Moar Spirit Island!!

 Moar Spirit Island!!

Why stage my own game photos when Shut Up and Sit Down already does it so beautifully?

As I mentioned in my previous post, we ended up playing quite a lot of Spirit Island. So this post will detail the final 3 games of the weekend that we played! The first was a game against another Adversary: this time, it was Level 1 Sweden. If you're not familiar with Sweden, they don't offer any additional loss conditions, but their Escalation will sometimes replace Dahan with Towns, and that can add up quickly if it's not anticipated. Since we were only playing Level 1, the only ability with which we had to contend (in addition to the Escalation, of course) was "Heavy Mining: If the Invaders do at least 6 damage to the land during Ravage, add an extra Blight. The additional Blight does not destroy Presence of cause cascades." Biff chose to play Heart of the Wildfire while Cush thought it might be fun to use Finder of Ways to feed Invaders to fire. Those choices led me to play Downpour Drenches the World. I find this Spirit difficult to play because there's much for me to track (specifically between "Pour Down Power Across the Island," which allows me to either gain Energy or repeat land-targeting Power Cards and "Rain and Mud Suppress Conflict," which grants each of my lands Defend 1 and lowers Dahan Counterattack by 1 per Presence I have there) and anticipate, and it can be easy for me to miscalculate Defense versus damage when I'm doing that math every turn during the Spirit Phase. But I also thought it would behoove us to have some consistent defense at hand given Sweden's ability to convert Dahan to Towns and also their Heavy Mining ability.

That board on the right is Biff's, and those Invaders might kinda be in danger...

This was a game in which I was less worried about Blight overtaking the board just because I'm familiar with how Heart of the Wildfire plays and the reckless abandon can pay serious dividends when it comes to burning things down. As Downpour, it didn't take me long to expand into Cushman's board (as he was playing Finder of Ways) so I could throw up some defense on 2 of the 3 boards. Biff's, needless to say, was basically clean throughout the game. I know Cush got a little frustrated because he couldn't defend himself and also couldn't kill things, but honestly, Finder was integral to our plans, since there were a bunch of things Biff could only remove through Finder's help. Sometimes, Spirit Island can feel just a little bit like several people playing solitaire with occasional help. There have been games where I mostly stick to my own board and address my own business, other players do the same, and we occasionally throw each other a little help by way of a Defend or maybe allowing someone else to gain some Energy or something. And there's something to be said for the efficiency of dealing with the Invaders like that! But for me, it sometimes leads to these moments of quiet wherein I've got my board on lock that it sort of feels like parallel games of solitaire. So this was a game in which I really felt as though our choices, both during setup and gameplay, really pushed us to be interdependent on one another. In some ways, I couldn't get a leg-up on Invader actions because I was so busy trying to defend two boards. But on the other hand, this is an essential part of Downpour's design, right? It's so proficient at shutting down conflict that if I'm not going to lean into that strength, I should have picked a different Spirit.

But Biff also took a minute to build up. As he described it in our post-game debrief, "it was like an episode of Dragon Ball Z, where you guys were doing stuff and I was over here powering up, going 'AHHHHHHH!!!!'" And of course, by the time he had built up, the Invaders had quite a lot of presence all over the board. So getting all of the buildings off the board was going to prove difficult. But at this point, Biff was generating so much Fear from the things he was destroying or encircling, Cush and I were able to pitch in, generate even more Fear, and lead us to a Terror victory. It was a pretty satisfying win! I had played Downpour before and ultimately enjoy the Spirit because it doesn't comfortably fit into my play-style. It also absolutely makes my head hurt with all of the book-keeping I need to do in the Spirit Phase. But I really enjoy the challenge and I admire the design space in which I imagine this Spirit was created!

We switched it up for game 5 by moving away from Adversaries and playing a Scenario instead. I've played far more Adversaries than Scenarios, so I'm less familiar with the latter than the former. The one I've got the most experience with is "Despicable Theft," and man, do I hate that one. I would never call it "impossible" or anything like that, I just often find it difficult to keep it in mind as an important objective. We ended up rolling out Varied Terrains. It felt like it added enough wrinkles to the game to be challenging without changing the complexion of the game the way that "A Diversity of Spirits" or "The Great River" do. I did not wait to see which Spirit would be complementary this time, as we'd had so much success and I felt like trying something new. So I chose Shifting Memory of Ages. I'd seen it used to great effect before and I thought it would be a lot of fun to try out a Spirit that is all too happy to take and use Major Powers early. Biff went with Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island, and Cush picked Lure of the Deep Wilderness.

This ended up working out pretty well for everyone, as Lure and Memory don't (strictly speaking) need that much Presence on the board. We're happy to get it off our tracks! But we don't *need* it everywhere. As a result, there was plenty of Presence for Serpent to reliably absorb. That said, we also got hit with a lot of Blight early based on the Invader cards and the fact that Jungles and Sands add Blight much more easily with Varied Terrains than in the standard game. For those who don't know, the rules are as follows:

• Jungles Clear-Cut for Land: After Invaders Build 1 or more Cities in a Jungle, add 1 Blight there.
• Fragile Sands: After Setup - Blight added to Sands cascades as if Blight were already present, even when it is not.

We just happened into a situation wherein the Jungles Blighted early and the Sands cascaded early. By turn 3, we were really struggling to keep up with all of the Invader actions. I wasn't quite drawing into the game-swinging Major Powers for which I was hoping, and since I kept swinging for the fences, I was just kinda banging my head against the wall. And Cushman was having difficulty with his board because the Sands and Jungles near his coast kept repelling him from pulling Invaders out of there before they could add more Blight to the board. But in yet another instance of me being far too wary of trying to play with a Blighted Island, this probably wasn't quite as close as it felt to me. It really felt, to me, like our backs were against the wall because there was so much Blight spreading around the island and it really felt like we weren't treading water so much as being drowned very slowly. But somewhere around turn 5, the respective machines each of us had been building started clicking and we were suddenly able to hold our ground. Then it became easy for us to not just gain ground, but gain entire football fields against the Invaders. So it felt like an extremely hard swing in the other direction. Once we were able to swing back hard, it was a no-contest situation.

Honestly, I wish I could recount these games round by round, but there's so much that happens and I'm not used to writing turn by turn recounts of these games. Especially because I wasn't taking notes throughout or sitting down and writing stuff down throughout the game. Maybe for some future games, I will do this. But truth be told, this wasn't a time or place in which I felt like slowing down the game just so I could document it all. But it all felt quite a lot closer than it might have been, depending on what was on the other side of that Healthy Island card. I know not everyone feels the same way, but I think this game does a fantastic job of building suspense and some of that is just how much I dislike the notion of flipping over that Island card from Healthy to Blighted.

Heading into our sixth and final game of the weekend, Cush decided he wanted to double down on Lure and try it again with a more solid understanding of how it worked. As we decided to play against Level 2 Habsburg, we knew that any Cities to be built in-land would instead be 2 Towns. Biff immediately seized on this and chose to play Shadows Flicker Like Flame, knowing that burning through the Fear deck quickly would put us in a good position to win the game at Terror Level 3, since ostensibly, it would be easier to eliminate all Cities if they could only build those on the coasts. He also decided to mix it up a little bit by employing the Foreboding aspect. It generates so much more Fear, and also makes for a good way to bully Explorers and Towns as a result of generating said Fear. I chose to play it a little safe and give us thoroughly reliable defense from Blight by using A Spread of Rampant Green. It's a Spirit with which I feel very comfortable and always enjoy playing, given that it's in my top 3 Spirits.

This was the game in which we sort of reckoned with my extreme reticence to risk flipping to a Blighted Island card. Biff drew into the Minor Power, "Land of Haunts and Embers" early and was all-in on it. You can see the card's effects below:

It's not all great, but the vast majority of the art in this game is fantastic.

Needless to say, he was not only creating Blight, but he was triggering Cascades because he was targeting lands that already had Blight in order to maximize the Fear created by the Power. I'm honestly kind of horrified by that choice because by the end of the first Ravage, we're already 4 Blight deep on the Island card; we've only got 2 left on there! That said, I also really admire the design of this game because it's so unlike other co-op games I've played. In other co-op games, I have definitely run into the "alpha tendency," in which at least one player will attempt to take on the role of "alpha" by directing what other players are doing with their characters. In games like Descent or Imperial Assault, it's easy enough to keep track of the rest of the party and their abilities for an alpha to consistently suggest or aggressively push the actions that they think everyone else should take. It's even easier for this to happen in more symmetrical co-op games such as Pandemic, wherein the players have fewer differences between their character abilities. One of the most engaging aspects of cooperative games is the ability to coordinate with other players in order to take the best approach in any given situation. It's fun to coordinate with other players as a way of basically solving the puzzle presented by the game.

But it's a slippery slope to only one or two people playing the game while other players are simply along for the ride, basically doing what the alpha(s) end up telling them to do. Some people are genuinely happy to do this! But a lot of us resent not being able to play the game without so much interference. I have definitely run into this before, and while I do my best not to be an alpha during a co-op game, I'm sure there are times when I'm offering too much advice. Again, I try really hard not to! But I also know I sometimes get really enthusiastic about a game and it can come across in a way I prefer it not. Anyway, all of this is to say that I think alphas are far less common in Spirit Island. The game is so very asymmetrical and there are so many things going on that I think it's hard to keep track of what other people are up to. More often than not, I simply ask other players vague questions such as, "Do you have that Ravage covered?" or "Can you offer me anything in the way of Defend in that land?" I'm really just asking "yes or no" questions rather than asking "how are you doing it?" I've got so much of my own stuff to keep in my head that I am not sticking my nose in other peoples' business. The only time I ask "how are you taking care of that?" is if I'm figuring out what's being killed, what's being moved...the sort of thing that might impact my own plans for the turn. I mentioned either earlier in this post or in another post that it can sometimes feel (depending on party composition) as though Spirit Island is several people playing parallel games of solitaire. This is partially caused by everyone staying on their own boards and basically minding their own business, and partially caused by the fact that there's a lot to juggle on any given turn and so we don't have a lot of time or energy left to peek in on what other folks are doing. The upside here is that it's uncommon to see those alphas while playing this game.

I mention all of this because if I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure I'd have been all over Biff for playing "Land of Haunts and Embers" so *irresponsibly.* Admittedly, we have the kind of gaming relationship to have those conversations. But seriously: how obnoxious would it have been for me to do this? Sure, I'm focused on winning the game and I'm worried about too much Blight on the island, but truly, it would've been obnoxious. I don't like being told how to play my Spirit, so why would anyone else like to be called out on how they're playing theirs? Plus, the card is designed in such a way that it rewards choices that cause Blight to cascade. So the card is *meant* to be played that way. So while I was sitting over in my corner with my eye twitching as I watched more and more Blight hit the island, sure enough, we had to flip the Island card.

As it turns out, we held out longer than I anticipated, but we did flip it. And we flipped right into "Aid From Lesser Spirits." See below:

Not so bad, right? I mean, hell, it's nearly all upside for us. The only downside is only getting an additional 2 Blight per player back on the card. But at this point, we have the board decently well in hand and are pretty advanced in the Fear deck. Despite having to chew through more Fear cards against this Adversary (4 Fear cards for Terror Level 1, 5 Fear cards for Terror Level 2), we've been pretty effective at burning through them. So we end up winning by eliminating the final city just as we enter Terror Level 3, but before we ever hit the third stage of Invader cards. It was a solid win! But then we debriefed about Blight, and this is when I really learned just how much I'd imparted my own fear of flipping the card from Healthy to Blighted to the people I teach. Cush and Biff both talked about how they basically thought a Blighted Island meant we were going to lose. Or rather, had already effectively lost the game. I didn't realize I'd stressed this so much. But it also occurred to me that I didn't know what most of the Blighted Island cards do in the first place because I always work so hard to prevent it from flipping in the first place.

Does this come from Pandemic and knowing how quickly the game can escalate when Outbreaks start occurring? Maybe? I'm not sure. But when I talked to my friend Roger about this, he sort of thought for a moment and then agreed, saying he hadn't thought about it much, but it was always in the back of his mind as Blight being the worst thing that could happen if it meant flipping the Healthy Island card. After much back and forth with Cush and Biff, it really struck me just how hands-off I am with teaching and playing the game except when it comes to Blight and how bad it is.

I thought it would hurt less to hear that from Chris Traeger, but it turns out I was mistaken.

So! New plans moving forward!

1. Don't stress how bad Blight is to other players, and especially new players.
2. Be more eager to mess around with Spirits and Powers that create Blight.

To that end, the next time I tangle with Russia, I've already decided to pair Heart of the Wildfire with Many Minds Move As One. Oh, I'm certain it's a terrible idea! It's such a small board that throwing Blight around like that will probably sink me real fast. But the worst that happens is I lose and go back to the drawing board. I've already done that several times with Level 3 Russia, so what's one more loss?

Overall, it was a really fun weekend! I really had planned on trying out some new games and I sorta did that. But really, a whole weekend of Spirit Island was just as much fun as I thought it would be. And it was good to learn that I could play 6 games of Spirit Island over two days and still be ready to come back for a seventh. Spirit Island firmly remains at the top of my list as my favorite game.