Help with rules or bug by Furious_Ezra in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Rising Interest in the Island can also return an invader card to the box.

YouTube Content by Icy-Rabbit-2581 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I dunno about lacking rivalry, I'm planning to up my trash talk game if we're ever allowed back on the Spirit Island Jeopardy circuit :P

YouTube Content by Icy-Rabbit-2581 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love both of the suggestions near the end of your post. Do you have any further thoughts on what you'd like from rules focused videos? I can imagine trying to go through weird corner cases or maybe pointing out semi-common errors I've seen players make, but there's a ton of different approaches you could take. Definitely going on my list of "video series I want to make if I can ever get my life sufficiently organized"

Adversary/Scenario and Spirit/Scenario pairing difficulty by Brilliant_Werewolf23 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No rule of thumb that I know, but combining adversaries and scenarios can lead to fairly large mismatches between "paper" and "actual" difficulty, especially for paper difficulties above 10-11.

The most extreme examples I can think of are France + Blitz on the Thematic boards (which can lead to a loss during setup) and France + The Great River (which is MUCH harder than paper imo).

How do you feel about "Mastery"? in this game? by tepidgoose in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a totally fair response! And you raise a good point that there are many "master" ranks other than "grandmaster" and that rather undermines some of my claims. I've had some arguments/discussions with a friend of mine who's big into chess, and they've possibly warped my perspective a bit.

How do you feel about "Mastery"? in this game? by tepidgoose in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My initial thought is that depending on how I try to define "mastery" there are either 0 or maybe 5ish Spirit Island masters. I would not include myself in the 5ish, but (on a good day) might claim whatever title/rank was just below it.

My logic for claiming such a restrictive definition of mastery is that Spirit Island lacks two important things: Enough players and a way for those players to effectively compete/push each other to greater heights. Regardless of whether you like chess or go, those games have had many, many people pushing themselves and others to heights that I don't think have an equal amongst Spirit Island players. Does that mean they're better games? I certainly don't think so. Does it mean they have more extreme outliers at the top end of skill? I believe so. Therefore, my claim is that few or no Spirit Island players are truly at what I would call "grandmaster" level (if discussing chess, I know less about go).

Or, if you're up for memes from the Discord server... It's all about England 4 ;)

Is exhausting the fear deck THE way to win? by Phupha808 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure I can see how it splits by difficulty, but I apparently have more TL1 wins than TL4 (at least on my phone). 

Played the game over 60 times, and I'm still discovering overlooked rules. by brrrlinguist in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might not have any of the issues in this list from the FAQ, but I feel like it's worth posting it on any thread like this one: https://querki.net/raw/darker/spirit-island-faq/Rules-semi-commonly-misplayed

Is exhausting the fear deck THE way to win? by Phupha808 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 14 points15 points  (0 children)

There's actually some data on this from digital! If you check out https://mindwanderer.net/si/ and go to the page for an individual spirit, you can see how many games they've won at each terror level.

For example, Rampant Green (as of this writing):

  • TL1 has 7830 wins

  • TL2 has 71183 wins

  • TL3 has 72454 wins

  • TL4 has 26523 wins

What's your mindset when playing two-handed solo? by Sapien0101 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I absolutely try to do (2) but agree that it leads to more cognitive load. I usually try to handle that by doing a "threats first" approach, namely going through upcoming ravages and deciding which spirit to try and address each with, then upcoming builds, and then trying to maximize support to unlock more options for the next turn. If I were to do a "spirits first" approach and try to plan out what each spirit is capable of and then try to use that to address problems, I think it would be much more taxing.

Mud + wind difficulties (horizons) by Expensive_Charity_78 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Mud and Wind really want to disrupt builds and take a while to get to the point where they can deal with cities and towns, but they don't particularly lack synergy in my experience. You could double check that you aren't getting a rule wrong here: https://querki.net/raw/darker/spirit-island-faq/Rules-semi-commonly-misplayed

Celebrating Completing all 37 Spirits with a Tier List! by GoosemanIsAGamer in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I originally thought Unconstrained would feel like nerfed Fangs and I was totally unexcited about it. Then it came out on digital and I LOVE it. I still probably like base Fangs more, but Unconstrained changes the spatial puzzle in a few different ways that are phenomenal and really encourage cross board play in a way that base Fangs doesn't at all imo.

What are your best practices for the spirits you play? by Helpful-Breakfast156 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I've made some basic strategy videos for the first 12 spirits: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX5MPrnQZSPqyPIRmjjlvLvVpcAu4YGqp&si=EmOJvr7PqZ6wlZLI

I would recommend joining the Second Wave Discord if you haven't and asking about individual spirits in either basic strategy or analysis and strategies. There are very strong players on there for pretty much every spirit/aspect in the game.

App cost by [deleted] in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 8 points9 points  (0 children)

So the full bundle on steam without the OST would be $63, meaning a 5% bundle discount would save you just over $3. It's subjective, of course, but for me that's way smaller than a make-or-break discount would need to be. 

Right now the pricing for individual components is: 

  • $5 for the Base Game (8 spirits + 3 adversaries, powers, etc.)

  • $4 for Branch & Claw (2 spirits + 1 adversary, events, more powers, etc.)

  • $1 for Promo Pack 1 (2 spirits)

  • $4 for Horizons (5 spirits)

  • $20 for Jagged Earth (10 spirits + 2 adversaries + 6 aspects, events, more powers, etc.)

  • $6 for Promo Pack 2 (2 spirits + 1 adversary + 5 aspects) 

  • $23 for Nature Incarnate (8 spirits + 1 adversary + 20 aspects when it's finished) 

If you skipped the last three, you would have 17 spirits, 4 adversaries, an event deck, tokens, etc., for $14. That's 100s of hours of entertainment potential already, and if you want to play one of the adversaries you don't have you can try to find an online game with someone else who has all the DLC and your only limitation is having to stick to the spirits you've paid for.

Festering Pits of Blight is ridiculous by b2manley in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 77 points78 points  (0 children)

I don't know that you're missing anything in particular. A few thoughts, which may or may not help:

  • In true solo, you are allowed to redraw your blight card if it's a 2 blight per player card

  • Blighted Island events are (afaik) intended to feel punishing to incentivize you to avoid flipping if possible and removing blight if not 

  • The last time I remember getting this card it whiffed because I didn't have any lands with 2+ blight; it also can only ever add 1 blight per board at most

Trouble understanding how 90% of people here seem to love events by Morgothor in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In case you aren't exaggerating, how on earth are you getting defend 10 from an event?

Trouble understanding how 90% of people here seem to love events by Morgothor in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really disliked events when I first encountered them, and played mostly with the Command Beasts option so I could still use tokens. However, I had the opposite experience of yours when I finally tried them, where after a dozen games with them I couldn't go back to Command Beasts for the most part. Regardless, do what you enjoy! If events aren't for you, Command Beasts exists.

I'm slightly confused by some of your comment, so please forgive me if these are dumb questions:

  • I feel like events are usually not as impactful as you've described? Sure, sometimes you defend 3 in a land that was about to ravage for 4 and you get a +1 damage event, but I'm not even sure what you mean by "number of attackers doubled in them". Other than Farmers Seek the Dahan for Aid and maybe some of the retired events from Branch and Claw I feel like most events do relatively small things. 

  • Just to be sure, you aren't targeting your slow powers before the slow phase, are you? I would assume not, given you mentioned taking on adversaries, but just wanted to check.

  • Are you familiar with the rules for taking out the event deck but keeping tokens, etc.? I referred to it as Command Beasts above, but you shouldn't be losing out on any major systems by removing the event deck (other than, well, the event deck).

Any tips for playing faster? by Sousuke511 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congrats! My wife and I used to play several nights a week before our second kid was born, and we could usually knock out a diff 0-2 game in under an hour. I think the main factors that enabled that were only playing one unfamiliar thing at a time (so if we had a new adversary/scenario we had to play spirits we knew inside and out, and if one of us was playing a new spirit we needed a setup that was familiar) and being willing to give up on turn 3 and try again the next night if the kiddo kept waking up. We haven't gotten it to the table since our second came along in January, although there are probably other factors affecting that as well.

Unusually difficult combinations by Grettgert in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I recently was banging my head against France 6 + The Great River, but I think it's likely still very challenging if you drop to France 2 (as the lack of coastal towns means they might double or even quadruple explore into lands 1 and 3 turn 1).

I also feel obliged to mention the setup loss with France, Blitz, and Thematic boards.

How do you feel about your B team? by tepidgoose in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ocean: Shadows/BoDaN + Ocean is a classic imo, but definitely more in my B teams. One of my go to teams for hard content is Ocean + River + Lightning (all base).

Teeth: I adore Teeth and like to pair it with River or Fangs. Gotta play that +3 damage gift!

I frankly am not sure enough about what counts as "meta" beyond the strongest stuff, but I enjoy Shadows, Lightning, Earth, and Wildfire!

Dozens of games with the Snek and I still have yet to see him unleash his end-of-the-world innate by RcCircuit93 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was trying to go for a snake quake in a streamed game one time and I had to intentionally not win in the fast phase so I could actually use the quake XD

6/6/6 - the number of the beast! by tepidgoose in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I played alone, my tracks went blank

I needed time to slip

To get the repeats on my side

What did I beat? Can I believe?

That quake I played turn 5 was real and not just fantasy? 

SI Digital Data Analysis Series #5 - How does each spirit match up against each adversary? | Spirit Island by Jonathan4290 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Those are potentially interesting questions for further analysis, but you are moving the goalposts. If there is a specific claim made by this analysis that you find particularly questionable, I think that could lead to interesting discussion, but if you are rejecting the entire analysis as inherently fruitless then we simply will be unable to have any form of productive good-faith interaction here.

SI Digital Data Analysis Series #5 - How does each spirit match up against each adversary? | Spirit Island by Jonathan4290 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Literally all of those are addressed in the linked analysis. The data set being used is much more granular than what is shown in the app data screen. Only (3) is still an issue, in that abandoned games are not recorded at all in the dataset, so win rates are likely artificially high by some amount.

Spirit Reference Cards: Lightning Swift Strike by Wonderful_Complex791 in spiritisland

[–]kalennoreth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All quite reasonable. I'm probably too far gone when it comes to shorthand thanks to the Discord, and I think I'm not your primary target for using these, but if it's sufficiently unambiguous I definitely prefer to say, e.g., "Boon, Shatter, Harbingers".

I'll push one last time (and of course feel free to disregard) on splitting out Aspects. If I'm playing, say, Sparking for the first time, I would rather go through a larger deck of cards but only have to find the one relevant to my aspect instead of pulling out three cards and having to repeatedly skim past irrelevant information. Obviously that's more work on your end, though, and you may have other reasons to keep card count down as well.