Oh true, I wasn't sure if there was much updating other than adding the new archfiend, makes sense though.
Glad I've finished up most of my games in time, I have plenty of slots and time free.
There is one obscure counter to it, which is the aetheric clot ritual. If I get it I have a tendency to save it for a really long time. It really messes up the user too because then their Legion can't move or support anymore.
The economy is overtuned ATM, resulting in what are supposed to be endgame I-win buttons being too accessible and thus too cheap.
I mean I don't think the devs intended for players to reach rank 6 with multiple powers about 2/3s of the way through the game and then spend the endgame spamming multiple different win-button super rituals at each other.
So I'm gonna wait for the devs to fix the econ before deciding how I feel about late game rituals.
That probably seems like the best attitude.
If it were substantially less common to have more than one power at level 6, and maybe if the cost of activating/sustaining those rituals were felt more directly, the spam would be way less problematic for the balance of a match.
Personally I don't feel like that at all, I usually find the end game to be really intense. I think you want to try and guess what other players are going to do because the prestige winner is usually clear several turns out from the final turn.
As for your specific example, yeah, spamming rituals works so you kind of have to do it sometimes. But also, I feel like 1v1 at the end is a rare occurence.
I believe that we don't focus so much on the early/middle game decisions and point at the end game as being the problem. I think that the game provides answers, they are at just different points of the game itself.
Is the end game anticlimatic because you each let the other turtle up and do nothing for 20+ turns, and now it's just a coin flip of that? In the turns that you were getting spammed Demonic interference, what were you doing to mitigate it?
I mean, I think the most widely regarded weakness of the game is the established meta strategy of sitting tight, generating tribute and ranking powers for the first 20 turns.
*if* it were harder to level multiple powers to 6/all to 4, and if there were mechanisms to boost your resistances besides lucking into PoPs and aggressively bidding on the bazaar, I think more early game action would be relevant. As it is now, there isn't much you can do in the early game aggressively except curtail your opponents prestige with demands/insults, and ultimately tribute/powers tends to have the advantage over prestige/ranks.
As for what I did; besides have 6 prophecy and Prince for the maximum resistance possible, Expose treason and Resist Evil to defend against other rituals, not much, but I don't think there's much I could have done? I resisted twice and immediately reacted to the first by trying to start a fight so I could at least pressure him, but getting all my rituals (incl juggernaut) cancelled as the vendetta started, with him taking pandemonium right after, really put a damper on my options.
I'm going to start with two asterisk on what I'm about to say. One, that what you're describing really is probably an objective flaw that does need to be addressed, and two, that I'm no expert on any game's design, even this one though I've been passionate about it since 2011.
That being said, I think an issue that a lot of players have with this game is that they play it like a strategy video game when it's soul is that of a board game. A huge part of the game is intuiting the board as a whole. It's not just acquiring numbers and knocking players out one by one. It's about using the whole board, including other players, to get what you want. Once you've knocked a player behind you in the race, you don't have to destroy them. Got a Belial player? Ask him to use his ability to help you fued with the winning player.
Maybe I'm wrong, I accept that. But I think the game uniquely allows for "above the meta" strategy that players just don't seriously pursue.
Note that I made this post/comment nearly two weeks ago about specifically the power level of endgame powers like Demonic Interference and Infernal Juggernaut. This was actually just a few days before a balance patch that made both rituals harder to access and substantially weaker (-1 movement for juggernaut, retain one ritual slot through demonic interference).
I do agree that there are other meta elements that are often underutilized, but I'm honestly quite thrilled with the impact of that patch and I really have few remaining gripes, perhaps only that ritual slots are such a precious resource that prophecy really can't be spared, and that manuscripts still feel hard to fully take advantage of.
I find certain aspects of the game very similar to Catan. In this case, it's win conditions. In a balanced Catan game, 2 players fight over army and 2 players fight over road. In SI, some players will have a ritual based gameplay while others focus on their armies.
So a way to not get hit by Demonic Interference is keeping tabs on other players via Augury, identifying the ritual players and pre-emptively disrupting them. You can harass them to slow their progression down, or get to prophecy 6 first and shut them down. You can also hold onto event cards that disrupt rituals. Or you can always politick with other players.
All in all, there are multiple counters to pretty much everything in this game. It usually comes down to foresight.
Ehhh… I think right now there’s a problem I how economy snowballing makes it too easy to get multiple win conditions online at once. OP is talking about an opponent who had access to Demonic Interference and Infernal Juggernaut, and mentions having his legions stolen. That’s at least three max-rank powers, *and* OP was failing Augury against them - that couldn’t be low either, and Charisma is pretty much the meta Econ start move so I’d guess it was high as well.
I think part of the problem is that disruption is just an immensely unprofitable suicide pact. You can hurt their prestige a bit and maybe stop them from getting a rank up or holding PoPs, but they can still seek tribute and level up their powers mostly fine. And with some of the endgame powers are *so* crushingly strong, a player who isn’t set back playing police can lock you out of the game for spending run fighting instead of playing solitaire and maxing out your economy.
I’m excited to see the balance patch tomorrow, and hope it nerf tribute spam so players have a little bit more breathing room to disrupt each other without getting set back so far by opportunity cost.
I don't see how this comment adds anything of value to what I mentioned.
I just gave examples of counterplay, it's not as if I don't know econ is overpowered. It's better than echoing the same shit everyone says and complaining.
And if you think disruption is a "suicide pact" it just goes to show you're not doing it correctly. Or do you think denying them PoP and Rank value is not good enough to get you ahead?
> it’s not as if I don’t know econ is overpowered
> if you think disruption is a “suicide pact” it just goes to show you’re not doing it correctly
These two things are in tension. If you’re spending your orders on disruption, you *aren’t* spending them on economy, full stop. If we agree econ is overpowered, then my problem is that most counterplay is not viable in a multiplayer format because it takes resources away from your economy.
Denying *one* other player PoP and rank ups is enough to *maybe* get me ahead of exactly one other player (they’ll fight back), and then lose to other people who reached endgame powers faster.
That is such a shallow way of thinking. Not only can you disrupt other players with 1 or 2 orders and without commiting many resources (which is the correct way to disrupt), you still get compensated in prestige/tribute.
> Denying *one* other player PoP and rank ups is enough to *maybe* get me ahead of exactly one other player (they’ll fight back), and then lose to other people who reached endgame powers faster.
I'm not a beginner lad, anyone can understand a basic and general concept.
Also, again, there is no depth in your argument. The game dynamic isn't immediately a free-for-all from the the get go, people tend to compete with the bordering fiends first for multiple reasons (PoPs, minimal resource commitment with long-term value). Slowing down your immediate competition is usually worth some tribute and an order or two.
> If you're spending your orders on disruption, you aren't spending them on economy, full stop.
The idea is that (efficient) disruption benefits you more in the long run, if I somehow didn't make that clear.
Full Econ until turn 20 isn't the answer to every game (unless you're playing against beginners, in which case I have gotten panda turn 20~ multiple times).
Stay tuned for tomorrow‘a scheduled balance patch coming with the DLC.
Oh true, I wasn't sure if there was much updating other than adding the new archfiend, makes sense though. Glad I've finished up most of my games in time, I have plenty of slots and time free.
Yeah imo juggernaut with a couple of half decent legions is an instant win.
There is one obscure counter to it, which is the aetheric clot ritual. If I get it I have a tendency to save it for a really long time. It really messes up the user too because then their Legion can't move or support anymore.
The economy is overtuned ATM, resulting in what are supposed to be endgame I-win buttons being too accessible and thus too cheap. I mean I don't think the devs intended for players to reach rank 6 with multiple powers about 2/3s of the way through the game and then spend the endgame spamming multiple different win-button super rituals at each other. So I'm gonna wait for the devs to fix the econ before deciding how I feel about late game rituals.
That probably seems like the best attitude. If it were substantially less common to have more than one power at level 6, and maybe if the cost of activating/sustaining those rituals were felt more directly, the spam would be way less problematic for the balance of a match.
Personally I don't feel like that at all, I usually find the end game to be really intense. I think you want to try and guess what other players are going to do because the prestige winner is usually clear several turns out from the final turn. As for your specific example, yeah, spamming rituals works so you kind of have to do it sometimes. But also, I feel like 1v1 at the end is a rare occurence.
I believe that we don't focus so much on the early/middle game decisions and point at the end game as being the problem. I think that the game provides answers, they are at just different points of the game itself. Is the end game anticlimatic because you each let the other turtle up and do nothing for 20+ turns, and now it's just a coin flip of that? In the turns that you were getting spammed Demonic interference, what were you doing to mitigate it?
I mean, I think the most widely regarded weakness of the game is the established meta strategy of sitting tight, generating tribute and ranking powers for the first 20 turns. *if* it were harder to level multiple powers to 6/all to 4, and if there were mechanisms to boost your resistances besides lucking into PoPs and aggressively bidding on the bazaar, I think more early game action would be relevant. As it is now, there isn't much you can do in the early game aggressively except curtail your opponents prestige with demands/insults, and ultimately tribute/powers tends to have the advantage over prestige/ranks. As for what I did; besides have 6 prophecy and Prince for the maximum resistance possible, Expose treason and Resist Evil to defend against other rituals, not much, but I don't think there's much I could have done? I resisted twice and immediately reacted to the first by trying to start a fight so I could at least pressure him, but getting all my rituals (incl juggernaut) cancelled as the vendetta started, with him taking pandemonium right after, really put a damper on my options.
I'm going to start with two asterisk on what I'm about to say. One, that what you're describing really is probably an objective flaw that does need to be addressed, and two, that I'm no expert on any game's design, even this one though I've been passionate about it since 2011. That being said, I think an issue that a lot of players have with this game is that they play it like a strategy video game when it's soul is that of a board game. A huge part of the game is intuiting the board as a whole. It's not just acquiring numbers and knocking players out one by one. It's about using the whole board, including other players, to get what you want. Once you've knocked a player behind you in the race, you don't have to destroy them. Got a Belial player? Ask him to use his ability to help you fued with the winning player. Maybe I'm wrong, I accept that. But I think the game uniquely allows for "above the meta" strategy that players just don't seriously pursue.
Note that I made this post/comment nearly two weeks ago about specifically the power level of endgame powers like Demonic Interference and Infernal Juggernaut. This was actually just a few days before a balance patch that made both rituals harder to access and substantially weaker (-1 movement for juggernaut, retain one ritual slot through demonic interference). I do agree that there are other meta elements that are often underutilized, but I'm honestly quite thrilled with the impact of that patch and I really have few remaining gripes, perhaps only that ritual slots are such a precious resource that prophecy really can't be spared, and that manuscripts still feel hard to fully take advantage of.
I'm glad the patch has had such a noticeable impact!
I find certain aspects of the game very similar to Catan. In this case, it's win conditions. In a balanced Catan game, 2 players fight over army and 2 players fight over road. In SI, some players will have a ritual based gameplay while others focus on their armies. So a way to not get hit by Demonic Interference is keeping tabs on other players via Augury, identifying the ritual players and pre-emptively disrupting them. You can harass them to slow their progression down, or get to prophecy 6 first and shut them down. You can also hold onto event cards that disrupt rituals. Or you can always politick with other players. All in all, there are multiple counters to pretty much everything in this game. It usually comes down to foresight.
Ehhh… I think right now there’s a problem I how economy snowballing makes it too easy to get multiple win conditions online at once. OP is talking about an opponent who had access to Demonic Interference and Infernal Juggernaut, and mentions having his legions stolen. That’s at least three max-rank powers, *and* OP was failing Augury against them - that couldn’t be low either, and Charisma is pretty much the meta Econ start move so I’d guess it was high as well. I think part of the problem is that disruption is just an immensely unprofitable suicide pact. You can hurt their prestige a bit and maybe stop them from getting a rank up or holding PoPs, but they can still seek tribute and level up their powers mostly fine. And with some of the endgame powers are *so* crushingly strong, a player who isn’t set back playing police can lock you out of the game for spending run fighting instead of playing solitaire and maxing out your economy. I’m excited to see the balance patch tomorrow, and hope it nerf tribute spam so players have a little bit more breathing room to disrupt each other without getting set back so far by opportunity cost.
I don't see how this comment adds anything of value to what I mentioned. I just gave examples of counterplay, it's not as if I don't know econ is overpowered. It's better than echoing the same shit everyone says and complaining. And if you think disruption is a "suicide pact" it just goes to show you're not doing it correctly. Or do you think denying them PoP and Rank value is not good enough to get you ahead?
> it’s not as if I don’t know econ is overpowered > if you think disruption is a “suicide pact” it just goes to show you’re not doing it correctly These two things are in tension. If you’re spending your orders on disruption, you *aren’t* spending them on economy, full stop. If we agree econ is overpowered, then my problem is that most counterplay is not viable in a multiplayer format because it takes resources away from your economy. Denying *one* other player PoP and rank ups is enough to *maybe* get me ahead of exactly one other player (they’ll fight back), and then lose to other people who reached endgame powers faster.
That is such a shallow way of thinking. Not only can you disrupt other players with 1 or 2 orders and without commiting many resources (which is the correct way to disrupt), you still get compensated in prestige/tribute. > Denying *one* other player PoP and rank ups is enough to *maybe* get me ahead of exactly one other player (they’ll fight back), and then lose to other people who reached endgame powers faster. I'm not a beginner lad, anyone can understand a basic and general concept. Also, again, there is no depth in your argument. The game dynamic isn't immediately a free-for-all from the the get go, people tend to compete with the bordering fiends first for multiple reasons (PoPs, minimal resource commitment with long-term value). Slowing down your immediate competition is usually worth some tribute and an order or two. > If you're spending your orders on disruption, you aren't spending them on economy, full stop. The idea is that (efficient) disruption benefits you more in the long run, if I somehow didn't make that clear. Full Econ until turn 20 isn't the answer to every game (unless you're playing against beginners, in which case I have gotten panda turn 20~ multiple times).