In post 3199, shaft.ed wrote:Also I feel like I'm not doing Ocean's Hungry Grasp mechanics right. Is it all you have to do is push/gather stuff into the Ocean tile then they are dead, fear is generated and can be exchanged for energy?
Games are so easy when using them, that this doesn't seem right.
This is correct, with the amount of stuff you need to exchange for energy depending on the number of players in the game. And the Ocean player must have at least one presence somewhere on the board of the ocean that you're drowning in (not necessarily in the ocean itself).
Ocean is definitely strong, but it starts out nearly powerless in the (5 * number of players) inland lands, so it's heavily reliant on other people dealing with them or with quickly getting new powers that let it. It also has really bad base energy income so it's reliant on drowning frequently and has a tough time getting energy for major powers. But it's definitely very strong.
So speaking of spirit island, I got Branch & Claw yesterday and hooooo boy is it fantastic.
I played a two-player game as the two new spirits (I played Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds) vs level 4 France (new adversary). The new spirits are quite neat, and the event deck makes things WAY more interesting. And way better. They make me a lot less inclined to just try to minimax everything and take 3 hours per turn because there's so much less predictability. And everything still thematically works ridiculously well. And the power decks being so much thicker is really, really good, because it makes it feel less like you can rely on finding a particular power if you search deep enough and adds a LOT more variety. I'm excited to try out the new scenarios as well, especially the treasure hunt one.
A lot of the new powers are also just flatly really freaking cool. My friend got a power that worked perfectly with his spirit that let him remove any number of tokens from a land to deal 3 damage per token removed, with a threshold that he could barely reach to get to re-place two of the removed tokens, and his spirit can generate beast tokens and move them really easily so he had a flexible clear. I got a major power with a threshold effect that let me redirect damage from a ravage away from the dahan and toward invaders in neighboring lands.
Also the new blight cards are really really good. Having that additional layer of unpredictability is awesome since the base blight cards are pretty similar to each other. We got one of the positive ones (aid from lesser spirits) and got really lucky with it and both got free defensive abilities that we could use for the rest of the game (lucky since we both sort of lacked defense by and large).
Yeah I've tried out Branch and Claw on Vassal and the Event Deck and new Blight cards make the game a lot better
I kinda wish they worked without the token system though, since it makes the game even more complicated
oceans hungry grasp was amazing right until i messed up and ran really low on energy
trying to get back of the prussian train once i fell behind felt impossible
Routine day with a dirt cheap brush
Then a week goes by and it goes untouched
Then two, then three, then a month
Then the rest of your life, you beat yourself up
im really digging a combo of earth vital strength and spreading green in 2p you can ramp up very quickly to exploit earths massive power gain and free passive fortresses
my only issue has been is stage 3 the sheer proliferation of explorers i cant off them quick enough
Routine day with a dirt cheap brush
Then a week goes by and it goes untouched
Then two, then three, then a month
Then the rest of your life, you beat yourself up
In post 3204, TheButtonmen wrote:im really digging a combo of earth vital strength and spreading green in 2p you can ramp up very quickly to exploit earths massive power gain and free passive fortresses
my only issue has been is stage 3 the sheer proliferation of explorers i cant off them quick enough
I find they pair even better with Lightning
Get them an extra token or two out in the early turns and then just obliterate cities as a passive power from then on
So my 3 characters got off to a good start, an event made them lose their food. Fortunately I salvaged enough to feed one of them... He went out exploring, found no food but did get injured climbing a ladder. The next day, 1 of the 3 ran away due to hunger, the other died due to hunger. My injured sole survivor tried to guard the base at night and got badly wounded by advanced raiders. The worst card in the game at that point, anyway he died. Almost every dice roll I failed... Everyone died by night 2. My luck was exceptionally bad.
Mostly retired. Unless you ask or it's something interesting.
In post 3208, Porochaz wrote:So my 3 characters got off to a good start, an event made them lose their food. Fortunately I salvaged enough to feed one of them... He went out exploring, found no food but did get injured climbing a ladder. The next day, 1 of the 3 ran away due to hunger, the other died due to hunger. My injured sole survivor tried to guard the base at night and got badly wounded by advanced raiders. The worst card in the game at that point, anyway he died. Almost every dice roll I failed... Everyone died by night 2. My luck was exceptionally bad.
In post 3207, Porochaz wrote:I bought This War of Mine last week, going to start a solo game on Thursday.
In post 3208, Porochaz wrote:So my 3 characters got off to a good start, an event made them lose their food. Fortunately I salvaged enough to feed one of them... He went out exploring, found no food but did get injured climbing a ladder. The next day, 1 of the 3 ran away due to hunger, the other died due to hunger. My injured sole survivor tried to guard the base at night and got badly wounded by advanced raiders. The worst card in the game at that point, anyway he died. Almost every dice roll I failed... Everyone died by night 2. My luck was exceptionally bad.
I died. It's not really a well done thing.
Mostly retired. Unless you ask or it's something interesting.
Sure you died, but most people don't even really live, Prozac.
One time, back in 'nam, Sudo was set upon by an entire squadron of charlies. He challenged them all to a game of Pictionary, which he won resoundingly. The charlies were forced to not only surrender the skirmish, but also their world-famous chili recipe, which Sudo sold to Texas for a hefty profit. Sudo is a master of diplomacy.
This War of Mine - Game 2 - So I tried again with my 3 intrepid explorers, it's going better, we are through the first third of the game. My OG3 are in quite a bad way, we picked up a kid along the way - saved him from his alcoholic parents and he's a bit of a pain in the ass doesn't do anything except eats my food. I also gained a firefighter, who saved our ass when a crowd outside tried to behead someone and we objected (Im no fun, apparently). They are all freezing cold and at least one is probably going to die.
Other "ahem" highlights -
I buried some childs baby brother
I stole some stuff from hobo's who knifed me
I ate some peaches
Someone stole all my stuff I had found, then came back when I found more stuff and stole it again
I collected water, and it was an achievement.
I mean I realise noone cares about my summaries, but I like to post them.
Mostly retired. Unless you ask or it's something interesting.
In post 3212, Porochaz wrote:This War of Mine - Game 2 - So I tried again with my 3 intrepid explorers, it's going better, we are through the first third of the game. My OG3 are in quite a bad way, we picked up a kid along the way - saved him from his alcoholic parents and he's a bit of a pain in the ass doesn't do anything except eats my food. I also gained a firefighter, who saved our ass when a crowd outside tried to behead someone and we objected (Im no fun, apparently). They are all freezing cold and at least one is probably going to die.
Other "ahem" highlights -
I buried some childs baby brother
I stole some stuff from hobo's who knifed me
I ate some peaches
Someone stole all my stuff I had found, then came back when I found more stuff and stole it again
I collected water, and it was an achievement.
I mean I realise noone cares about my summaries, but I like to post them.
Just finished our first game in May of Pandemic Legacy season 1, and it was the most painful loss yet. We were literally a turn away from winning, and we ran out of yellow cubes. It was devastating. Like, we just stared at the board in shock for several minutes. One of my friends was just holding her face and breathing heavily. Another was laughing, because what the fuck else could you do.
We had a similar experience a few weeks ago. We'd been breezing through the game up to then. Though in our case we could see the probable loss coming some time before. We made some mistakes so we know things to do better.
Spoiler: Pandemic Legacy
Also, adding some military bases to the board in regions that are actually relevant will probably help.
In post 3217, inspiratieloos wrote:We had a similar experience a few weeks ago. We'd been breezing through the game up to then. Though in our case we could see the probable loss coming some time before. We made some mistakes so we know things to do better.
Spoiler: Pandemic Legacy
Also, adding some military bases to the board in regions that are actually relevant will probably help.
Spoiler:
We had military bases in all but one region (the bottom middle/Africa). We were set up on the next turn to go and build a base and win. We'd already met 2 other goals. That's what makes it so devastating.
This War of Mine - Game 2 - So my game went off the rails a bit. In two separate incidents my OG character Pavle and my fireman Marko got rescued by peacecorps. I think I just got incredibly lucky both times.
However I decided to carry on the game as if I had ignored it, one of my other characters Katia died from the cold. Everyone was dying and I managed to save 3 of them, thanks to all the stuff I had been storing for a rainy day suddenly being tradable for a lot more, so bought lots of meds. Unfortunately the cold affected her a lot more. This made everyone miserable and the food shortage and famine cards didn't help.
Combat was a bit of a pain in the ass in this game, and Im pretty sure I did it wrong. My fireman got mauled by hobos. We got to the ceasefire, Pavle in the last moments saw a dead woman being pulled apart and eaten by cats, but elected not to take her finger which had a nice ring on it. We also met a carpenter in the very last moments of the game, who offered to build and fix anything we wanted for a ridiculously small price - extremely helpful early on, completely fucking useless as the last action in the game. Alas our other OG character was miserable, hungry (thanks to me not feeding her water for 3 days straight - she was ill anyway so effectively useless) and exhausted. But apart from a bit of misery and Marko's knife wound all 3 of them made it, the child who ate everything was saved and made everyone happy, which allowed my 2 males to get the "happy ending" and I got to read how well they did post war, Emilia was so exhausted and ill at the end she passed out just before the epilogue phase and didn't get an ending. I like to think the two guys got her to a hospital and she had a long sleep.
I added up my score and scored -4. Which is considered a piss poor ending. But considering it's meant to be an almost impossible game, the fact I completed it (roughly) makes me happy enough.
Mostly retired. Unless you ask or it's something interesting.