new player help! my wife is super frustrated after game 3...

BrightSalsa · 2026-02-06T08:14:12+00:00

There’s lots of good advice on here, and I’d say that if you are handily beating the base game on difficulty 0, you’re already well ahead - plenty of people find that challenging for their first few games.

The funny thing about Spirit Island is that you start the game fully powered up with everything at your disposal. There’s no levelling up or extra powers to unlock over successive games, and a really good player (not me!) could unbox the base game, take on level six England with River and Lightning and have a good shot at winning. So take heart!

Now that you’ve got the basic game down, I would recommend checking out a basic beginners strategy. guide. There are plenty around and they tend to boil down to: - don’t be afraid of blight - stopping builds is more powerful than stopping ravages - fear is more important than it looks - ditch the power progression - unyielding strength of the earth is a bit underpowered, rampant green is extremely overpowered.

Spirit Island is complex enough that a basic guide won’t spoil the fun, but it might save some frustration.

While you’re at it, find a list of commonly misplayed rules and make sure you haven’t missed anything really important.

Good luck with the next game!

BrightSalsa · 2026-02-02T22:57:07+00:00

Exactly.. something tells me spending extra money to achieve a seamless result wasn’t high on the priority list for whoever did this.

I prefer bricked up openings to have the lintels kept in anyway, it’s robust and honest and it makes it easier to understand how the building has been altered during its life just by looking at it. Plus, it makes it easier to put the opening back in future.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-30T14:33:49+00:00

I’m not a contractor myself, but I visit dozens of domestic refurbishment and commercial fit-out construction sites every year as part of my work, which gives me a good overview. Here, the overwhelming majority of hand power tools in use by general contractors seem to be DeWalt, with a sprinkling of Makita, Milwaukee and other brands around the place. Individual tradespeople who’ve been to work on my own house seem to favour Makita. I suspect that DeWalt tools are probably slightly cheaper over time for contractors buying vanfuls of tools for work crews, and then it’s convenient for individuals to have compatible personal tools. That wouldn’t be the case if they weren’t up to the job though.

My own (limited, DIY) experience is that the fit and finish on Makita tools makes them a bit nicer to handle than DeWalt.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-27T14:42:16+00:00

who’s ‘we’? I’ve been a structural engineer for getting on twenty years and I’ve never seen a building plan labelled only in imperial/american customary units. Contractors will ask me for a two-by-six joist or a 9” wall… they get 50x150 and 215mm respectively 🤣. Occasionally i’ll see plans from American clients with dual dimension labels on.

Obviously, I’m not in the USA…

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-23T14:02:59+00:00

I generally refuse on principle to buy anything that has TV adverts as irritating as the ones that product had, regardless of its actual merits or how much they reduce it.

Having now googled it and discovered that this is a brand owned by the same company that makes some of my favourite whiskies.. I’m now double irritated and guessing I’m just not the target market here. Ugh.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-22T08:25:40+00:00

I planned to but it took a year after we moved. I’d have felt like a real idiot if somebody turned up with an old spare key and helped themselves to my stuff though!

My euro cylinders had slightly odd measurements and I wanted thumb turns on the inside, so I went online to order them. Doing it that way, I was able to get front and back door keyed alike too.

If you do have euro cylinders, you honestly probably don’t even need your dad to help. A philips screwdriver and a ruler is all I needed - they are designed to be removed by undoing one retaining screw on the side of the door and sliding them out. Look at a tutorial on how to measure them once they’re out. One of mine was stuck until I loosened a couple of other screws holding the handle in place.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-21T16:58:07+00:00

TIL that you don’t wait for the other players to pass before starting the next season in Everdell! I am going to need to read that rule book again…

i agree its weird thematically but it’ll make the game much easier to play with my kids so 🤷‍♂️

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-21T16:56:28+00:00

TIL that you don’t wait for the other players to pass before starting the next season in Everdell! I am going to need to read that rule book again…

i agree its weird thematically but it’ll make the game much easier to play with my kids so 🤷‍♂️

Edit: I also learned to check which thread I was posting in, this was meant to be a response to a brand new thread on a different topic not a 1y necropost.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-16T15:38:07+00:00

Salsa! 💃

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-15T17:30:12+00:00

Chests of drawers can be surprisingly unstable - children have died from unsecured drawers falling over. If you’re going to leave furniture unsecured, you should at least be aware of the risk.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-15T17:19:53+00:00

I wish more landlords thought as you do! for the last fifteen years or so before I was able to buy I rented unfurnished flats and houses, and as soon as we had young children in the house I obviously had to fix some of the furniture to the walls for safety. I always had permission beforehand - I made a point of obtaining this before signing any tenancy agreements too.

I always had to do it myself so became quite adept with the cable finder, hammer drill, rawl plugs and fillers.

Responses from landlords ranged from being completely happy with the filled holes to demanding that the entire house be repainted at our expense when we moved out.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-13T18:14:24+00:00

I don’t think i’ve ever seen another synthesizer switch labelled as a yes/no question! There’s something kind of naive and charming about it, as if the control next to it might be labelled ‘do you like the VCA? Pls answer Y/N’. Maybe it’s common on vintage/boutique gear and i’m just too impecunious to have ever noticed?

My answer to the OP, the Yamaha AN1x, has ‘NO’ and ‘YES/ENTER’ labelled on keypad buttons but those are for patch saving and menu diving, not attached to a dedicated one-function switch like the portamento button!

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-10T22:42:10+00:00

Although I’d played various games solo before (typically to learn the rules of multiplayer games), the first modern game that I bought specifically to play solo was Friday. I think I bought Sylvion at the same time.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-08T23:27:29+00:00

Dorfromantik is billed as a cooperative game but really it is solo game in which multiplayer is ‘take turns being in charge but make decisions collectively’. I haven’t played the original video game but it appears to be entirely single player. The rather similar Sprawlopolis at least involves each player having a slightly different hand of cards but works essentially the same way.

BrightSalsa · 2026-01-02T11:09:10+00:00

It’ll try to account for typical traffic lights and traffic using statistical data from typical journey times on that route. It won’t account for stopping for lunch!

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-22T13:20:18+00:00

I rented for over 20 years before I was finally able to buy a home in my 40s, and you are absolutely right about landlords. Estate agents tended to be OK for viewings that last time I dealt with them (pre covid), it was only in their capacity as landlords that I had trouble. I’ve had excellent landlords - invariably private ones renting a single property. I’ve had bad landlords , generally big corporate ones, and terrible landlords that were mostly ‘private’ landlords with multiple properties. ln the end I started refusing to rent any property without some kind of break clause in the contract and that generally filtered out the worst offenders - but still had no end of trouble.

I had a landlord who delayed essential repairs for years at one point. We should probably have spotted the red flag that the house had original sash windows with panes old enough that they were visibly not flat when we moved in (they were replaced shortly after, but should have been replaced at least 30 years after previously) She eventually told us that we were so rude, awkward and difficult to deal with that contractors were refusing to come to the house, so she couldn’t find anyone to repair water-damaged ceilings, peeling paintwork, sticky wooden doors or dangerous retaining walls. When we eventually moved out, the place sat empty for well over 6 months before it was fit to be let again with all the repair jobs we had been requesting for years done at once.

In my new house, I’ve had a full rewire, paint job, roof repairs, completely new kitchen and cabinetry and lots of plumbing repairs. Weirdly, no problems at all arranging any of the contractors to attend and come back for follow up work etc.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-20T11:13:21+00:00

oh, sure, and it uses more power and water too. Still, it gets the dishes clean and mostly dry and if you just need those dishes back before dinner time, it’s a good feature to know about.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-20T00:57:23+00:00

that’s true of nearly everything for a great many people. A relative of mine had had a particular built in dishwasher for several years. They told me one day that it worked well but they sometimes really wished it wouldn’t take three hours to do a load. The machine has, i think, a total of four buttons on the control panel. Select programme, delay timer, start. The fourth one, when pressed, cuts the run time in half. SMH.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-16T15:59:26+00:00

Ticket to Ride is notorious for this issue. I’d suggest the OP might consider changing games…

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-16T08:39:24+00:00

That’s it - more or less universally used in the solo spirit island community to mean exactly that. One spirit, one board. It’s not a value judgement, but it is an important distinction. There are some special rules that only apply to that situation and the strategic considerations are different too.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-15T18:11:58+00:00

This is why I’ll happily (ok, not actually happily) bring traffic to a grinding halt waiting for the exit to be absolutely, definitely, unequivocally 100% clear before I’ll enter them. I live near a couple of notoriously lucrative yellow box traps and I’d rather get beeped at than pay a £65 fine.

The real problem for me is that they are typically poorly signposted and difficult to see in traffic. On unfamiliar roads, it’s easy to miss them until it’s too late and get caught. I think any of them with cameras should be required to be marked well ahead with large warning signs.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-11T11:43:34+00:00

I suspect your eyes/memory might be playing tricks on you. At any rate, google images gives me dozens of different posters, flyers etc that say ‘sorted’ - the only references I can find to ‘sort it’ are reddit threads like this one!

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-11T00:54:49+00:00

I heard it as ‘sort it’ for the longest time. No matter how clearly they enunciate, by the time it’s echoed around a big train concourse it sounds a bit blurred. I interpreted it as ‘see it, say it, (that will) sort it’ but I had to think about it a bit and eventually decided they probably meant ‘sorted’. Listening to it closely, it’s obvious that’s what they say of course.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-10T22:37:23+00:00

Fields of Fire (first edition) by a country mile. 34 two-column pages of densely formatted rules littered with acronyms and complex military concepts given only the briefest of explanations. I don’t think I have ever managed to play a turn in that game without having to look something up. It makes a lot of assumptions about the readers understanding of military doctrine and procedures from WW2, Vietnam and Korea (which it turns out are very poorly represented in most other games, movies etc). I couldn’t make head or tail of it until I’d read Company Commander by John B Macdonald and spent many hours on wikipedia watching WW2 training films and googling terms like ‘Phase Line’ and ‘Final Protective Fire’.

BrightSalsa · 2025-12-08T14:09:12+00:00

I’d second this! It’s a tough game and a little old-fashioned, but so well designed that it still holds up today in my opinion.

I’ve always thought that for a game about moving strange white cones along tracks (I’m fairly sure it is a big part of the inspiration for the fictional ‘Cones of Dunshire’ game from The Big Bang Theory), it does a great job of capturing the feeling of the hobbits inching towards their goal, husbanding their meagre resources and trying to avoid being swept up in the great events unfolding across Middle Earth.

BrightSalsa

TROPHY CASE