The basic strategy is to start getting development cards early. That way, you can minimize the randomness of the dice rolls to a huge degree. The real difficulty is time managment. You need to calculate, how often you can justify to work on your development cards and not on your first quest. If you start your quest too early, the dice can screw you over. If you start too late, you opponents get an advantage. Development cards are extremly important. Without them, you have no chance. So start getting a few good ones and dice rolls aren't a problem anymore.
Yes you have to. But there are 3 choices at the start of the game: 1 Quest, 3 quests or 5. Thats the amount of quests you have to solve to end the game. 1 Quest takes about 10 minutes, so thats your shortest choice. It's not really a game you just start if you have 2 or 3 minutes free time, to enjoy it you need to take your time.
Game Impressions Great game. Like Eldritch Horror with a bit of Talisman. To survive you need to be prepared. Load up on spells, dwarf companions and brew dat good stuff before you start taking on silver and gold critters. Once you learn the flow of the game it's a risk/reward thing. You can fail without dying but you accumulate wounds that slow you down. Take time to prepare and reduce the risk, but do the other players go faster by taking more chances? It is after all a race to complete quests. It's one flaw in my opinion is the lack of a save feature. You have to treat it like a boardgame and not like an iOS time waster on the go.
After playing more rounds and understanding the intriquicies of the game, my only gripe now is definitely the save feature that doesn't exist. DEVS, ADD A SAVE FEATURE!!!!
I will wait to buy the game till there is a save game option as an act of solidarity an to put some pressure on the patch
Well couldn't resist and bought the game a bit concerned by some comments. It's cheap anyway and I want FFG to port everything in their portfolio on the appstore. I just completed my first game after having watched all the video tutorials, Gerald vs Triss, 1 quest...just to try the game. Honestly I was really surprised by how awesome is the game. It's a fantasy blend between Elder Sign and Talisman (my two favorite solo boardgames in the Appstore), with a bit more control over the character than the mentioned games. Everything is super slick, loving it. But what I loved more is the card text and pictures...for some reason they really got me in the world, much more than Talisman or the flavor text in Elder Sign events. Loving it so far, can't wait to try multiplayer hoping they will add async. EDIT: just played my first online game. FREAKING AWESOME.....but the game SCREAMS for async. I really hope devs will put async in....game would be perfect.
Just had a slog-fest of a game, using Triss, 3 quest length. Says 40 to 70 minutes (?), took me 2.5 hours to finish in 2nd place (against 3 AI)! I'm probably not playing her right yet but it felt like 1 step forwards 2 steps back all the way... really frustrating. You manage to clear one negative, and 2 more happen on the same turn. What I don't get is even with good spells, good luck and good preparation some battles you need more dice than she has. Is there a way around that or was I just unlucky with the selection of spells I pulled?
She may just be hosed, but there can be effects/bonuses that give you extra swords or shields for an encounter.
Being a great fan of Lords of Waterdeep , I thought this game was a insta-buy. Deleted it after a few hours of playing. I wish my English was better than I could write down exactly what is wrong with this game but I sure can say that the game is too much luck-based, has no strategical depth , the app is clumsy. The whole game just doesn't feel right and never was able to grab me and kept the tension till the end like LoW can...
The more I play the game, the more I love it, but really devs....it SCREAMS async. Games can be quite long (the projected times in the initial screen are quite off)....same problem as in Talisman...but here interactions are non existent and turns are all self contained so it's pretty perfect for async. Not being able to die (as in Elder Sign) competitive runs are pretty fundamental to the game so being able to play with real friends would do the game a great service.
Played much more yesterday and complete several 3 and 5 quests games. There is where the game shines most, especially after 2-3 quests when the wounds and critical start to stack up and the AI finally kicks in and try to score VP. Game is absolutely great then...and every character plays a LOT differently. If you develop your character well in early stages, luck is almost non existent (for example with Gerald with a clever use of skills, potions and brews you can easily win almost all fights). I may be wrong but I felt the quests are not that random...meaning the pool from where they are picked up changes the more you play in a single play through...being 4 and 5 quests trickier than 1 and 2 one...(but I could be wrong). The AI is average...I always won and in just one game the bard was really hard to beat in the end with a really thrilling race to last quest. That was the best game. Games are long....2 hours minimum for a 2 player 3 quests game. That's why the game really needs async play...being able to play competitively against your friends (and not just the average AI) would make the game already a classic imho.
This latest AI patch didn't help much. It would appear that the AI players are better at using their development card/skills but they can't finish quests. I really think it might be a bug in the latest release as they will solve all of their subquests but then focus on obtaining irellevant proofs as opposed to getting their needed leads to solve the quest. The PC version I think is a patch or so ahead and the AI is at least nearer to competent. EXCEPT for one really nasty issue with Yarpen the Dwarf being played by the AI. He had suffered a setback so that he couldn't roll 1 of his key dice and was trying to fight a Dragon (1 of the gold top of the line baddies) that, even if he rolled perfectly, he could not defeat or avoid taking injury. So he just sat there for dozens of turns (resting from his devastating wounds from last round, and then failing miserably in a fight). There was no reason for him not to spend an action healing and then stepping out of that territory.
there is a current patch for the PC version that INCLUDES SAVES! i think it's out on Steam but i bought the game via GOG. i haven't used GOG in years but logged in and it wasn't listed as updated. has anyone got the recent (today, i believe) patch off GOG or do they take a few days before posting updates?
Sorry for going off iOS a bit... It's on GoG now as well. I have to give GoG some credit that they appear to be much more on top of patching, at least with this title, compared to just a year or two ago where it could take months for them to get a patch, and even then, make it a very awkward install. The only crappy bit is that they don't bother with patch notes, so I have to refer to Steam on the latest fixes.
really, where? i logged in and check my games and there is no UPDATE flag above Witcher. where did you find it? and i wouldn't worry about off topic, seems the iOS discussion of this is dead. let me know where it is, thanks. EDIT -> weird. GOG never said it needed updating. on a lark, i downloaded it again and noticed the changed version numbers. "re-installed" it and now it has the recent update. i had to guess the update was there? any idea why it didn't tell me the game needed updating like it does for other games?
There is an update available with a new auto save feature, a card gallery, and bug fixes and performance optimizations.
