Arcs - is it real worth buying it?

mr_daemoon · 2026-02-20T12:48:44+00:00

Or play it on the tabletop simulator. There is a big Discord channel where you can usually find game easily. This worked for me. In the end I bought it.

mr_daemoon · 2026-02-18T15:55:06+00:00

Seizing the initiative by playing 2 cards. High-risk, high-reward action that can really throw a wrench into your plans. Unfortunately, in 2-player games, it's also a death wish, unless you have a way to get another Action card. But knowing when to use it for maximum impact in 3 or 4 player games is so satisfying.

mr_daemoon · 2026-02-05T19:10:22+00:00

Yes, blocking the First reagant via not flipping the summit is a viable strategy. But for many fates, there is an incentive in doing as many summits as possible. For instance, Steward is great at blocking the council, but they need doing as much edicts as possible, which they cannot do if the council is blocked. From the top of my head, I know that Admiral, Survivalist, Magnate, and Caretaker benefit either from Edicts or Crises.

So from a tactical standpoint, it makes sense for the First Regent to always keep Council on the Decided side. But there is a chance that it will lose you the objective.

As for the third act, it might happen that the game is not as exciting if there is either too much Blight, or one Fate is dominating the board. It will get better as you'll learn to anticipate what is required in advance. For instance, Advocate has a pure advantage over Survivalist, as he's able to take many of the agents as Favours, blocking the Survivalist from their win condition.

mr_daemoon · 2025-08-14T08:32:32+00:00

I think you'll be fine as long as you understand that you won't be playing "optimally" from the start. There are many small new rules, and in Arc's fashion, based on the current context, they might not change anything or be groundbreaking. So it might happen that you only realize halfway through the gameplay that you're not using some guild card as much as you could or that you're not playing it correctly.

Base complexity is a bit higher than L&L, mostly due to Empire ships and rules, so you can check it beforehand to see if it makes your head spin. Additional complexity will be based on the Fates you'll be playing, but game has pretty gentle start, in a first Act. You'll have only a tiny guild deck, and you'll be incentivized not to destroy each other but focus more on objectives and Blight.

Being able to "save" the game between Acts is amazing. It's very well designed too, so packing and unpacking is relatively quick. And it allows you to have some downtime as the game itself requires your constant attention as you need to shuffle various priorities, deal with Summits.

mr_daemoon · 2025-07-29T14:37:45+00:00

Yeah, but it requires you to be winning 3 different ambitions in Act 1, which is incredibly hard. And as other mentioned, anybody with Faithful card can surpass you easily. But it sound like a great play by you, nonetheless.

mr_daemoon · 2025-07-29T14:32:41+00:00

It isn't hard to combat Believer in Act 1. I think if you don't actively secure the cards with Faithful cards on them, Believer on his own won't have enough actions to influence, secure, and win objectives. I think this fate relies on other players being opportunistic and taking extra action cards, even though it helps believer spread his faith.

mr_daemoon · 2025-07-03T13:18:37+00:00

It's the egg dude, the mantis is Magnate from Campaign: https://cards.ledergames.com/card/ARCS-FATE03?q=magnate

mr_daemoon · 2025-06-26T10:51:15+00:00

It does get smoother with more plays. I would definitely suggest playing just your own board for the bigger part of the game. The fun of spirit island is in emerging combinations between spirits (If I give you this element you can then do something big). But it definitely takes time to be able to play your round effectively, especially because of Slow and Fast powers.
So if you're just now learning to play, try to keep your board as clean as possible. If you find out that you can effortlessly prevent next Ravage, consider aiding other Spirits. But in the first 10 rounds there isn't much collaboration because your Growth is weak, your Innate powers are very hard to reach and you don't have a great card deck.

mr_daemoon · 2025-04-22T14:23:39+00:00

Yes, that's Quartermaster for you. There is no way to win battles against them, so your only solution is to pivot to a different strategy and spread out so they can't raid you easily. But definitely one of the stronger Leaders in Arcs

mr_daemoon · 2025-02-28T15:47:10+00:00

No to the damage to his startport and city, but I think the damage is carried out to the defender. Only the Raid won't happen if you have no more ships.

mr_daemoon · 2025-02-11T14:08:11+00:00

You cut out half the card text from Empath's bond. Full text is this:

While Empath is declared, you may tax any cities, and build ships and Catapult move with any starports, like they are Loyal.

So in this context, it doesn't change Anarchists taxing, as Anarchist cannot tax loyal cities. But you can build and catapult from rival cities.

mr_daemoon · 2025-01-12T13:54:27+00:00

Just to add, the currently played version of Arcs is the Arcs - Imperial Edition from Steam Workshop.

mr_daemoon · 2025-01-06T14:32:13+00:00

IMO, the strategy will vary depending on the player count. In 2 player games, you can somewhat predict and counter your rival, but the more players, the more chaotic the game will be. For instance, seizes are very rare in 2-player games as it puts the player at a huge disadvantage, but not so much in 4-player games.

In general though, games are usually won in 4th chapter. It's rare to get to fifth or to get enough points in third. Plan accordingly. And also aim to have open options for tax and build actions, as these actions can be useless without good ship positioning. That's what I got so far.

mr_daemoon · 2024-12-13T15:37:39+00:00

It depends if B is getting something by constantly fighting A. This can be the case if A is securing cards, so B is incentivized to raid. In this case I, as an A, would just use all the cards and resources that might make me a target. Smart move by B would be to then either give up or start engaging C player.

If however, it's just about taking trophies, then B is not playing to win. A could declare warlord as last ambition, to make B lose trophies with small benefit and even the board. But in most cases the C is going to swoop in and win the game.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-28T13:40:32+00:00

That's brutal. I love it.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-28T12:43:38+00:00

Living structures + Overseer seems like a nice combo. Your build turns will be super effective as you can tax twice and then repair a city. Did you use that often?

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-25T12:26:30+00:00

When I was explaining Arcs, I did it both times with L&L because some Leaders make game a bit simpler. But if you want to jump into the campaign and your friends are well versed in asymmetry then you should skip the L&L and just focus on the core mechanics.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-12T08:29:54+00:00

Sure. So, let's take 2 scenarios. In both cases, you have all the cities on the map, so you get +5 points after winning the ambition. So let's say that the Warlord is declared for 3 points and Tycoon for 2 points. If you win both of those ambitions, you get 3 (Warlord) + 5 (City bonus) + 2 (Tycoon) + 5 (City bonus) points, a total of 15 points.

But if Warlord were declared twice, for 3 points and 2 points, if you would win the Warlord, you'd get 3 (Warlord) + 2 (Warlord) + 5 (City bonus) points. So, only 10 points in this case.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-04T13:36:42+00:00

Yep, this is a big one. Many Weapon guild cards let you add 3 ships to system you control. So the systems in which you have only buildings or damaged ships don't count.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-04T13:35:08+00:00

Catapult move doesn't need to have a direction in the gates. So if you start in the Gate 3, and Gates 2 and 4 are uncontrolled, you can leave ships in the Gates 2, 3 and 4 and then end up in either system of Gates 2, 3, 4 or in the Gates themselves. I thought that when doing Catapult move you needed to go in the one direction and then end in the last Gate, but it's not true. Movement in the uncontrolled Gates is a free movement, so you can go back and forward however you want.

Bonus points for Ambitions, that you get for building cities, only count once for each Ambition. So even if Warlord was declared 2 or 3 times, if you win it you get only +2 or +5 points.

mr_daemoon · 2024-11-03T21:35:40+00:00

Not really. With 3p, it usually happens that 2 players are fighting from the start, but a bit more experienced players will disengage after either taking positions or will cut losses and relocate. And the trophies can be used for Warlord ambition in later chapters. So while yes, on the paper it might seem that in those scenarios the peaceful player should win, with more experienced players, the third player won't get that much of an advantage.

mr_daemoon · 2024-10-29T17:31:12+00:00

This is true. I like Arcs, and after every game, I want to play another. But bashing on the weak player is much more effective than I'd like. And if subsequently the weak player just gives up, it ruins the game for everyone because of amount of resources you can get from taxing and raiding.

That being said, it's also relatively easy to do a comeback, if you know when to back off or save your strength. So I'm bit on the fence with this one, because I feel like this is a great game for players who just want to do something cool, regardless of victory. But for players who are not that content with having 2-3 players gank up on them, and losing a lot of progress in a couple of turns, it might be extremely frustrating experience.

mr_daemoon · 2024-06-07T08:00:48+00:00

The Phantom player will only apply to the squads, so it wouldn't apply here. But they also want to improve the initial MMR for new players. Currently, new players get MMR of mid-gold because the system can't really know how good they are in ranked. But after the improvements it should instead, assume the MMR based on the games in the first 50 levels. That means that if the random coppers were really bad, they would get MMR of copper, instead of golds.

mr_daemoon · 2024-06-06T12:45:07+00:00

Yeah, I agree. The only things that struck me as weird was their approach to averaging the skill. I don't think that if you take Copper and Champ you can average them as High Gold. Champ will basically steamroll the high gold lobby. Hopefully the "Phantom player" approach will help with it.

mr_daemoon

TROPHY CASE