cards are in each deck, which cards are on the table, which are in the trash, etc. It will let you increase/decrease the hp of targets, shuffle the trash into the deck, etc. And if you copy/paste the current URL and send that to someone (or post it on a forum), everyone else will be able to see the same game state as you.
I got as far as villains and environments working and am working through heroes (they're more involved because there are a variable number of them). Once I get it in a workable state, I'll post something on the forums asking people to take a look to see if it's something the'd want to use for their forum games. If it is, I'll finish adding the cards for the other decks and pretty it up a little and you guys can maybe use it as a way of having a shared online tabletop on your computer/tablet/phone for your games.
I'd say the key to beating La Capitan is being able to keep her from steamrolling you early.
I tend to go for outplaying destruction that has limits like La Capitan's, so I like heroes that can get a lot of cards in play quickly but can survive without them. Good one-shot damage is a big boost. I try to let her flip and then keep her on her flipped side while you kill the boat, being able to get the boat out of the game with deck manipulation, savage Mana or shuffling it back into the deck is a huge boost. She has some really nasty minions, siege breaker and Mable are sick. A hero like Visionary, Fanatic or Tachyon that can take out irreducible damage is awesome. (I especially like Fanatic vs. La Capitan, her lack of universal reduction makes it easy to keep Zealous offense out, and that limits your dangerous threats to the ship and Mable)
The big thing is getting in front of her card destruction, a lot of players hesitate to play ongoings and equips agaisnt destruction heavy Villains, and in my opinion that is the wrong strategy. Of course there are games where they will get lucky and keep hitting you with their destruction, but most games you can get ahead of it and build a buffer that lets you keep important cards.
Obviously villains that destroy all ongoing or equipment are a different matter, but with La Capitan tied to (H) she has to play it every turn or you will get in front of it.
The other reason we win a ton of forum games is we usually have 5 heroes, it makes the games easier.
La Capitan's biggest advantage is her ability to throw down two cards per turn, as long as she has her boat out. Two cards means that, even on normal mode, you're probably going to have some Equipment/Ongoing destruction or you'll be innundated with crewmembers.
But, conversely, this makes her doubly vulnerable to heroes who can shut down a Villain deck. Legacy and Nightmist can both neuter the Villain deck, keeping her from getting set up in the first place. Someone like Expatriette can reduce or (in Tachyon's case) negate the damage output from the crew, which keeps them from overwhelming you. And, of course, Fanatic can be spectacular when you're about to be overwhelmed, as End of Days will almost always benefit you more than harm you, when fighting a villain that thrives on Ongoing/Equipment destruction.
And, of course, there's always deck manipulation...Visionary is king of that, but Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece can help as well.
In our game, Cappy often played FOUR villain cards, counting one from Mable and one from the Environment. Tachyon bought us two full turns without damage, and Haka's Ground Pound a third, but this only seemed to delay the inevitable. We could barely kill one minion a turn (usually Mable), or the ship, and they just kept coming back.