The starting setups, no. Those remain the same, so you cannot remove all of the commons needed. For PE it's 1 Warrior, 2 Archers and 1 Guardian. Those have to remain in the deck Also: The starting positions are different between the factions. Each one has a very different way of setting up. Using the PE, they're pretty spread out, archers on the right, melee and walls on the left, Summoner in the back row (Go here and click on Prince Elien to see the setup card on the right side). Vangards are completely different. Much more bunched up (Here. Click on Sera Eldwyn, same thing). On the pages linked, you can see all of the Factions and their cards as well, along with some lore for the universe, per Faction. As for other commons for PE: it looks like all of the Base Deck cards are already represented in the deck, though I'm sure you can mess with the number of each, up to 10 of one kind (which I think us the limit per common, I could be wrong - I recall reading that somewhere, and don't remember where.)
Outwitters definitely doesn't aim to have faction diversity, but the Hero Academy teams are pretty different. Of course Summoner Wars will ultimately have more teams but that is because it has a physical version it is based around and there are no animations to work in. SW is a simplistic port and thus is going to be easier to add to, albiet less impressive. The deck building is there, although not particularly exciting as you cannot edit a chunk of your deck, but still the option is nice. Also as an owner of the physical version, I will say the magic system is not all that complex, after a few plays you begin to realize that killing your own troops early and building up for champions and certain stronger troops usually is the best strategy. In addition, any strategy that you do develop, is ultimately going to be at the mercy of the dice. If you end up with terrible rolls, you can lose a game even if you were playing better. This adds to the luck that any deck games have in regards to draws. SW is not a bad game, in fact the physical game is pretty fun. But the IOS port is quite clunky and not particularly impressive. It will be interesting to see how it fairs ont he market after the initial release hype dies down.
The real question here is how many turns in a row can Sneeks play a Goblin Rush event? So far the answer is "3". Ugh!
You say it's a simplistic port but I see it as a faithful conversion of a physical game, much like Codito's Le Havre which uses the original artwork and text. The interface is very intuitive and easy to figure out, at least on the iPad. I'll choose to simply disagree on the HA comparison as well as the alleged lack of any depth in the magic system as a personal preference.
This game is amazing! Having fun with both the elves and the orcs. Orcs rolling fury x3 in a row is a killer! The league idea sounds fun after the population grows a bit!
It can defintely be seen as a faithful port, the simple fact is that means that games made for the IOS medium are going to have certain advantages over games brought in from physical versions. And the interface is most certainly not intuitive, at least on the IPhone, although I have seen a number of complaints on BGG and other forums which would suggest it isn't on the IPad either. Simple issues like how to set an AI player, how to activate special abilities, scrolling through your hand, movement, lack of undo, etc. While not so complex they break the game, games like Hero Academy and Outwitters have far superior interface designs. In terms of the gameplay, it most definitely is subjective, although as I have said before I do like SW, otherwise I would not own the physical game. That said it is a fairly light game, which in itself is not a bad thing.
What a mess... the most important game of playdek ruined by this orrible launch more than 24h and still "not avaiable" glitch
Apple... The Devil take your black hearts Apple! Fix your problems. If -I- decided not to bother doing my job right for a couple of days -I- would be unemployed and swiftly homeless.
Wow, I'm really surprised that this game still won't download. I was really excited to try it out too.
Somebody started a topic for this issue on Apple Support ... go light em up : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4081640?tstart=0
Thankfully the player base and TA community is intelligent enough to know it isn't Playdek's fault...it's all on Apple.
No luck. Has anyone who previously had an "Unavailable" error been able to successfully install later? We keep getting "it's back up!" messages and I'm wondering if that's just people whose accounts are hitting just the right server or something, so they succeed the first time and assume it's fixed for everyone.
