One thing for people that played the original physical Quarriors! to keep in mind, is that a second edition was released with certain revisions to rules. The Spent Area was one of the additions to the basic rules. It was put into place because prior to having a Spent Pile, used dice went directly into the Used Pile and could be infinitely cycled and recycled using certain dice, such as Portals. The game's designers themselves originally had two buys and a different culling mechanic. They took both rules out and dumbed the game down for release thinking only very light gamers would get into Quarriors! and wanted mechanics that wouldn't slow the game down with too many choices. They were almost immediately proven wrong with a backlash of complaints and introduced the old rules as "Advanced Rules" in the second expansion. Now the Advanced Rules have largely become accepted as the basic rules to play by, especially the two buy rule. Usually you do want to summon everything you can. After all, that's why you buy those creatures, to summon them. The only time you may decide not to summon a creature is if you want to make a purchase that turn, or if a certain ability is in play that makes it a sub-optimal choice, although I don't think much in that base game requires consideration in that way. Much of the strategy in Quarriors! is deciding what to buy, how you manage your dice bag, and when to cast spells. The combat is largely decided by what you have done beforehand with creature and spell purchases that can influence rolls and stats. Spent dice go to the Spent Pile. Yeah, the way it handles switching turns to different players was NOT handled well. Supposedly they are upping the AI difficultly with the next patch. Until then, I've found that playing versus 2 AI, more difficult (relatively speaking of course) that versus 1 or 3. Simply how the game's mechanics work seems to make 3 player games slightly harder with 2 horrid AIs.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that Quarriors! is generally considered a superior game when playing with the Advanced Culling rule, which hasn't been added yet but will be with the expansion coming out later this month. This rule changes scoring so that at the beginning of your turn, every creature that has survived either goes to your used pile with no scoring OR you cull as many surviving creatures as you want and only those creatures score. This rule provided several major changes that added greatly to the game's strategy: One is that players can't easily cull their bags down to 6 or so dice and just keep rolling the same few dice. Two, if someone rolls really well early on and gets a big creature, they don't run away with the game as often since that creature will either be kept around for defense/offense or score once and be gone. Three, spells become a whole lot better since they stick around even though creatures may not. Overall, the Advanced Rules put a lot more control into the hands of the players and go a long way to reducing the blind luck, as much as you can in a dice-based game anyways.
Many thanks for the clarifications. I did some looking around on boardgamegeek and wizkids and found the base iOS game includes the 'advanced capture rule' but does not include the 'totally expert rule of culling.' It would be nice if the in-game rules matched the game. I can see how these two simple changes have a huge effect on gameplay. I am very much enjoying the game now and have purchased the physical game and expansions. It's a fun, fast playing, and light game.
Honestly, because I have owned the game since the base game was release and subsequently have obtained every expansion and promo, I never looked into the rules explanations included in the IOS version. WOW, are they bad. They don't even include the victory conditions! Supposedly the next patch/expansion will improve this, but I'll list the basic rules laid out in the mean time, with considerations for the rules changes since the original was released: The games has 5 phases - Phase 1: Score any surviving creatures. Gain the glory printed on the top right of the creature card. For each creature scoring this way, cull one die from your used pile. To cull, send the chosen die(dice) back to the wilds. Phase 2: Draw 6 dice and add them to your active pool. Roll your entire active pool. Spend quiddity to summon any dice with creature faces facing up. Phase 3: Attack all rivals. Add up the attack from all your summoned creatures. You attack all rival players simultaneously. Each player much defend against the attack total, one creature at a time. You must have the creature currently defending take the maximum damage their defense allows before moving on to the next defender. Any defenders who have taken damage equal to their defense are moved to the used pile. Phase 4: Capture up to 2 dice from the wilds by spending their cost (top left corner) in quiddity. Phase 5: Move all dice from your spent pile to your used pile. End your turn. Rules to remember: 1. Every die you use, either quiddity to summon or purchase, portals to draw dice, or other such effects, are moved to your spent pile once used. They go to the used pile only in Phase 5 or if a specific ability stats otherwise. 2. Spells have 4 types: Normal (no type listed), Reaction, Immediate, and Attach. Normal remain in your ready area and can be cast anytime on your turn. Reaction remain in your ready area and can be cast on your rivals turn, usually when certain requirements are met. Immediate spells cannot be saved and take effect immediately when rolled. Attach spells remain in your ready area and are attached to a specific creature of your choosing anytime during your turn. Victory conditions: 1. If a player earns enough glory to reach the goal shown on the score sheet, the game immediately ends and that player wins. 2. If there are 4 or more creature cards (not assistants) with no dice remaining after a player captures a die, the game immediately ends. The player with the highest glory wins. Hope this helps some confused first timers! Hopefully the upcoming patch helps clean things up.
Big thanks for the explanation! May I ask if culling a dice means disposing it once and for all? Also, do I need to have quiddity remained in the ready area to get creatures in summoned on the table to attack other player(s)? What are the numbers on each dice/card?
No problem! Culling means taking a die from your "collection", generally from the used pile as is the case when scoring, and putting it back in the wilds were it can be purchased again. It does not remove the die from the game, but does remove it from your dice bag. The most common way to get quiddity is to roll it in your ready area. As you spend quiddity, the dice that rolled the quiddity move to the spent area. Keep in mind that left over quiddity goes into a pool and isn't lost until end of turn. Thus if you spend 1 quiddity from a die that rolled 2 quiddity, you don't lose the additional quiddity although the die moves to the spent pile. With your question specifically, you would roll the dice, see the results, move X dice with quiddity results, where X is the cost to summon creatures, to the spent pile, and then attack. Numbers: On the cards - top left is the cost of quiddity to buy the die from the wilds (the wilds is the name of region with all the dice that don't belong to a player yet). Top right is the amount of glory you get at the beginning of your turn if that creature is still alive. The bottom of the cards simply shows all 6 sides of the die the card represents. On the dice - top left is the level of the creature, which represent the amount of quiddity needed to summon that die face, and also the physical level for any specific effects (example: destroy creatures of level X). Top right is the attack of the creature, bottom right is the defense of the creature. Bottom left has either nothing, a *, or **; these symbols represent additional abilities certain sides of a die may have, as listed on the card.
If my explanations are inadequate, the Quarmageddon rulebook is here, and has the rules closest to what the IOS uses: http://wizkidsgames.com/wp-content/uploads/quarma/QuarmageddonRulebook.pdf
They announced recently that Quarmageddon is coming to Quarriors! For $1.99, it'll add 40 new dice, new creatures, spells, etc. Also, for the week after the launch of the Quarmageddon expansion, the base Quarriors! game is free. So, for that week, you're essentially getting Quarriors! with the Quarmageddon expansion for $1.99. After that week, it's going to go back to $3.99 for the base game, and $1.99 for Quarmageddon . From their web site/news release Quarmageddon ● 40 new dice to help power up a variety of new monsters, heroes and spells ● 26 new cards powering 6 new creatures and 2 new spells ● New "Immunity" ability for some creatures -- watch as they laugh off your opponent's attacks and spells Updates to Quarriors! ● Multiple difficulty settings all you to tailor the AI to your skills ● Optional rules (Advanced Capture and Expert Culling) to deepen the gameplay and boost the challenge in multiplayer modes ● An improved and expanded tutorial ● Tweaks to multiplayer matchmaking and gameplay
A bit late to the party Crowbear, but yep, Quarmageddon is supposedly coming this month! The lack of communication from both Wizkids and MFV over their products is pretty amazing though.
Good news! Someone asked David of the BGG IOS Blog if he knew when the update was coming out, and he answered, "It has been submitted. Should be out this week. Maybe next if something is wrong with it or Apple's dragging their feet." http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/28285?commentid=4488779#comment4488779 So let's all get ready!
Glad to hear some info, considering all the talk last month about it being released at the end of the month and then we were all left wondering where the update was.
Last night the AppStore page started showing that IAP was available and I tweeted that the update should be incoming. If the IAP was approved it means the update and extra content was approved but held back because of the publishing date set by the devs. Most likely so they can get the word out about the expansion and sale. Got confirmation today that it will be out on Wednesday the 12th. A little later than expected but I'm still excited for it.
Glad to hear we actually have a firm date now and all that is left now is the waiting game. Thanks for sharing the info VeganTnT
Details of update Will the update allow us to turn on advanced rules? (Force you to cull the scored die instead of any die) REALLY want this!!!
