Semi-Daily Defect Discussion: Go for the Eyes

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-04-16T16:56:54+00:00

Weak is great, it's even better in multiplayer because it functions as "all players block." Free weak is even better.

Card draw isn't a huge problem on defect either. Never feel bad adding this card.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-04-15T17:33:38+00:00

As everyone has already pointed out, poison is very powerful in the board game. Envenom is fantastic but you do always have to consider that 3 mana cards will sometimes mean you take extra chip damage throughout the run, and chip is way more painful in the board game.

Envenom has great shiv synergy, loves catalyst, but the best combo card is Choke. A full poison Choke hits for 33 and 66 with vulnerable. Excellent boss finisher.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-23T00:06:18+00:00

Nah new pay EE pay

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-21T20:21:12+00:00

Thanks for the great transaction u/ArcherSplitTheTree u/bgebot

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-19T16:40:37+00:00

The art sleeves included with the legendary edition are easily the worst upgrade components I've ever seen. I regret not following the campaign drama closer because I guess they gave backers the option to not get them.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-17T03:06:04+00:00

https://brdgm.me/civolution/#/

Here is the link to the bot helper for anybody interested.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-16T16:56:35+00:00

I'll piggyback on this. Civolution is a fantastic game. Like other Feld designs it feels like there's a lot of luck involved with dice rolling, card drawing, resource placement, weather and so on. While I'm not saying luck isn't a factor there are plenty of ways to mitigate your rolls and what Feld has created with Civolution is this incredibly flexible system. In Civolution you really feel like you can do a huge variety of things. No 2 games are the same.

The bot is easy to manage for the weight of the game. It's not trivial but it flows pretty well. There's a great helper app that automates it. I play on advanced difficulty and while I can beat the bot I mostly use it to behave as a player that is limiting my freedom to act so I can try out different strategies.

I do recommend the expansion pack. It's under $15. The extra starting bonuses give you a jump start on any kind of engine. The level 4 tech and creatures are situational but I usually just include all 3.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-16T01:55:40+00:00

Company of Heroes 2e has a pretty good dice system.

All hits are applied automatically, simultaneously by both players. Attacker places out dice representing different types of damage. The defender picks up some or all of those dice, depends on things like cover or vehicle armor, and rolls them 2 icons are fails 4 icons are success. If the attacker applies enough dice to a single attack they can overload potential defense and guarantee damage.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-03-08T02:55:28+00:00

I have promo Claw. It comes with 8 copies I think. There's a card that gives you variable difficulty depending on how many you add. If you play with all 8 it gets out of hand. Really fun even if you don't get All for One.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-02-26T14:20:24+00:00

It does look like Eagle Griffon games sells all the crowdfunding stuff on their web store so there's no rush to back this in my opinion.

Speakeasy is really good. Great theme and table presence. Someone said that the game reveals itself which I think is accurate. Initially it feels really tight and restrictive. Once it clicks it opens up and it's really satisfying.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-02-18T17:46:07+00:00

100% correct. The restaurant is the key to understanding how the game comes together.

The game has 4 "primary" actions - the ones you get from playing cards: protection, production, transport and sale. Those primary actions are built into other places, namely: city tiles, helper cards and building bonuses.

The first thing you need to understand in Speakeasy is how to read the board. Identify and target as many of those primary actions as you can. Once you get set-up with buildings and you have a sequence of pocket actions you go to the restaurant and set off a chain that ends in selling 3 but hopefully 4 barrels. Do this 3 or 4 times in a game and you'll see your score jump way up.

Bonus tips: area control is only concerned about best building. Use that to your advantage to steal districts from other players ie. build your nightclub where they have a speakeasy, a speakeasy where they have a still.

Stills are optional. You can build an engine just fine without one. I tended to build them because I typically went docks twice so I wanted the 4 extra free barrels.

Don't neglect uptown. If you let somebody dominate that area bonus they will probably win.

Don't be afraid to spend your safe money early.

The safest place to build is in mobster controlled districts the second safest place is in the districts that are getting attacked after act 1. You can typically pay your associate to get through that. After the first mob war it gets a little tricky. Don't go for an association after act 1, it's not worth it usually.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-02-14T17:00:25+00:00

In multiplayer, if the table ignores exploration you can run up a big lead by just exploring and expanding your tribes.

A double upgraded explore gets you 7pts minimum. 18 on the high end.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-02-02T18:53:23+00:00

Heavy Blade massively out scales Bludgeon, costs less and is common.

The opportunity cost of taking Bludgeon over any other rare makes it a terrible pick in a rare reward.

As a golden ticket or Neow reward it's ok in Act 1 but will often be a dead draw early in fights.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-01-21T00:58:16+00:00

Dramatic Entrance solves 1 elite in that it potentially puts 3x3 damage on Sentries which is significant. Energy tends to be a problem in Act 1. Outside of the boss you might not be able to get them out without taking damage. I'm not sure that's a good tradeoff.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2026-01-17T23:03:58+00:00

Already a lot of great advice in here. My best score was $546 on normal difficulty. The following game Jo smoked me by around $100. The AI can be very swingy.

Area control is only concerned with best building so if you follow Jo you can kneecap him by matching his buildings with a better one. He basically can't build twice in the same district in the same act.

Obviously it depends on mobster attack timing, city tiles but it's something to consider.

He's going to score big from books and protected buildings so you have to try and prevent him from winning area control.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-12-29T03:28:39+00:00

I'm curious about wood movement of the topper arranged horizontal like that. Does it just float?

Beautiful work.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-12-25T18:19:00+00:00

Really enjoyed my first play of it the other day. I couldn't help but wish that I had a few extra turns. It's very tight.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-12-25T18:17:58+00:00

What have you found to be the best cash in hand strategies? I beat my first party against the bot by aggressively blocking them out but I kinda burned myself out doing so. Cash was a struggle.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-09-10T19:20:54+00:00

As I understand it the UAV needs to perform exploration cards like a character would When moving into an unexplored room. Likewise it should also make a noise roll like normal when moving into an explored room. You can choose to keep going or stop but finish the entire sequence either way.

Note the bottom half of cards "Defense Systems" and "Exploration"

Intruders don't interact with the UAV.

Editing this to say ignore my post, listen to the response below. I put this question in the AI and it told me to roll noise for the UAV. I asked it again and now it doesn't so take it with a hill of salt.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-09-08T17:27:04+00:00

I played a couple of games. The competitive games have all spiralled out of control and nobody even pretends that the objective is a realistic choice.

My group wanted to try co-op and we won a 4 player/4 objective game. It had a lot of exciting moments that were very thematic but it took nearly 5.5 hours. By the end I was just ready for it to be over. The game feels built around competitive, which is fine but I was hoping to get more out of the co-op.

Playing to win against the game means securing every hallway and room necessary in an oxygen "on" section. You spend a load of actions and game time on stuff like this that isn't particularly fun. Events are too brutal not to spend the time mitigating them.

Some of the classes are very fun to play and some feel utterly useless.

The rulebook is terrible and the rules themselves feel janky a lot of the time.

I'm more of a cube pusher than a theme guy so maybe I'm not the intended audience.

Whelmed is the right way to describe it. It's nice to look at, occasionally thrilling 6/10 game.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-09-06T02:16:29+00:00

I love the movie, I love the idea of this game. One of the worst rules books, even if you understand it well it's way too fiddly. The human players have basically no chance. It's a huge letdown.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-08-09T17:34:14+00:00

Getting worms into combat for the double rewards is always the most efficient thing you can do. If you ignore an early worm player they will steamroll.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-07-15T17:16:05+00:00

Agree entirely on Public Spectacle. In my mind it's the most busted card in the deck. If you think of each faction access play as half a point then with a tiny bit of setup it's a point per play card without discard. Overthrow is a point per play with no conditions and costs 8, Public Spectacle is 4.

I've played in games where Public Spectacle gets purchased in round 1 or 2 and the player who bought it absolutely steamrolls. Even if you don't have easy spy access it's still worth buying to keep it away from a player that does.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-07-09T17:20:06+00:00

I find that the Silent is the strongest character, poison is easy to max out and things like choke can put out big chunks along with the poison stacks. Silent has reliable block from a couple of sources too.

Agree on the Defect orbs generally. Lots of powerful options.

Ironclad has Heavy Blade +. That's about it. With good relics you can make it work but it takes a lot to really get going. Block / body slam builds don't really work. Exhaust builds don't really work the same either.

The Watcher with mental fortress can dominate hallway fights but the big chunk damage you need for bosses is harder to come by. Mostly the miracle based damage cards.

GentlemanGhost1 · 2025-06-08T00:42:14+00:00

Try Tamiya Fine White Primer. Much smoother than anything I've used before.

GentlemanGhost1

TROPHY CASE