My win rate is up slightly, probably due more to a balance patch than any mindfulness on my part.

Remember, the four fundamental questions you should be asking yourself are:

1. How will I attack?
2. How will I block?
3. How will I do all-out-attack (“deal with multiple enemies.”)
4. How will I scale?

This article deals with the last question. “Scaling, or ‘Why Furnace is a desperation pick.'”

Things I’m rethinking (from the Prior Article)

(Link to Part 1)

• I’m slightly less enamored of Leafy Poultice, particularly on Necrobinder (with her low Max HP dropping it further means rests have limited value). Similarly I’m experimenting more with Precarious Sheers, particularly if the Act I map has an early rest, because that cancels the current HP loss and removing two starters is a big deal …. long term.
• I feel like I’ve been over-valuing gold. Card removes are more expensive in StS 2. It’s true you have less shot at a Pandora’s Box (which removes all your strikes and defends); but many Ancient Rewards / Artifacts effectively let you remove big chunks of your deck (or improve them enough to be worthwhile), which counterfeits the store’s “remove a card” option. Because of that, I’ve started looking at Cursed Pearl with a much more jaundiced eye. Yes, it might let you snowball, but if it doesn’t …
• Stone Humidifier (“Gain 5 Max HP when you rest”) is also downgraded, because it does nothing for the early fights. You really need to have an extra rest prior to your elite and hope that the Max HP helps. I had a string of runs where I took this and was not quite strong enough to deal with my first elite, even with delaying it.
  • Nutritious Oyster (“Gain 11 Max HP”) provides the Max HP now, so is probably a better choice unless you have a rest-heavy first act.
  • This does confirm that Neow’s Talisman (upgrade a strike and defend) is actually good, which was my guess. It probably saves at least ~3-6 HP in every fight up for most of Act I. (And putting Spiral on an upgraded defend in that early event is a big deal)
• I didn’t mention Phial Holster in the last article (as it was new and I’d only picked it a few times). It gives you two potions and an extra potion slot. This is generally solid, it lets you burn an early potion or two and might let you high-roll into a much earlier elite fight, and the extra slot will likely be useful all game (particularly if you must hang onto a potion or two to deal with a hard elite/boss … now you can still gain and play other potions).

(Many of the examples/explanations below are simplified and not dealing with corner cases.)

Understanding Scaling — Kinetic vs Potential Scaling

I won my low ascension Regent runs grabbing Furnace, a power that gives 4 Forge¹ a turn. It seemed comparable to Noxious Fumes, a power that adds 2 poison a turn. But that was shallow thinking, and at higher ascensions it failed hard. It took me a while to unpack why, but there are multiple reasons.

The first is that Noxious Fumes is “Play and Forget.” It does 2 damage, then, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc². With Forge you also have to play the Sovereign Blade to do any damage. Your sword will be worth 14, 18, 22, etc … but attacking with it costs two mana per attack; then you have to wait and get it back, which also means one less other card in your deck. It costs time and card draw.

Noxious Fumes is active from next turn it’s played … doing damage each turn (but starting smaller). Furnace enbiggens your sword, damage requires further costs. I’ll talk more about Forge below, but the point is that Furnace is passive scaling … If you got a second Noxious Fumes, your numbers and damage would go up, but a second Furnace just makes your potential damage go up.

I don’t love this passive/active terminology, perhaps Poison is “complete” and Forge is Incremental? Or “Potential” vs “Kinetic” is best? Kinetic scaling does actual damage. Potential Scaling might do damage down the line.

But that’s not the only issue

Understanding Scaling — Linear vs Geometric Scaling

Consider Inflame. +2 Strength, once. All attacks do (at least) two more³. It’s a perfectly find card, and may help through early elites and bosses. In theory its potential scaling, but in practice it activates pretty fast. Ironclad is usually playing attacks, so boom. Three attacks a turn (say), means six extra damage a turn. That’s OK. But it doesn’t grow. Noxious Fumes starts off small but gets bigger over time.

But if you double something, it gets bigger much faster. Voltaic channels a lightning Orb for every Lightning Orb already channeled. Play it 5 times (even without any other lightning) and you channel 1,2,4,8,16. A geometric progression. If you have even another orb or two played each time through the deck (like Zap) the number can get ridiculous fast (depending on card order). Voltaic can cause 500 damage on it’s own. Inflame requires 250 attacks. A linear progression. If you added a second inflame your deck would be more reliable. A second voltaic would be a grotesque win.

(Again, I don’t love the terms; perhaps “Additive vs Multiplicative” scaling might be better).

Any card that doubles (or halves) deserves a close look. Colossus blocks, but also halves the damage vulnerable opponents inflict.

There are some other types of geometric scaling built into the game:

• All out Attack
• Any enchantment (etc) that adds “Replay” to a card is literally doubling (or tripling) the card. Hidden Gem can be a great purchase, even though replay is being applied to a random card. It’s just that strong and as your deck gets stronger cards it will proportionally scale.

Back to Furnace, and Scaling vs Big Impact Now

Putting it all together, I was treating Furnace like a scaling card, but it’s the worst kind of scaling — linear (+4 to the swords damage …), and potential ( … when you play the sword). Its much closer to Inflame than Noxious Fumes. It has a place, but that place is providing a bit of extra damage when you are low, against not-particularly fast opponents. It absolutely can make the difference in the Act I boss fight … linear scaling is usually enough.

It just won’t win the game, and the opportunity cost of having it take up a valuable card draw (and mana if you play it) may outweigh that in many fights. And often the damage output it does provide is completely inferior to many other options.

Compare Furnace to Wrought in War⁴. If you play Furnace, next turn you can play your sword for 14. If you play Wrought in War, you can play your sword this turn for 17, plus the 7 you already did. WiW converts 3 mana into 24 damage, a respectable first damage card. That’s its role, with a smidge of linear scaling each further time through the deck. Now granted, if you play Furnace and wait 5 turns, you’ll do more damage, but that’s an eternity in a hallway fight (unless you can consistently block for huge numbers each turn). If you play The Smith (“Forge 30”) and then your sword, you do 40 damage now (for 3 mana and some stars).

The Big Number is much better than scaling in almost all fights. But … you can make The Smith multiplicative by playing it via Decisions Decisions, which plays a skill three times. Now on the turn you play them, your sword hits for a hundred, which would take Furnace 23 turns! (Or you can play it each time it comes through the deck, and if you play your sword each time, it’s a bit multiplicative).

Yes, those cards require a star economy, and are rare, etc. But the point is that the numbers matter, not just the type of growth.

Comparing Forge to Vigor

So I’m not particularly happy to take Furnace. It’s a “I need more damage and haven’t seen great cards” pick. But I’m pleased to grab a Prep Time (“4 Vigor at the start of your turn”) as Regent. Why? Because Vigor can be multiplicative; Regent has lots of targets for multiplication. If you sit and block, you can get 8, 12 or more vigor built up; Build up stars, a card like Stardust (which is an X cost attack, but X is stars, not mana) or Heavenly Drill can quickly grow. Furnace is +4 damage a turn, but even a moderate growth in star economy can turn each point of vigor into 10 or 20 hits, and both numbers can grow each turn …. Geometric, not linear.

You can totally win a Regent run by playing only a single attack. Play two powers Prep Time (+4 Vigor a turn) and Genesis (+2 stars a turn), through out block, and wait for a Stardust to do something like 5 (base damage) + 12 (3 turns vigor) times 20 (stars). As a bonus, you can enchant it to do double damage (or +8 vigor first time played). Prep Time gives you a corner stone you can latch onto; and with a few more pieces (and a lot of block) you have your scaling.

Furnace comes nowhere close.

Redeeming Forge

But Forging can. Summon Forth forges 8 (a reasonable number) …. and puts the sword back in your hand. If your deck was only Summon Forths, you could attack in the following pattern. 18, 26, 34, 42. You gain damage faster and play it more often. Not quite geometric, but much faster linear damage. If you play the Parry power (or two), you now suddenly get damage and block each time you play your sovereign blade. You aren’t multiplying damage exactly, but you are doing two important things (damage and block) each time you play your sword.

Bulwark is a perfectly fine “Block 13 for 2 mana” card … that also forges (10!). I grab it as an early block card, but the damage boost is nice.

The point: Don’t grab a Furnace; get a scaling engine via the following path (or something similar):

• On an early floor I grab a Wrought in War, if no better damage card is offered (“How Will I Attack?“). As mentioned above, it is “24 damage for 3 mana.”
• Grab Bulwark for block (“How will I block?”); but it also forges. Now if I play it and Wrought in War, my Sovereign Blade hits for 27 and I can hold it until it ends the fight (or I have a turn I’m not being attacked).
• At this point, I might get Summon Forth or Parry or Seeking Edge as a multiplier … to (play your sword more often, block as well as attack, or hit all enemies, respectively). All are multipliers in a way, and Seeking Edge answers “How will I handle multiple enemies?“.
• Now there are actual multipliers … Sword Sage makes the sword hit twice (but raises its cost). Conqueror only forges three, but doubles damage that turn. And don’t forget artifact multipliers like Pen Nib⁵.
• Ideally I’ll also grab a Charge or Begone … to trim the mediocre cards (like basic strikes) out of my deck so that I can play the better cards multiple times (if necessary). (The Chapel strategy from Dominion). Multiplication by division.

Each card answers at least one question other than scaling in the first few steps, attack or block. The initial forge on the cards isnt’t the focus of the card, but a “Yes, and …” The forge provides a path for scaling that comes later. (Similar to how an early silent poison may be meant to handle the first boss, but can also provide the entry way for further scaling).

I’m attacking and blocking; a card or two big enough to handle early hallway fights (or mid-game hallway minions) while incidentally building a linear scaling engine via Forge. Then I’ll only need a card or two (hopefully) to make that a geometric engine … or a big enough linear engine to compensate. Furnace doesn’t do any of that.

Now, I’m not saying Furnace is pointless. If I’ve only seen block cards (or am worried about Lagavulin Matriarch, or know I’ll need to scale while paying for Soul Fysh’s beckons), I might pick a Furnace … as a specific use for a fight. Not for scaling. Sometimes you just don’t get great choices and have to make do … but having taken a Furnace I now now that there might be some synergy with more Forge cards … if they appear.

Writing these as I think I have things interesting to say … so part III whenever.

Update — I realized that the above questions are also missing “How can I make my deck set up faster?” (Sometimes also called ‘Velocity’) and I need to ask that question more often to myself.

1. A quick Primer on ‘Forge’ and ‘Vigor’ — Forge X works as follows. If you don’t have a Sovereign Blade, it creates it (in your hand). The blade costs 2 to play, and is retained between turns. The blade’s damage starts at 10 prior to the first forge and is increased (for this combat) by X. (Once you have a sword, Forge X simply increases the swords damage but does not return it to your hand). Vigor X means your next attack (only) does +x damage (per hit), and then the Vigor is spent. ︎
2. Poison automatically decreases at the end of each turn so +2 means net +1 each turn once the enemy is poisoned. ︎
3. With multi-attacks or X-cost attacks (like Sword Boomerang / Whirlwind) the bonus may apply multiple times per attack. ︎
4. Attack 7, Forge 7. ︎
5. In multi-player you can also play Hammer Time to let each team-mate forge when you do! ︎

My Fifty by Fifty finished a few years ago (four years late). But time marches on. So … Fifty-One. Dice Realms recently got its 25th play and picked up a few more last night, which was nice. (I honestly thought it would make the list years ago, but I’m much more of a proponent that most of the locals).

Also, the local group has switched FLGS to one of the more modern ones that has a liquor license and a kitchen. I haven’t gone much this year, but last night had a large crowd of several different groups, including quite a few couples and one adorable baby. It speaks quite well of the hobby to see such a broad cross-section of people. Now the store just needs to sell a few more copies of High Frontier 4 All (which it does have stocked!) so I can get more opponents, because that’s going to be a hard game to get fifty plays in.

‘Twas elegantly done — ignoring the fact that the cards are a downgrade from tiles — but were the graphic designers for the new AllPlay edition were trying to convey colorblindness to the rest of us? The five colors of money cards are “brown,” “beige,” “orangeish brown/beige” “purpleish brown” and “I’m not sure what it is … let’s call it … cocoa?”

Honestly, I’m not sure what the colors were, except all very similar. Seriously. Game looks beautiful, but ugh.

Played StarDriven: Gateway last night. First of all, let’s get this out of the way.

The horrific trend in the last two decades of putting a colon (or dash, or em-dash) in a book’s title and then giving it a subtitle is a terrible development and should not be extended into games. It is only allowed if the game is in fact a sequel. We have to be able to tell all the Race for the Galaxy expansions and arcs apart. Adding a “Legacy” to Pandemic (etc) is fine … they are related but different games. Apparently there is a StarDriven: Saga coming out (out?) from the same company, and they want to note they are related … but I’m watching you, Rock Manor Games. Cut it out.

The rough mechanics

(It’s been so long since I reviewed a game that was relatively new, I’m actually going to describe it a bit).

SDG is a knock off Star Trek episode, or perhaps season, and is actually a pretty nice idea. Each player has a ship, and you roll dice (of various colors). You can use red dice for fighting, blue dice to run warp drive¹ and sensors. Green dice are impulse and engineering. Some of the stations can also accept any die. Also, each station has an energy cost. (Usually 0-3 energy, but some stations gain you energy equal to the die roll).When you place a die you get one very useful thing (no matter the die value) and then use the die value to get other things.

For example, the “command” station will accept a red die (for one energy), a red die (costing two energy) and any die (three energy). When you place a die there you get an experience marker (which lets you buy/improve your crew) and then the better the die the better the attack.

Crew are a certain species, have specialties (although they can all operate any station) and can be regular or promoted. You can only take an action on a station that has a crew member, but one of your actions is “place a crew member into a station.” Each crew member also has a “Tap to due special thing” as a free action.

At some point you can give up an action to remove and reroll all your dice (and untap some of your crew).

Combat is clever … each die rolled is a hit against a section (you have six sections, after all) but you can roll your shields and if you roll a matching number you block the hit (but your shields are weakened). If you don’t match numbers, you take the hit, the spot is blocked, and your shields are still strong. (You can spend engineering actions bumping up your weapons or shields).

The owner described SDG is “kind of a 2.5X game, not quite a 4x” … at least in the early “episodes” (we played “episode 1”) combat is enough to keep you honest, but minimal. Players are not expected to fight each other, but there are a few nuisance ships out there. Presumably in other episodes there could be harder enemies or PVP. But the board has only the major planets revealed at the beginning and you fly around, encounter “anomalies” and explore the map, and finish missions. When you finish a mission you must tap a promoted crew, or discard a crew from a station back to crew quarters (where you need actions to ready them again) or lose them entirely (from your hand?). Finishing missions gets you reputation (on the nearest major planet).

After a round the last player makes a few decisions for the enemy’s attack (breaking ties only, but usually there are ties). When one player gets 9 reputation the game ends after another round or two (at least for the scenario we played).

Then there is a slightly-too-point-salady scoring for my taste (you get points for reputation, a bonus for having most reputation on each major planet, points for anomalies, negatives for combats, bonus VP that you can acquire during game etc).

The Trouble with (Knock Off) Tribbles

Individually, the ideas work. I like the theme (and can appreciate that the license is too expensive, so I don’t mind it’s had the serial numbers filed off). The game looks nice, (the map tiles are functionally kind of hexes divided into three, but have a different look). Each ship has a slightly different coloration of dice … my ship had only one red (“Command”) die, so fighting and promoting is more difficult. Each ship also has a set of unique abilities (six perhaps) of which you pick two. You manage dice and energy and crew. I mean, the game is overproduced Kick Starter bait with a box too big, but also does give off the “labor of love” with an appreciation of the genre.

BUT ….

1. The missions are bland. Tap (or discard) the right crew and that’s it. Sure, this is a “diplomatic mission” and that’s a “earthquake rescue” but they are all the same. The anomalies feel right thematically “Oh, you’ve got an energy alien loose on your ship” vs “A metallic virus is eating your ship” but again the ones I saw were all “Take some damage and if you spend a crew you can keep this card for a bonus <something> later.” I don’t know if you can make the theme shine more with the rules, but it would feel nice if you could. Now that I think about it, the anomalies should stick around and require longer to solve … after all, those are entire episodes in the show … not just one turn distractions.
2. Energy felt too abundant, and there wasn’t any real problem if your ship took damage². Don’t know if that’s because this was “episode 1” (which sets the first few missions and enemies).
3. Rolling bad is a poor strategy. I rolled only “1s” on my three blue dice, which meant (effectively) I couldn’t warp to major planets or do anything but the worst sensor sweep. There are ways to re-roll, but they cost time (also a precious resource). Not a major problem in a short game or a game with enough die rolls; more annoying when you only roll the dice 2-3 times in a game.
4. There’s clearly a design idea of “You have these characters. Can you make them regulars instead of red-shirts?” going on, which is clever. I wish it was explored more.

But those are just peeves, compared to the fundamental flaw.

The turns are too long. This is a fixed fun game; on your turn you get two actions (plus any free actions, which includes finishing a misson! or using some special abilities). It isn’t a problem that each turn takes 2 minutes (annoying, but not a deal breaker). The turns are too long because each player gets too many actions on a turn. Yes you only get two actions, but there are enough free actions that there’s no point in planning … any mission might be gone by the time it gets back to you. Players can warp around the board, after all, so even though each mission is tied to a planet type, none are too far away.

SDG feels like it would have been more engaging if it used a worker placement (or Eclipse’s) structure of “one action around the table until everyone is forced to pass and reset” … on your turn place a die (tap a crew, let’s make that not a free action, except maybe for promoted crew) and take an action. And don’t replenish a mission until the round is over, so they are definitely being fought over. Once everyone is out of actions then the round is done, the enemies move, and you do the next round. Now each player still only takes 25% of the time, but its a race against time, and isn’t that the real pressure in all the of the schlocky TV shows we love?

Can you get to that mission before the other ship shows up? One action at a time makes it tight (particularly if finishing the mission is an action, maybe not taking dice). Now it would feel more interactive …. instead of just “maximize the board state on your turn, then wander away for five minutes.”

I’ve played six (or even eight!) player games of Eclipse where my turn-to-turn engagement was much higher than my four player game of this.

I’d try this again, but would like to try it with one (or two) less players and perhaps a later scenario. But I’m not chomping at the bit.

Rating — Indifferent.

Update — I got a note from the designer indicating that my concern in footnote 2 was misunderstanding the rules … if all three die slots in a section are damaged they are automatically repaired, but create a hull breach (which is -VP and enough hull breaches will destroy your ship). But that does mean you will always have at least one die slot in each section.

1. Since it’s not licensed, SDG doesn’t use terms like “Warp Drive” or “Impulse” that might get them in hot water, but you know what I mean. ︎
2. In theory your ship can blow up, but we came nowhere close to even “lose some VP if one of your sections is totally blown up.” Also, from my quick glance at the rules, if your entire engineering section is blown up, you lose the ability to do any repairs ever, which seems like it could be a flaw and is definitely anti-theme for the “daring comeback from impossible odds.” See update after post for clarification ︎

I have been told that Ken Tidwell passed away (Matt Leacock has apparently posted a note on Facebook)¹. Many of my readers will have at least know-of Ken …. because he founded The Game Cabinet, which was the go-to site for European games and (I believe) inspired Aldie to make BGG. Ken was also an entrepreneur who founded multiple startups, and at various times in my career I asked him for advice and/or commiserated with him. I got some good stories (and hopefully told a few as well).

My condolences to his family and especially his wife Jocelyn.

1. Searching revealed that there are a number of Ken Tidwells with Obituaries, but none of them are the one I know. Also, not using facebook, I wouldn’t know how to find that. ︎

This article is an attempt to starting clarifying my (evolving) thoughts about Slay the Spire II by putting them into words. There are presumably (much) better players than me, but are they writing anything? My normal answer is ‘Nope.’ but actually Youtube is awash with videos by people who monetize content, so actually there are. But you are here, so presumably you like the printed word over audiovisual.

I’ve played … a lot. Probably 200-250 hours solo¹. Right now I’m at a roughly 5²% solo win rate³ on the most difficult ascension level (A10) in Slay the Spire II, which is approximately where I was at on the most difficult ascension in the first game first game, but that was with Act IV, which doesn’t exist yet.

So … not great, but not terrible. Good enough to pounce on a great card/combo when it shows up; not good enough to jury-rig a win out of spare parts. (This influences my thoughts). My “micro” could be better. I often take a few extra points of damage due to negligence; which is a huge leak on my win rate; but I’ve been getting quite a few more “almost” wins, which is a good sign.⁴

This post is just a mish-mash of thoughts, but not really re-hashing general thoughts from the first Slay the Spire that transfer. (A few for emphasis). I was going to write some thoughts on cards/etc, but those are ever changing. For clarity, I’ll do this as bullet points.

(Also check out Jorbs’ recent video on “How to win with Silent (and other Characters)“⁵

General Concepts

• You play three of your five cards each turn (in a simple world where everything costs one). So you’d like 1) huge attack(s), to end the fight or when you aren’t attacked 2) huge block(s), when you are being attacked 3) flexibility for the remainder (often long term scaling, covering weaknesses, etc).
  • You don’t care how many “cards” you convert to attack/block/whatever, you want to be able to convert your mana to attack/block/whatever efficiently. This means a “2 Mana — Block 12” card is often (much) better than a “1 Mana — Block 7/8” … you’d get more with two of the latter in your hand, but that also requires two card picks.
  • Realistically, early on you’ll play 2/3 mediocre attacks/blocks. Starter decks lack density.
  • Playing two-three cards leaves room for cards that are dead most of the time (or all of the time for curses), but solve an important fight or two.
  • But, Dead cards leave you vulnerable to variance, particularly multiple dead cards. If you only have three cards you can play, your only choice is the order/targets. So (some decks) may want a bigger deck, to double the staples, which creates space for more specialized cards.
• Extra block survives more variance than extra attack (because if it doesn’t win right now, you take a hit). Even in Act I the elites (and some hallway fights) dish out 20+ damage a turn.
  • The more I play the happier I am taking two cost block cards.
  • This does lead to decks that block for 5 turns then get outscaled, but I lose less often that way than to being to aggressive. I still need to tune that variable.
• As I get better I’m more prone to save a potion for a boss/problem floor.
• I’m fine skipping elites in later acts once I’ve bottled the lightning, unless I’m just confident in the matchups. Even a good start needs to snowball.
• The Act II ancients give you a lottery ticket that’s a winner, but often just a small/medium winner. The Act III Ancients usually grant a golden ticket.⁶ I am OK having no idea how I’m going to beat the Act III bosses if I feel confident that I can get to Act III, and let the blessing (hopefully) clarify things.

Act I

Act I is tough⁷. In StS 1 I’d sometimes die to an early Gremlin Nob (before the middle floor treasure) or the Act I boss; in this version I perished in Act I often — a too early elite or just damage accumulating 3-4 floors in a row. The elites hit hard. For a while I was skipping most of them, but you have to start engine building. To win you need a cornerstone: a card/relic that provides a clear direction towards victory. It may not be the best option, but a cornerstone is an understandable option.

In early games, I hit an early elite and died … then realized my deck would have lost to any of the elites. But that just delayed the loss to the Act I boss or early Act II You need to start that snowball of growth. A good deck will roll through the second half of Act I like butter. Now I prioritize hitting as many late elites as I can, or trying to highroll a gift from Neow into a deck that can hit an early one … and then decide how many elites to take. Ideally I’d fight 3-4 elites in Act I (as late as possible).

Why fight them? If you get 10 relics 7-8 of them are going to be “yeah, that’s OK” but the great ones really help and form your cornerstone. (Best get it early, then you can work on combos and covering weaknesses). Elite fights are lottery tickets, but you aren’t going to win on slow steady investments. You need to hit the lottery (rare card or relic). As you get better what counts as a hit will grow.

And it’s not like the hallway fights are cakewalks. (Moreover, there are only three elites and you won’t duplicate until you’ve seen them all, so you can often tailor your picks against them. The hallway fights have a much bigger pool to select from). Even the events are a mixed bag.

Neow’s Gifts

(I have much less experience with the new ones that just appeared a few weeks ago).

Great

Leafy Poultice is my top pick. You trim out two basic cards via transformation … and get two lottery tickets that may have downside (at worst, a do nothing curse), but usually are strict improvements. Sometimes you high roll and a solid foundation. Losing Max HP is next act’s problem (mostly).

Silver Crucible — Getting an early “Common Attack+” or “Common Block+” really helps your deck’s density and with three upgraded cards you can handle the early elites (maybe not well, but you’ll likely survive). An early upgraded uncommon (or rare) can snowball.

Cursed Pearl … sure the curse is bad (a dead card roughly every other turn at the start), but that first store will hopefully give you at least a spark to bottle, if not lightning. (Golden Pearl to a lesser extent, and these both assume an early store).

Stone Humidifier is another big deal. I know I said Max HP could be ignored for now, but Stone Humidifier can let you skip a few elites for extra rests. Each rest becomes “Upgrade a card OR take a +5HP relic when you rest” (if upgrading a card isn’t that important. Also, Miniature Camp and Waterfall Giant are in the game and a high max HP is a great way to avoid a random loss due to variance. But in the last few weeks I think I might downgrade this a notch.

Winged Boots — These let you path very aggressively into multiple elite fights where variance would likley kill you 25%+ of the time. You take the first fight, if it goes great, you take the second. If not, you jump over to a rest.

Avoid

Precarious Shears — Removes two cards (like the Poultice), but has no possible upside and 13 damage (as compared to Max HP) is a big problem right now.

Lava Rock — You need help now, not at the end of act I.

Neow’s Torment — 10 Damage and some cards back is OK, but there is almost always a better option.

Anything not listed is OK … I certainly take Lead Paperweight and Pomander often enough, I’m just not terribly psyched when doing it. I’m actually kind of fond of Neow’s Talisman, which just upgrades a strike and defend. Partially because the Spiral enchantment event shows up fairly regularly (replay one) and also because removing all your strikes and defends is much harder in this game than in the first. You are probably carrying a 1-2 of them throughout the game. The defend (in particular) can really help with the chip damage accumulating across fights.

Overgrowth vs Underdocks

This has been discussed elsewhere (Jorbs covers it in a video) so I’m not going to touch on it too much, but be aware of which elites are in the pool and which aren’t. The big “Bomb” in the Overgrowth is the Bygone Effigy, a cakewalk if you can slam out the 132 (!) damage by the end of turn 3 (or turn 4, taking a single hit). Without the Effigy, if you can just block for 15-20 a turn (and still do reasonably damage) you’ll be fine, particularly if you have some AOE damage. With the Effigy‘s high HP and massive hits, you need a damage source (or slow source). Both Byrdonis and the Phrog Parasite scale up …. Byrdonis by adding strength and the Parasite by shoving junk into your deck. So you are going to want to favor attack over defense, since long term fights don’t favor you. (Byrdonis is arguably more dangerous than the Effigy, but it’s less of a Bomb. Both are damage races; both can kill you but since Byrdonis attack each turn you probably have to eat 20 damage even if you win on turn three (just going all out) but Effigy gives you three free turns, so a one turn difference is a bigger jump.

But in the Underdocks you can focus more on block than in general. Sure, the Phantasmal Gardners grow (slowly), but they punish multiple hits (and the Skulking Colony caps damage per turn). The Terror Eel is trickier, but big block + poison will work great, unlike in the Overgrowth.

The Underdocks (literal) Bomb is Waterfall Giant, responsible for over 8% of my deaths in the game⁸. Impressive considering it only shows up in ~16% of the games! If your deck is a fast attack deck, you might kill it but still need to tank a hit for 30 (either having block or enough HP left), and if your deck is a big block deck, you are probably slower and will need to tank a bigger hit. The Waterfall Giant is one reason I like the Stone Humidifier. A higher Max HP means a higher current HP in your final fight, so you can eat a bigger hit. This is also true of the Act III double bosses, where you need a buffer (unless your deck is absolutely purring), but with the Giant you need it.

Part II at some point …

1. I am retired, after all. ︎
2. There are few enough runs that a single win will drive it up and then drift down, but “1 in 20” seems roughly correct. ︎
3. Multi-player games are a whole different thing, with a win rate around 15%. I attribute this to the fact that a) either player can “go off” and win the run more-or-less solo (or with a the partners dealing with a troublesome fight and/or providing support) and b) sometimes you die due to variance in either game, but in multiplayer you get resurrected when your partner survives the fight, a recovery not possible in solo. ︎
4. My win rate also crept up after the first adjustments, make to make Act I easier and Act III harder, and I think this is not variance. I have not tried the Beta branch. ︎
5. Cliff note’s version: 1) Improve your Worst turn, 2) Improve your Best Turn, 3) Condense your Solution, 4) Improve your initial velocity, 5) Don’t overscale, 6) Understand Short term value vs Scaling Density & 7) There is a max hand size ︎
6. Darv (the merchant who offers relics from the first game) complicates things because he can show up in either Act. ︎
7. Written before the first balance patch of ~3 weeks ago. Still true, less so. ︎
8. This was written a month ago, before the patch, and a) he is now slightly weaker and b) I have really focused on beating him. Now he’s back in line with the rest of the baddies. ︎

So, in late Jan/Early Feb I heard Dark Pact was coming out soon and asked my FLGS to get a copy. One month later they were sure it was coming into their distributorship “soon” and a month after that it was sold out at the distributorship and they never got a copy. It is things like this that make me wonder if they are money-laundering front for … someone¹. (Despite that they have a pretty good selection of games). So I got it from Amazon.

I don’t like Ascension, the game Dark Pact is closest to (IMO). Looking at my archives², I never really get into it, but there are a few things that jump out at me.

• The random nature of what’s available at any given moment means that often the game is decided by “Oh, he bought a great card, a terrible card showed up. I bought the best thing available … and the next person got a great card.” At least, it feels like that. (Or you can get combat points when you want money points and vice-versa).
• It’s a snowball, but it takes a long time to roll downhill.

OK, two things.

Since Dark Pact is by Tom Lehmann, I naturally assumed he’d address both of those problems and they are … mitigated. (It is probably impossible to eliminate them).

First — each player has a grimoire of a few staple cards that they can buy if they don’t like what’s on the offer.

Second — what counts as a victory point depends on which Dark Pact(s) you purchase. For Player A it may be curse cards, for Player B it may be treasures, Player C might want Insight Points, etc. “One mans trash is another’s treasure” means that you might be fighting over cards, but you might not.

On the other hand, you need a Dark Pact to win³ and it’s possible that the only ones you see are terrible. But in my five games so far that hasn’t been an issue. (I did play with the “everyone starts with a reasonable Dark Pact” variant once).

Dark Pact still has flaws. I’ve seen people complain that they played their turn and then flipped up Gold/Multiplier cards (which are usually good) for the next player (the first flaw above), and that when it’s not your turn sometimes another player is taking a 2-3 minute turn of play a card, draw some cards, play a card, etc and running through their deck and that you have nothing to do.

That’s true, but it’s also common for the genre. Dominion can (depending on the setup) have that in spades. But for Dark Pact, it is usually a sign that the game is about to end … that player’s engine is up and running …. whereas in Ascension/Dominion you have to wait for the supply (of cards or points) to empty. But Dark Pact has sudden death⁴ … when a player draws their entire deck, the game is usually over on their turn (or perhaps a turn or two later if they’ve figured out which card their engine is missing).

It’s not totally flawless … setup and teardown take longer than Ascension (or a game of Dominion with just a set or two) unless you always play with the same # of players, but any other flaws are pretty much built into the game’s DNA (unless you object to the art or the theme, I suppose).

Dark Pact is admittedly tedious if you are playing with someone struggling to build an engine, who takes too long on their turns. But that’s always true. I don’t think that Dark Pact is going to be one of Tom’s games that easily flies to 50+ plays,⁵ but a few dozen plays seem likely.

Rating — Suggest

1. Occam’s Razor suggests I’m overthinking things. ︎
2. Most of the searches for “Ascension” turn up Slay the Spire stuff, since I am referring to Ascension levels there…. ︎
3. Probably ︎
4. Or Sudden Enlightenment ︎
5. I expected Dice Realms to make fifty, and it didn’t, but he’s got more than any other designer (for me). ︎

Games Played and quick notes (on new-to-me games)

• 1846 x3
• Dark Pact x3 — I finally got my copy just prior to the Gathering and played several games. I will have a review soon.
• Tricktaker’s Guide to the Galaxy x3 — I would definitely buy this if it were easily available. You deal out your hand, play a game of “No Thanks” to get rules (which give you +5 points if you fulfill them and -20 if you don’t) and then play the hand out. Nice fast filler.
• Bomb Busters x2
• The Gang (Deluxe Edition) x2 — Has rules for up to 10 players. Surprisingly … they work.
• Quartermaster General WW2 (2nd Edition) x2 — Really wanted to try the second edition. But didn’t have the expansion. I hear 2nd edition cleaned things up, but …. there were obvious mistakes on the box (2-5 players? Seriously?) and downgrades on the board (no SOP), so I wonder how carefully they cleaned up the cards.
• Scout x2
• Sides x2 — Cooperative password-ish game where you have to use clues starting with specific letters. Perfectly fine.
• 1822MX — Note to self, do not try to play using PNW rules for the first hour.
• 18EU (Minor Powers Variant) — I don’t know if the variant has been published, but it makes it similar to Railways of the Lost Atlas.
• Azure — Surprisingly good abstract filler that I’m still thinking about. Might buy, even though I dislike abstracts.
• Dice Realms
• Dune
• Fast Sloths — Cute enough, probably has good replay value with all the different animals you can put in the game (who carry around the sloths).
• Got Five! — Reasonable deduction game.
• High Frontier 4 All — Decided to splurge and upgrade my set. Played a 3 hour teaching game, not the 10+ hour game.
• Liar’s Dice
• Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship — Very clever improvement to the Pandemic system, and you can feel the theme. Not a purchase for me, but I’d play again. This was getting constant play
• Magical Athlete — Fun but stupid game-adjacent activity. “Bunco for Gamers” as Mrs. Tao might say.
• Meister Makatsu — Another Reiner card game filler, so … it works. Would play again.
• My Book Nook: Cozy Word Building Game — Good idea, mildly infuriating execution in that you score based on word length, but the hard letters give trivial bonuses (instead of saying “Count word as longer” or something). But do we hold cozy games to the same standards? (I do).
• Oath
• Petiquette — A clever party game idea (you get a sequence of animals with hats of various colors, with a ? and the judge decides which animal/hat/color combination should go there, and everyone tries to guess). But it got old way too fast. Avoid.
• Santa Fe
• Soothsayers — Maybe I got a bad rules explanation, but avoid and play Glory to Rome or any game in that family instead.
• Time Agent
• Titan
• & Two Unpublished Prototypes of which I will not speak. I also saw several other prototypes that I didn’t feel the need to play, because I mostly don’t play prototypes and they seemed like “I will not like this” or the occasional “I will simply buy this when it shows up¹).

So … most of the new games² are fine (nothing set my world on fire), whereas many of the older games had spectators and onlookers going “Wow, I haven’t seen that in ages.”

Part of me wants to do some stats on my games played by year (or counting by “hours played” instead of “plays,” which should shove the date several years back further) but I am tired right now. Perhaps later, unless there is a tool that already exists to do this?

Also, there was a nice memorial to Bill Cleary, who died last summer.

Update — Put a few stories on BGG.

1. More Mage Knight ︎
2. “That I played,” and I had a pretty high standard (the new game shelf covered a wall) although sometimes I just agreed to a blind game for the company. There were many new games that were obvious avoids if you share my tastes … point salads, etc. ︎

After playing 18CZ (again!), I was trying to pin down why I thought it was “OK” and not “Great.” Why does 1822 PNW make me want to get it back to the table, while CZ is merely a “Yeah, sure.” (I mean it’s still a positive feeling, but more “indifferent plus” than “suggest” or “enthusiastic“) and I think this comes down to one thing that I have touched upon a few times over the years, but bears repeating.

Entanglement — The (Not So) Secret Sauce

By their nature 18xx games are more entangled than most business games. In typical games, each player controls their own (single) corporation. What is good for the company is good for the player, and vice versa. In 18xx, a player can juggle multiple (competing) interests; it can be great to trash a company under your control (shifting its assets to a ‘better’ company).

This brings up the Principal-Agent Problem , but also Implicit Collusion because there might be other shareholders and they will want to know if the company is going to pay out or with-hold, and if it will be headed for a glorious future or Chapter 11.

It can be impossible to state the “right” play is for a company merely by looking at the board. You need to understand the stock split dynamics. Does the president own 60% (and 40% is in the IPO/Bank). Or is it a 40%/30%/30% (in a three player game). Treating those situations identically is a recipe for disaster.

So — The board position is entangled with the players’ stakes. That’s the “hook” of 18xx.

(Acquire also does this, and is rightly acknowledged as one of the greatest games of last century¹. Its board play is much simpler, the stock entanglement does the heavy lifting. In Chicago Express the entire game play revolves around implicit collusion — getting the incentives right so that others make plays to your benefit)

Of course there are levels of entanglement, and ripples to the chaos.

How many companies (and which ones) will open?

If the same companies open in the same order every game, the game will likely start to feel the same (although various splits of minors still have interest)². Varying how many companies (and which) provides variety because the “train rush” is triggered by that one additional company operating. In many games, there might be “semi-permanent” trains. If X companies open, they last. The X+1st company opens and they rust.

Some games (like the ’22 family) randomize the order that some companies show up in, this forces each play into a new line but also means that the number of viable companies might change, which has implications on the train rush.

More subtlety, 1846 achieves the same effect by having some dubious companies that frankly aren’t great. Is it worthwhile to open a second company? Uh, sometimes. For a long time the fact’ that the game’46 had mediocre companies puzzled me, but borderline companies are a ticking time bomb. If the incentives are right, someone will open them just to watch the world burn trains rust. The fact that their ROI isn’t great is borderline.

Thinking about this with 18CZ; I suspect that it does do better at this that I thought … but three players is not its sweet spot³. The train limit is a bit too generous at that count (at least in our meta). Again compare this against ’46, where the number of companies (and trains) varies based on player count to keep things tight.

How entangled is the board?

The game board should be small enough so that each company’s track plays have ripple effects.

The game that best exemplifies this is, naturally, Go. There are “joseki” — opening lines that theoritically should provide roughly equal chances for either side … in that particular corner. Professional players spend an inordinate amount of time on the first 20-30 moves (out of 150-250 ish) because the corners influence each other and the josekis will combine. Joseki A (in the NW corner) may be great if Joseki B is in the NE corner, but terrible if Joseki C is in the NE corner.

So you want to leave things in flux and arrange joseki(s) that work together in your favor.⁴

In our last few games of CZ, Eastern Side of the Board never impacted the Western Side … everyone met up at Prague, which held enough token slots that most companies could get through, and the ones that didn’t at the end had their runs on the appropriate side. Sure, there was jockeying between companies on each side, but the corners never impacted each other. (Again, might be a problem that is solved at more players).

Which is not to demand that “every company cares about every other company,” but there should be some tension and chokepoints; companies fighting to place track or station tiles. For example, ’46 has Chicago (and Toledo, and Indianapolis). PNW has Seattle and Portland literally fighting over growth.

CZ (at least with three) felt like it had walled off suburbs. My branch in the SE eventually merged with the NW companies (and the Northerner), but it was a minor event. Like finding a run worth an extra few dollars in share. A rounding error, not a bomb.

(1862 almost achieves “every company really cares about every other company”; because of merger opportunities but also because the board is so tight and different company charters will have very different track preferences).

And even companies far apart and destined to ne’er meet; they might compete over tiles. Every 18xx player knows the sinking feeling when you discover a needed tile is missing.⁵⁶

What doesn’t interest me

Hunting out the extra dollar and operations minutiae all the time. (Hunting out extra money in the opening is the entire point of compound interest). Yes, sometimes that extra dollar really matters. A few bucks might make the difference between buying another certificate. In that case, the extra few dollars is a “bomb⁷” (a big deal).

Token wars, snatching up the right train, ownership battles, dumping companies … those are always bombs. If the few extra dollars is a bomb only 1% of the time, it can be simplified away. But I’ve learned that in order to entangle the board (and stock) you have to have the possibility of not entangling it. Sometimes even great games can have a relatively dull run.

There are other things that don’t interest me. (I’m no longer fond of the ’30 family’s script of “first company low, second company saves first.” Nothing wrong with that play … but I’ve seen it enough). But in general I’m looking for a reason to play an 18xx title and most of them give me plenty.

1. The BGG HoF got some things wrong, but they got that right. ︎
2. I owned 1835 back in …. ’92 or ’93, but never got to try it. I know it has its defenders and variants…. ︎
3. After writing this, I went and checked BGG and 4p is listed as best with 3p and 6p having the lowest recommended numbers. ︎
4. I don’t play Go well enough to know how to do this; but I played enough to know this is true. See the proverb “Memorizing Joseki loses two stones.” ︎
5. Yes, its a horribly gamey thing …. why should the fact that some company hundreds of miles away built a branch mean you can’t? Well, just imagine that they got a compliant politician to hose you. ︎
6. Also, I swear that 1846 is influenced by Coriolis rotation of the earth, because tiles that are mirror images with 4 each will have one set empty and the other set untouched. ︎
7. For those readers unfamiliar with the term, I am using the meaning of “bomb” from a Jonathon DeGann Article, which is still available on the Wayback machine. ︎

In S. J. Simon’s book, “Why you lose at Bridge” he invents a character “Futile Willy.” Futile Willy isn’t bad (per se) but his defining feature is making bidding decisions that have limited rewards, but huge risks. Playing in a two session event with Roxie, our opponents are mostly what I deem “experienced novices” (playing for years, know a bit of bidding, but have not progressed far) mixed with intermediates. Perhaps two pairs are of similar caliber.

There are many ways to judge experience; one is knowing when to compete. And when not to compete.

Experts love …. LOVE … to get in the bidding, but also know when to shut up.

Example #1

I pick up something like xx AJxx Kxx JTxx and it goes 1D by Partner and 1S on my right.

I make a (negative) double, LHO passes, Partner bids 2C and RHO rebids two spades.

My negative double only guaranteed hearts, not clubs (I have five hearts with a hand too weak to bid); I actually have four clubs. So (despite having no extra values) a raise is reasonable because a) you never want to let them play at the two level unless they are in a misfit¹ and b) my hand is mostly “working”. The King of diamonds is probably golden given that partner has 8 or more minor cards, aces are always nice. (If I had points in spades, I’d be much more content to defend).

LHO hems and haws and then bids 3 Spades. Roxie and I are done, and I am happy to have an easy safe lead of the jack of clubs. (I could lead a diamond, to be sure, but it’s matchpoints).

The final auction

LHO CHO RHO Me
     1D  1S X
  P  2C  2S 3C
 3S  All Pass

Dummy is a massive surprise. Sure she has two spades, but also five clubs (Q9xxx)! Passing gets her an above average board, doubling gets a likely top and her actual bid gives her a terrible board. Afterwards neither partner and I could believe it.

Example #2

Later on I pick up a regular 1NT opening with something like S: Qx H: KJx D: KJxx C: AJxx.

Roxie responds 2 Hearts (a Jacoby Transfer, indicating spades) but before I bid RHO doubles (showing good hearts).

Roxie and I haven’t discussed it (at least — I’m not sure we have) but typically I play that accepting the transfer over a double confirms three (or more) in that suit. With only two spades I can pass, and partner can redouble to “re-transfer” or bid spades herself. (It probably doesn’t matter on this hand, but if she had the king of hearts instead of me…).

So I pass. Roxie then bids …. 4NT.

This is a quantitative slam try. I am at a minimum, so normally I’d pass … but my hearts are well placed. If RHO has AQxxx of hearts, I have two heart tricks, so my KJx of hearts is worth closer to six or seven points instead of four². Therefore, I bid six NT.

I get a surprise when Roxie shows up with Ax of Hearts. Was RHO doubling on Queen – sixth? Nope, just Qxxxx.

But in any case there is nothing to the play³ because LHO did not find the killing lead and instead led the suit partner had asked him to lead. Doubling on AQxxx and out is reasonable … you tell your partner what to lead. There’s a risk of getting redoubled (with KJTx or so behind you). but its an acceptable risk.

But with just a queen empty suit, the odds of a redouble (or other “bad luck” as in this hand) are high and do you really want partner to go out of his way to lead a heart?

Example #3

The most egregious example.

I pick up a strong NT, but I’m third to bid. Partner opens one club.

My hand is flat (4324) so the only issues are: A) do we have a major fit and B), does partner have extras.

I bid 1 Spade and partner rebids 1 NT. So the answers are A) No and B) No, therefore I’m bidding 3NT.

Except my RHO (who couldn’t bid over 1 Club) has doubled. They are vulnerable, we are not. 3NT is probably +400 to +460. We can get much, much more by defending. So, redouble.

Despite a slip up on our part, we get +500 easily for what should be a top (except that someone bid a hopeless slam and was allowed to make it). Without the slipup we easily beat the mere +990 for the non-vulnerable slam. What was RHO’s double? A semi-balanced ten count, after opener had fully described her hand. It would be one thing to double if I passed 1NT … then there would be an expectation points were (roughly) evenly divided.

In this case the double did nothing but offer me a fielder’s choice.

With us encountering three Futile Willys (or Wilhelminas), our mistakes merely turn tops into “almost tops”, so it’s a highly successful day.

1. And while they might be, nothing about my hand suggests so. Even if dummy has no spades, RHO’s spades are probably fine playing opposite a stiff, and partner’s spades and underneath them. ︎
2. KJx opposite xx is averages 1 trick (if honors are split) and gets 2 tricks 24% of the time and 0 tricks 24% of the time (when honors aren’t). So if KJx with no knowledge is one 4 points, KJx expecting both honors onside is worth more. (And 24% instead of 25% due to the Law of Vacant Spaces, which Wikipedia calls “Vacant Places” but OK) ︎
3. In fact, I missed a small risk-free line to make the overtrick; but it didn’t matter, because everyone else passed 4NT (assuming their partners even bid it). ︎

This video on the attempted hacking of XZ (and therefore, all of Linux and most of the Internet) is great, not only for the story but for the clear/concise descriptions of key exchange, public key encryption and compression work¹. (And I wasn’t aware of some of the other aspects, like audit hooks).

How far back can you understand English? A story where the language jumps 100 back every few paragraphs.

Play NetHack … in Factorio.

Why water infrastructure is so hard to get right, and the noble efforts of Ek Son Chan to fix it in Phnom Pen, including facing down an Army general and his body guards while personally installing a water meter on the general’s house.

That famous shot of Bigfoot has finally been exposed as a hoax (according to a new documentary).

Benjamin Franklin apparently coined many common terms related to electricity, which makes a lot of sense in hindsight.

Brick Technology (a video channel of Lego builds) programs cars to act like (simple) humans or robots and then sees how changes jam traffic.

I might have bought a Vizio TV in the past, before they required you to have a WalMart account.

A Crossword from Wei-Hwa Huang.

1. Because of my background was aware of some of them, but even so, well done. ︎

The computer version of Space Empires 4x (Space Imperia) has a steam demo and I took some time away from Slaying the Spire to try it.

This is a faithful implementation, nothing else. Right now the demo is against a (poor) AI only and with only parts of the tech-tree available but it was good enough for a demo. The full game promises multiplayer support. Given that Space Empires 4x is all about fog of war, feints and the balance of terror, multiplayer support is required (IMO) and a computer implementation would be a Very Good Thing as it would replace all the fumbling for chips and accounting errors.

A good AI would be a “nice to have” bonus feature, but I get it. It’s perfectly reasonable to learn the game. (I would hope that the full game would implement one of the solitaire variants/scenarios, but who knows?)

But what is it with GMT and computer implementations? Look, I get that programs have bugs (I submitted a few bug reports), but there is just a basic level of …. I don’t want to say incompetence, but maybe “I ain’t got time for that” on the developer’s side. (I rarely worked with graphics engines, but I’ve designed plenty of Graphical User Interfaces in my day). From what I saw:

• I’ve played SE4x multiple times (the last a few years ago) and even then sometimes I couldn’t do anything and would have to try and figure out why. It was usually correct, but the game never said “This vessel can’t explore” or anything useful.
• No Undo button for a misclick. I get that there are certain points you can’t undo, but there are many you should be able to.
• Frequently windows pop up over other windows, some buttons are hard to see against the background. (I thought the game had locked up but nope, some clear-bordered modal buttons were lurking.)
• When firing in combat, sometimes you must click multiple times to select a ship+target before the “fire” button appears.
• If there’s only one class of target, you still have to select it and fire for each ship instead of just having a “go ahead and just keep on that one class” (maybe just once/round, and then you can have your retreat/screen options).
• No way to speed up combat, or turn off the “yes, commander” when you select a ship (or the random blather they say when firing, just a few options and they got old very quickly) Yes, I could adjust the volume, but the one time they have some effects they are just annoying.
• If there was a way to combine stacks (that have the same exact stacks) I didn’t see it. I did see how to split stacks.
• The board would zoom into combat (fine) and zoom out, but then often back to a weird view. Honestly it feels like whenever they want to try to do something cool, it just makes it more confusing.

Also, because this is a computer game, I hope there are options like “No countermix limit.” The countermix limit existed in the board game because, well, yeah, there are limited counters. Maybe that makes the board game better. Maybe not.

Despite liking the board game, I doubt I will be purchasing the computer game.

Expanding on the Spoiler Free thoughts I had a week ago. Putting the rest in an expandable block, (in case you want to not see).

(For reference, I have cleared Ascension 7 with all characters but the NecroMancer, and have now played a half dozen ish games of co-op, including a brutal floor six loss.

Anyway, still enjoying it.

(This is not intended to spoil things, but it will mention things that could be construed as such if you want to be totally surprised. You have been warned).

Slay the Spire is a “Roguelike¹” you are trying to get through a procedurally generated dungeon and beat the boss. But combat and character progression was inspired by Dominion. You get better by adding cards to your deck (and removing bad cards from your deck). There are non-card based ways of getting stronger, like artifacts that grant you abilities (sometimes in combat, sometimes in the “master board” to borrow a phrase from Titan) or potions.

And Slay the Spire was massively influential. Right now I’m seeing ads on steam for Roguelike games but “using poker instead of dominion” (Balatro) or what not. Most are clear cash-in knock offs (though I’m told Balatro was good). So many (like me) were waiting anxiously to get their hands on the new version … Slay the Spire II has over 500,000 people playing concurrently.

But given that Mega Crit (the developers) were aware of Dominion and other popular games (and frequently drop in Easter eggs)², I wondered what mechanisms would show up in Slay the Spire 2.

What I’ve noticed so far:

Card Forging

In the first Slay the Spire, cards could be upgraded (“Foo” could become “Foo+”), and any Strike that was upgraded was the same. Typically some numbers on the card got better (and each card could only be upgraded once, with one exception). But StS2 has Card Forging. Cards can still be upgrade, but each card now has a slot that can add an “enchantment” and these enchantments are not specific to the card, but uniform. So if you say there are ~300 cards, in STS v1 there were 600 cards (300 base cards, 300 upgraded). If you keep the exact same cards in STS v2, but now there are X enchantments³ which means there are up⁴ to 600 times X valid card combos. And now a Foo could be Foo(+) and Enchantment-A or -B, -C, -D, etc.

And (some) enemies put negative enchantments on cards.

As a fan of combinatorics, love it. I’m wondering if they were inspired by Mystic Vale or Dice Forge or Dice Realms (or just thought of it independently). They didn’t go “whole hog” on it (at least, not in this version) but for the amount of programming of a few artifacts they’ve greatly increased the decision space.

Card Evolution

Arguably just a riff on card forging, these are cards that go into your deck in one form but can be triggered into a different form (usually via the masterboard). I took one of these quests (picking up a useless card that would be removed with a big reward later) and then at the final fight realized I’d never actually went to a space to evolve the card, which actually took a bit of work on my part.

Cooperative Play

Still haven’t tried it, but no doubt they were thinking of this even before the Slay the Spire board game. This required a ton of programming⁵ (unlike the card forging). Not much to say.

Alternate Masterboard Paths

This is probably pretty common in games, but just as in the Lord of the Rings expansion you can sometimes skip some location boards for others, now in StS II there are alternate acts. (I am not sure if you can control them, though. It’s more of a variety). I didn’t actually register this the first few times it happened, only when I saw some new regular (non-elite) encounters and wondered about it did I realize that “Acts” were switching between games. This is pretty common in expansions, though.

I don’t know if I’ll notice (or think of) more, but we’ll see….

Also — on an admin note, I have created a category for “Slay the Spire” (as well as tagging articles), so you can now click on that for articles. Most of the obvious ones should be in that category by now, but a few stragglers may not be.

1. As in “Based on Rogue, the computer game.” See the 20th Century Project’s entry on Rogue/Nethack. But the exact definition is highly debated, and some argue StS doesn’t qualify and is actually a “Roguelike-like” or “Rogue-lite.” This doesn’t matter for my article, but Wikipedia has more info if you care. ︎
2. For example the “Inserter” artifact, which is depicted as a Factorio inserter. ︎
3. I’ve seen five or six, and there might be more lurking about ︎
4. Some enchantments can only be added to some card types, so that’s a ceiling, not an exact number. ︎
5. Even before gameplay concerns, communication between computers and synchronization are a major pain to deal with. ︎

(I wrote this before seeing Fred’s comment in the prior post, but was tired and wanted to look at it before posting).

I’ve been slowly unlocking ascensions (I think there are 10 so far). I’ve unlocked up to the Asc 3 for all characters. This means there are still some things I haven’t unlocked.

TL;DR — It’s $25. Ridiculously cheap if you like deckbuilding games. There is a co-operative mode! If you liked the StS board game, this is the real thing. (All players would have to buy a copy, I think, which is still cheaper than buying the board game)

Some actual notes:

• Graphics — I liked the rough quality of the first edition, but the new one looks great. Animations are amazingly fluid. (Looking at you, Seapunk).
• I do wish they hadn’t arbitrarily changed icons/names for some potions/cards but it’s a minor nit.
• Overall I like the improvements to gameplay:
  • The new characters are interesting at first glance, although I have some concerns that one my be somewhat railroaded. (That was the comment discussion mentioned above)
  • There are now many more “boss relics” (which happen at the opening of the next act now).
  • There seem to be more potions and artifacts, which will again make things more variable between games.
  • The combinatorics (not small for the first game) are through the roof, because of … spoiler-y new things.
• I have not tried multiplayer, but I’d be open for it. I suspect it isn’t balanced well.
• I have laughed out loud several times at jokes in the game, but I did that for the first few hundred hours of StS, too.
• For the most part I easily clear the ‘old’ characters (which I am used to) and one of the new characters, but another new character I lost 6 times before getting my third wins (at 0,1 and 2). (I did like having the Run History in the first edition; it was detailed, and maybe its just hidden in some menu I haven’t seen, or a TBD feature. Update — Found it.)
• I also like what is missing — cards (and artifacts) that were ‘easy wins.’
  • Also missing is Watcher, which I’m not actually great at; but was a rather tedious character to play. She is not missed. I often just rotated the other three characters and skipped her.
• The minions and bosses continue to find new “bombs” (in game design terms) — Several are hard counters to certain strategies. Despite having only a handful of “regular’ monsters/elites/bosses, the mix seems quite good.

SO …. I think the deckbuilding has gotten more complex (not to mention the pathing and other strategy concerns), which is a good thing. I hope to try co-op.

Update — I’ve decided to buy an “Air Mouse” so I can at least stand up while playing. I’ll see if it’s any good.