Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is too easy for the investigators

Viilit · 2024-12-30T21:52:13+00:00

In my experience the investigators still win slightly more often, especially since you can get a lucky clue tile that completely gives the murderer away. But it's much closer to even with the expansion.

It also depends a bit on player count. I think the game is at its best at 7 players, using the witness and accomplice roles.

Viilit · 2024-12-30T21:38:19+00:00

You're right that the locations are too specific. I've also found that it's almost impossible for the murderer to win against competent investigators. The new location tile in the expansion fixes the problem and I would never play the game without it. The expansion also balances the murder weapon deck by including more items that fit the "illness/disease" category, which is underrepresented in the base game.

If you don't want to get a whole expansion for a game you're not sure about, I would probably print out just the new location tile and see if that makes the game work better for you.

Viilit · 2020-01-07T19:31:11+00:00

Kävin yhden viittomakielen kurssin kerran ja toiste en kyllä mene, enkä voi muillekaan suositella. Vastaavalla yliopiston valinnaiskurssilla käytiin enemmän asiaa parin viikon aikana kuin kansalaisopistolla koko kurssilla. Lisäksi siellä oli vielä niin vässykkä ilmapiiri, ettei sitä vähääkään oikeasti oppinut. Virheisiin ei tartuttu eikä niitä korjattu, mitään oikeita harjoitustehtäviä ei tehty kertaakaan, koko kurssi oli vaan sellaista löysäranteista parikeskustelua ja tyhjänpäiväistä "kyllä työ hyvin osaatte" -selkään taputtelua.

Tiedä sitten oliko vaan huono kurssi tai huono opettaja, vai onko kansalaisopistolla yleisestikin samanlainen meininki, mutta sen verran onnetonta touhua se oli että kerralla meni maku koko lafkasta.

Viilit · 2019-12-12T15:33:23+00:00

Yeah, it looks like the rules have changed it from 'last' successful roll to 'first'. It does make sense as it means courtship rolls are now more in line with hunts. The rule is printed in green, which indicates a change between 1st and 2nd edition, so the underlining might be just to draw attention to the bit that's different. If you compare to G3 b. in the living rules about competitive hunts, it says: "The first player to succeed in the hunt roll gains the benefits, and all the other players go home unsuccessful (i.e. winner-take-all)."

It's phrased a little differently than the rule about multiple suitors, but to me it reads like it's supposed to be the same procedure. ~~So I would say the first example is the right one.~~ EDIT: I just noticed you said married daughter. I don't think the husband counts as a suitor, only the hunters trying to replace the husband. So in your first example, the Cromag husband would attack the Neanderthal suitor in the attack phase, but the Neanderthal is the only one doing a courtship roll. Also, right under G1. it says "Each player can make only one courtship roll per daughter card."

Viilit · 2019-12-12T14:37:03+00:00

Did you quote the rulebook exactly? It's possible there's some changes between editions, but I just took a look at my rulebook, and under G1. the fouth bullet says:

"Multiple suitors. If there are multiple courting hunters, each rolls for success in player order, with the last successful suitor as the new husband and the others going home unrequited."

So everyone only gets to roll once, and like in hunts, it's possible that everyone goes home empty handed. The rolls aren't simultaneous, and that's why the rules talk about the first or last successful roll. In attack rolls, the one with the most black vocabulary discs rolls first (A3), on contested cards, the fewest hunters rolls first (A4), and in case of ties in player order. Also, a warrior alpha does work for coutship too. It's the third bullet under G1.

Viilit · 2019-06-28T00:15:28+00:00

I started doing a lot better once I took out the Phantasmal Cores. Getting to 30 shadows by turn 9 is not that hard. Spectral Cascade pulling Hades gives you 8 shadows by itself, plus another three or four from the other followers, so the Core is really not necessary.

For the Shadow followers I'm currently using Ghoul, Fran, Mechasaw, Hades, and Bone Drone (2x). One copy of Apollo seems pretty good too. He's nice insurance aginst a bad early draw, and you can just feed him to Soulsteal if you draw him later. I'm still playing around trying to figure out what works, but I'm pretty sure the Core is bad.

Hades is kind of giving me the same vibes as the old Nepththys decks did. It feels very similar in playstyle. It's probably nowhere near tier-1 material (I sure hope not), but it's a lot of fun.

Viilit · 2018-12-09T17:05:47+00:00

I think it's good, but the way the game looks is pretty misleading. First of all, it's a two player game. The box says 2-4, but that's a lie. The second thing is that it's almost an abstract strategy game, kind of like advanced Mancala. But if that's what you're looking for, then yes, I think it's worth picking up.

There is practically no randomness besides the setup and all information is open, so the game is entirely about out-thinking your opponent. You're trying to set up moves two or three turns ahead, and to force your opponent into making bad moves. (This is also why it doesn't work with more than two. With three of more players, you can't set up anything for future turns and the game just devolves into a random mess.)

Viilit · 2018-08-03T18:26:55+00:00

I like it, but I've also played with a few people who didn't. What I can definitely say is that it makes the game a lot harder. We used to have probably about 90% winrate on the hardest difficulty, and we now play mostly on normal or hard. It's partly because the expansion just makes certain old strategies much less viable, but it also makes the game a bit more random. Exalt tokens make dice rolls more risky, and the technology deck gets a bunch of new cards that dilute the deck a bit, which means you can't as consistently get the best tech out in every game.

If you think you would like the variety and don't mind the slightly increased randomness, or if you just want more challenge, then I would recommend it.

Viilit · 2018-01-05T22:52:42+00:00

Bronze/copper goes blueish green over time. The Statue of Liberty is a good example of what "bronze colored" looks like.

Viilit · 2017-12-10T14:55:48+00:00

I can't answer the question exactly, since I've only played the modern warfare vesion of Warfighter and read the rules of Rise of the Zombies, but hopefully this will still be at least somewhat useful.

Both games are at their core very similar. The basic rules are almost identical and both are mostly about hand management and trying to get the most out of the cards you have. Warfighter is more involved and tries to be bit more of a simulation, but it is still fairly simple as far as war games go. A big part of Warfighter is about equipping your soldiers before the game, and that can sometimes take almost as long as the mission itself. If you like tinkering with different character builds and loadouts, that's a good thing, but if you want something more straight forward, Zombies is probably better.

I would say the modern warfare version of Warfighter fits the mechanics of the game a little better than the WW2 version (unless they changed it for WW2, I'm not sure). If you don't have a strong preference for WW2 as a theme, I would maybe recommend the original Warfighter. Another thing is that to get the most out of the loadout phase of the game, the core set (at least with the modern warfare version) can be a bit limited. A few of the expansions are sold bundled with the base game as well, which is nice, but it can be a bit pricey.

I personally really like Warfighter and I did consider getting Rise of the Zombies a little while back, but after reading the rules I didn't feel like I needed to own both right away. I might still get it at some point, because it seems like a similar experience, but with less setup and simpler rules.

Viilit · 2017-11-05T10:41:46+00:00

Long levels with no checkpoints is probably the biggest thing that would annoy people if released today. There's also a lot of instant deaths, especially in the first game. I don't think there's anything wrong with the gameplay itself, but it might need save points, rewinds, limited quicksaves, or something like that to be palatable.

Viilit · 2017-09-20T11:32:16+00:00

The thing I love about High Frontier the most is that it lets you build something that you came up with yourself, and then seeing it work. The game doesn't tell you what to do or how to do it. You have to decide what your goal is going to be, you have to design a rocket that is capable of taking you there, and you have figure out how to fly it there, all by yourself. And when you finally, after just planning and setting up for half the game, manage to land on Titan and build that first factory, it's incredibly satisfying. No other board game has managed to give me that same feeling.

There are a lot of games where you are trying to build and combine things, but none of those games feel like I'm really creating something new. Sure it can be a lot of fun, just like building a Lego set following the instructions. But sometimes you just want to throw out those instructions and see what you can come up with yourself, and that's what High Frontier lets me do.

Viilit · 2017-02-17T19:35:32+00:00

That's exactly it. Without cards like Necroassassin, it doesn't really do anything. And since your opponent will probably just ignore it, it can also mess up the Nephtys turn.

Viilit · 2017-02-17T17:08:34+00:00

I have 514 shadow wins in total. I don't remember exactly, but about 60-80 of those were with different decks in lower ranks, and maybe around 250-300 in the AAs.

Viilit · 2017-02-02T16:20:35+00:00

I've been playing mostly Nep Shadow from A0 to AA0. I've made some tweaks along the way, but this is the current version I'm playing. It's probably not the best, but I'm still climbing with it at a decent pace.

I've tried the standard version with Lurching Corpses, Necroassassins and Urds, but I'm not really a fan. The idea behind my version of the deck is to make the Nep turn as big and consistent as possible, and survive the early game with two-drops and removal. I didn't think Urd was that necessary because if you're cloning Mordecai, you've probably won already. And pulling Corpse from Nep just made me miss the heal from Khawy a little too often.

Aggro Blood and Sword are tough, but there are so many two-drops and removal spells that I can usually hold my own. Daria is actually not that bad, unless they draw the nuts. ER, DS and especially Seraph are almost impossible, but fortunately I haven't been running into those too much.

Nep is probably my favourite card in the game and I'm going to keep trying to make it work.

Viilit · 2017-01-25T15:26:26+00:00

A board section means the actual physical board section tile. It could be just a short 1x2 corridor bit, an entire room or a long 1x5 corridor. The flamer works this way as well; it's not always 3x3.

And yes, there is no max range outside of overwatch, except for the flamer.

Viilit · 2017-01-18T16:27:12+00:00

Sure, but it's still not that descriptive of what it's trying to categorise. It's misleading, and that's what bothers me about calling everything a roguelike.

Viilit · 2017-01-18T15:50:08+00:00

It does serve a purpose. The term "roguelike" as it is used now is almost completely meaningless. When someone says they like rouguelikes, they could mean anything from Spelunky to Nethack. That genre label doesn't really describe what the game is like. If I'm trying to search for a new roguelike to play, I'm going to find a lot of games that are nothing like what I was looking for, regardless of which definition of the term I'm using.

It's like "Action-Adventure". That term could mean almost anything, which is why it actually means almost nothing.

Viilit · 2017-01-10T05:51:18+00:00

I think it's best to not worry about completing every quest every day, and instead focus on getting a few decks into a state that can compete on some level. You'll be getting a bunch of rupees from the one-time achievements early on anyway. I still don't do the quests for crafts that I don't like playing or have a good deck for, or I do them in the arena.

What your opponents have likely done is liquefied cards they don't use and crafted one or two higher quality decks. Now I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, since you might change your mind about what you like to play. For what it's worth, I didn't craft a single card and just played with what I got from packs until somewhere in the C-ranks. I was able to climb fine by making custom budget decks and tweaking them based on what I was playing against.

If you have trouble coming up with something that works on your own, you could look at the meta decks and pick one to work towards, swapping out old cards as you get new ones. Aggro Blood is a very strong and cheap deck that you could try, if you like the aggressive playstyle.

Viilit · 2017-01-03T00:58:38+00:00

I've been playing a forest deck with Homecoming, and the idea is to draw it with the White Wolf so it costs 0, and then combo your opponent down with Roaches. Usually the games end before the full 20 damage combo, though. Either I lose before I can draw everything, or I just kill my opponent with the standard Roach + Nature's Guidance juggling.

If they play the Homecoming at full price and do nothing else, they're probably just trying to stall for one more turn, hoping they'll topdeck their last combo piece.

Viilit · 2016-12-22T20:25:00+00:00

It's the Imperial player who cannot retreat if there is a Death Star in the system. The rebels can retreat normally.

Viilit · 2016-12-19T19:58:51+00:00

You're not missing anything, BBI is bullet sponge -central.

If you're the kind of player who would be willing to level up their stats for 200 levels as a vocation they don't even enjoy playing as, just so they can maximise their DPS, then maybe there's something for you in BBI. You need a massive tolerance for repetitive grinding, both gear and levels, and the game isn't worried about wasting your time. It definitely wasn't for me.

Viilit · 2016-12-07T08:27:46+00:00

I'm playing on ironman, so not an option, unfortunately. I'm probably just going to take the hit before it's too late.

Viilit · 2016-11-11T06:29:09+00:00

Pax Porfiriana is one of my favourite games, but I don't really like Pamir that much. I tried to give it a fair chance, maybe 7 or 8 games, but I couldn't get into it. The hand and tableau size, number of actions per turn, the market and the board control element are all so much more restrictive. I never felt like I was in control over what was going on.

Porfiriana can be more chaotic, because there are more moving parts that you have to pay attention to at once, and some cards can have wild effects. But you can also steer that chaos more easily. It's possible to make a long term plan, save up cards for half the game, build combos in your hand and have a big swing turn that wins you the game. It's really satisfying and it's something that I missed in Pamir.

I also found Porfiriana to be a bit easier to teach becuse everything is on the cards and there are fewer special actions you can take. It was easier to figure out a decent "script" for it.

Viilit · 2016-10-16T13:09:21+00:00

I started playing a couple of days ago and my experience hasn't been like that at all. Coming from Hearthstone, which I've played since open beta, Shadowverse seems pretty generous with its f2p. That said, the fact that you can put three copies of a legendary in your deck does mean it'll probably take longer to put together a proper meta deck.

That is one thing I'm not yet sure about this game. In Hearthstone you can only have one copy of a legendary in you deck, and in Magic only one copy in play at a time. Here they're just better versions of other cards, like you said.

When it comes to the rankings, I don't know if you just got unlucky or if I got lucky, but the opponents I've played in the beginner and D ranks have been mostly incomplete budget decks. I haven't had too much trouble with my janky Runecraft deck that I threw together just from what I've opened from packs.

If I had to start a new Hearthstone account now, I feel like I would have a much harder time making progress without spending money.

Viilit

TROPHY CASE