In my early games with the Admiral, I never spent a cent unless I was upgrading the three Ammo cards or repairing the ship. With 600 coins, his cards are very powerful on their own. It’s hard to restrain yourself from spending money when you’re rolling in it, but well worth it in the long run. I only took relics or awesome cards like ‘Bard Skills’, ‘Full Upgrade’ or quality melee cards or consumables. The Admiral also relies a bit on good luck, so while I was getting used to him, if I didn’t get the card draws I was after or I’d wasted money ‘refreshing’ too many times, I’d quit and reload the game. The game always loads back up again to right before the last event or fight. After awhile, you hardly ever need to heal at a Tavern anymore, I usually keep a banana consumable and a card that clones it in hand just in case, just don’t consume the original card. There’s an event where you lose health to upgrade your cards, I usually upgrade three times losing 30 health because there’s many other ways of getting health back. I always take a Belt relic when I can and usually at least one ‘Barrage’ card. A good strategy to cycle easily through your deck is the relic that lets you pick up a card every time you lose health on your turn and the melee card that hurts you two health for using it. As you know, there’s so many strategies and cards that you have to adapt on the fly depending on the draws you get. But that’s what keeps drawing me back for another run. My favourites in this genre are Dream Quest and NOTFM, and this one is easily the new king of the hill for me, simply for its huge variety in character and card design. And it’s just very fun to play. Hope the above is helpful in some way. Edit: Of course, buying the extra relic slot & 20 extra ship AP help a lot too.
for me, heroes first. each heroes (so far) plays differently. Reminds me of the MOBA genre when they introduce a new hero. Adds variety. Then i'm saving up towards either the extra relic as it is universal for the rest of the characters or extra ship AP. AP as i mentioned earlier, i tend to forget, like a lot and it can end a good run disastrously which is kinda depressing (that makes me a bad captain). booster wise, i haven't really give it much thought. as for HP, its a mere 10%. It does matter like certain times you're able to get by narrowly but i would invest in other areas first. I'll keep those tips in mind and see how i go. the upgrade using the cursed anvil or something i definitely do, the HP can be healed back either by consuming the banana or at tavern. 10 hp for 30 is rather cheap compared to an actual upgrade that costs 50, 100, etc. i bought NOTFM but haven't try it yet. now fully focuses on this right now. haven't even 100% the first map. its soooo addictive. Have you guys seen the post over at Fable games? https://fabledgame.com/dev-blog new maps, new heroes and i think more varieties on the events. I'm looking forward to all of these and dare i say, i will purchase the map packs/heroes even with IAP (hopefully not too expensive and there's enough difference between each of them). Can't wait! Keep plundering guys! arrrrr
I’m still grasping the alchemist but boy, once you get the engine going. U can do some crazy sick play. I can go on forever like this... haha. Make sure you upgrade the unstable alchemist, it produces Catalyst that reloads 2. Important note, do not spend all ammo without generating at least 1 Catalyst. Else it’s essentially game over. I know you can probably cycle melee cards but when it comes to boss, they don’t mess around.
Anyone ever killed that 999 hp treasure chest hiding behind the boss? I've seen it a few times and never been able to kill it. Curious what it holds. Also absolutely loving this game. Fantastic. Bought the Admiral to further support the game. Agreed the Admiral is challenging; so hard not to spend coins during the run. Only win I have with him is when I got the relic that gives 20% more gold after a battle. Thanks for the advice!
I think I’ve ‘killed’ the treasure chest you’re talking about, twice now. You get three powerful gem cards from inside which you definitely need, because as soon as you break it open the pirate becomes super pissed off at you for stealing his booty! The second time I opened it I got nothing, but I think that was a bug. Edit: As pointed out below, I haven’t come across that chest yet, my mistake.
There are two bosses with a chest. One you can easily kill and I got three gems out of killing it. And one with a 999hps chest. I think you must have killed the first one rather than the second one. You would have noticed if you had to do 999hps.
Yeah, was about to say that. I tried to but I noticed that when you hurt that chest. It powered up the boss to. Probably need to use bleed effect. Hmmmm. Very very curious what it holds.
Just wanna say a big screeeew you to this guy. With the upgraded Tranquility (which is a must), I just cycle through my cards. Stacking armor and let him hit me all day long. But I have gotta always plan ahead. Scroll up to see his portrait, when while progressing towards him, get tranquility and upgrade it.
For anyone wondering - reputation caps at 9999 I’ve unlocked all worlds, and bought the amiral - all characters are unlocked ! I’m now working on unlocking the upgrades as well as cards for each world. The last world is quite fun, being spirit-themed. Overall after 2/3 weeks playing, for 4€ (Including the currency doubler..) it’s well worth the price.
Could u pls put a spoilers tag (not sure how to do this?) and explain to us what is special about the last spirit map? I’m saving up to probably unlock extra relic slot. $10k gold. Gosh
The more I played, the more I think that the first $1 is just enough to enjoy the full game if you have a lot of free time, especially if you know when to quit the game, since you get enough rewards when you quit the game after you just finished the chapter. I think the first chapter boss is really easy if you build the deck in the right direction, so I keep defeating the first chapter boss and just quit the game to unlock more and more cards to increase variation to the deck, some cards is just powerful enough to make me think about how can I build a stronger deck next time. That is risky to continue the journey when you don’t unlock enough powerful cards first, you just wasted your time since the deck is not strong enough. The booster is more like an option way to speed up the progress, that doesn’t mean you will become stronger, you still have to think about how to build your deck in the right direction. For $1 you can experience all 5 original heroes and 3 chapter to explore if you have a lot of time to grind it, if not just purchase the booster to save your time, that is fair in my opinion. The Admiral is more like a bonus character dlc with a big support to the developer, the hero is not easy to master as well, purchase it if you master all 5 heroes already, or just want to support the developer.
It's still pirates, but you're fighting ghosts. They have some specific abilities which provides a welcome change & variation vs World 1 & 2. Don't want to spoil too much, but basically world 2 & 3 are more challenging than World 1, but also unlock some new powerful cards.
Just finished Pirates Bay with Sword Master and Explorer. What a game!! So addictive. Must try harder with Gunner. Not sure which hero to try next - Alchemist or Curse Captain. Any advice from you experts out there?
While I’m no expert, I could share some thoughts having unlocked all of the heroes. The curse captain uses the curse cards to his advantage. U cannot play a curse card although u can use it as a mean to discard for certain card’s cost requirement. He receives different buffs depending on how many curse cards he has in his deck at the start of the match I believe and each powers up his trait cards too (more damage, more armor). Alchemist - I’m playing through as her now. Very fun, it’s sort of a bit of RNG as you need to use her trait card to fuse 2 different cards together to get a brand new card while powering up your attack for that round and also gives u a card that refills ammo and draws a card. U basically need to get this engine going. Once it’s up, you can be ridiculously powerful and can cycle through cards pretty quickly while keeps refilling ammo. Depends on which one u want to experience first. I still haven’t manage to beat the first map with gunner. Does anyone thinks that he’s better off with 4 ammo slots by default? The warrior starts off with just 2 ammo slots but she gains life steal below certain hp, gunner’s trait is reload. Not sure if giving him 4 ammo slots + ability to refill makes him too OP though but probably I’ll trade auto refill with 4 ammo slots. Hmmmm
Thanks for the reply. Looks like the Alchemist will be good fun. Glad I’m not the only one struggling with Gunner!
When I started with the explorer I was stunned at how much weaker than Gunner it felt - I play Gunner with a tight deck and heavy use of the Issue Order card (always the first one I upgrade). I haven’t had any real trouble with him.
I'm just adding my voice to the chorus of people saying what a great game this is. I'm a grindy sort of person so I'm happily tootling along learning how to play gunner; though I would have bought it at a single price of $5. 99p + IAP is particularly grim for families, because IAP isn't shared - which makes sense if you're buying consumables but not if you're unlocking content. Meanwhile, reviewers who compare this to Slay the Spire are automatically suspect, partly because StS is not on iOS so it's totally irrelevant, like saying 'this is a tasty vegan meal but not as nice as a bacon sandwich', but mostly because all these games are clones of Dream Quest. I hope Blizzard are rewarding Peter Whalen well for inventing an entire new games genre.
To be honest, the alchemist is pretty powerful. Always having 4 loot options makes it so much easier to build a good deck. I've been playing with the alchemist lately, and it's indeed a powerhouse, but it requires a few cards for this : The strategy is easy - Build a deck around cycling cards - this requires 1 damage card, 1 draw 2+ cards and any other cards that will be fused to fuel the cycle engine. Step 1 : Fuse "non-cycling/non-drawing" cards, while keeping at least 1 damage card. Step 2 : Draw / Cycle until your deck is only cycling cards + draw cards + 1 damage card. Step 3 : Deal damage / Draw until you get back all your cards / Deal damage rinse & repeat until death. With the proper trimmed deck, I was actually able to kill level 3 bosses on round 1 before they had been given even a single action. Edit.: Another possible strategy is to use the ranged card that has its damage increased for each card you've cast this turn. Fuse your deck until you have 2 cards + Ranged damage cards + X cycle. Keep the 3 cards in hand.non-cycle cards in hand Cycle infinitely until you can kill the target.
