Lol I think France is my favorite adversary. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I just enjoy the tension between stopping builds and stopping blight with the choice from the escalation giving you some control. Events can cause major issues though
I've always loved the Slave Rebellion event that goes with France. I like the theme of it, I like that it is predictable (you can add a little randomness in its position, if desired) and I love adding Dahan to the board (for thematic reasons as much as for scoring and for their help in winning the game).
For other people ranking adversaries (albeit not as relevant for you Red), not included here, would be leveling-up progression of the adversary itself. This refers to how does the adversary feel when played over time, starting from level 1 and reaching level 6. People I play with real life highly rank France and Sweden for this scaling reason. Going up from France/Sweden level 3->5 or 4->6 is a lot more manageable (providing a better increased gameplay experience) compared to Russia/England level 3->5. Oh and the record for myself (1-2 player game): Russia > England > Scotland > Habsburg (Either) Habsburg (Either) > Sweden > Prussia > France and 3+ player games: Russia > England > Prussia > France > Mining > Roving Bovine > Sweden > Scotland
HME is solidly at my #1 because everyone has something they can do about it/its loss condition (and not having to deal with blight cascades is nice). Defense? Prevent/remove blight. Control? Move invaders out of clusters, break up or form mining lands. Offense? Kill things, obviously. It doesn't add many fear cards to the deck, either. HLC has a special place in my heart because it feels like it borrows something from every other adversary. France's extra towns, England/Scotland's adjacency building, Sweden/Russia's extra damage, BP's accelerated deck. England's extra health... It feels like a good one to learn early to prepare you a little bit for just about everyone else. Dislike England for the reason I love HME, which you outlined - feels like spirits that rely on clearing lands early just get screwed over, and I like having a flexible spirit selection. Maybe if I picked some spirits that I know would be good against it; I know I had a particularly frustrating game early on as Wildfire that really left a sour taste in my mouth...
My Rankings: 1. Scotland - a great all-around challenge, not too tough or swingy. Most spirits have a good chance 2. Prussia - I absolutely love those simple/quick games. I also like how all spirits can do well. I do find it's not very forgiving for early mistakes though, so it's a bit of a trap for new players IMO. --- 3. HME - I don't have much experience, but the games feel fresh and exciting. I probably only have it here because it's new to me 4. Russia - I'm bad at it but that's ok. I find it so tough to plan around those fear bombs, and pushing explorers can feel bad/overwhelming. It's a good challenge though. 5. England - For when I'm looking for that long challenge, which is usually fulfilling. I don't like how it invalidates some spirits. --- 6. Sweden - Too easy, too swingy. But new players seem to enjoy it, so I find I play against it a lot. --- 7. Habsburg Livestock - Too hard, not worth my time. Maybe I'm not being fair but no one in my group seems to like it so we don't give it any attention. 8. France - Too easy, but sometimes you lose for random reasons. I HATE the slave rebellion card as a mechanic. I want my teammates to know about it but you can't read it while discussing your plan. Also I often mismanage the order of the event deck for turn 1 event discard, events that recycle, fractured, etc
@@Reggie1408 sure, when i got jagged earth i didn't use events, because i thought they will ruin the balance or make the game unfun, but i've started using them and now i prefer playing with events
If you're interested in adding adversaries, I'd recommend starting with Prussia. Other than the stage 2 adversary effect, all the extra rules are handled during setup, so it's the lightest adversary in terms of rules to remember.
There seems to be a strong correlation between how difficult the adversary is and how much you enjoy them. Would you say that’s fair to say, or is it more about consistency vs. swinginess?
England if my favorite too! I love their resilience and that they change how you need to look at some tools! Probably play the most games against Scotland and Prussia, speed for Prussia and fairness for Scotland. I can see not liking Scotland 6 but I think it’s important to give the adversary some sort of teeth, playing Scotland 5 feels like, “solve land 2 in 4-5 turns… gg. :P
I can't play againt England, not for any sort of difficulty problem, but because the adjacency build takes _so_ much of my brainpower to manage that it sucks all of the fun out of the game for me; my England games don't go long because they take a lot of turns to beat, they go long because it takes forever for me to resolve the invader phase on my board every turn and make sure I didn't forget anything. Shout-out to France for making me develop a very specific grudge towards them while I was playtesting a custom spirit; said spirit was designed to use a single explorer kill to control its early game (a la River), but we got something like four France games in a row, meaning I wasn't getting any testing data on the _intended_ tempo of the spirit and was instead only getting to test one of its worse matchups.
I did France would end up last. Honestly I’ve also grown to not like the adversary and couldn’t figure out why for the longest time till I realized it was all from how much the event deck affected them more than others.
I’m curious if Roots made you like HLC more? Because that surprisingly became one of my favourite matchups to play, getting to unlock and hurl back major powers
I started liking the matchup while playing Starlight and Many Minds. Then both HV and Roots have fun HLC games. Behemoth and Gaze also have intricate matchups.
I have thought about the "worst luck" game scenario, and while I think stacking the event deck works, I don't know if a full stacking of the power deck is realistic for an even a 1 in ten thousand game scenario, and could be a better representation if it was a draw 8 or so cards, pick the worst 4 or something other than a full top to bottom deck stack. This may be less important for spirits that can depend on their uniques, but for starlight, a full top to bottom stacking would be near unplayable.
Do you do Adversary combination? What I mean is something like this: "I don't like Habsburg level six. If I want to play similar difficulty Habsburg but without level 6, I use Habsburg level 5 and Prussia Level 2?"
I agree that France is easier than advertised. And I also agree about the S tier spirits… longer games tend to be more “fun” because your spirit grows so strong, so those S tier adversaries really lengthen the game. I hover around difficulty 5/6 for my own games… lower difficulty is too easy and higher I tend to find it more thinky and I lose way more often. What is your opinion on scenarios? Are they too swingy? I assume so since France is your last pick because it’s swingier.
Yes! Very happy to see some England love. I rank them very highly too for the exact reason you mentioned - it's one of the few adversaries that reliably take you to the late game. I really wish we'd get some more of those. Scotland is great too for it's fairness and semi-long games. Russia is a lovely and unqiue puzzle each time. I enjoy Prussia for the ease of play (although the double land 3 explore can be punishing for some spirits as you mentioned). France is situationally pretty fun too unless you draw some silly events. Prefer them as the secondary adversary so the loss condition isn't as puinishing. HME was a bit disappointing for me. The idea is fun and unique but the games are just way too short. Sweden and original Habsburg are the lowest for me. Habs have some slightly silly rules, can be suspectible to event misfortune, are tough on some spirits and very easy with others and they reward you for doing poorly. Sweden is a bit like HME as in technically the game is over in a few rounds depending on your spirit and mainly the first few explores - it feels much less important how well I do compared to what happens - at least in terms of difficulty consistency.
I agree very much with these rankings and with the reasoning behind them! (Only notably different opinion I have is that I find England 6 a lot harder than Russia 6.)
That france loss condition doesn't even take having the decks stacked. sometimes it just hits with one bad draw that you could normally play around of that one bad event that you could play around. Yet every so often that one bad event comes up an you think "well that sucks but I can play around this , I've done it hundreds of times." Then Coasts comes up or a bad stage 3 right after and you can't even play make a play against it , you just lose. that's what sucks about france . not that it is a tough loss condition just that sometimes without any meaningful ability to attempt to change the outcome you lose. sure it is rare , but boy does it suck. Like gee why don't i just go play chutes and ladders and let RNG guide the whole game instead of my strategy or skill.
Good points all around. I didn't go into this in the video, but I also hate executing France 6 and don't like how France 5 just makes blight removal useless.
Surprisingly my list is quite similar (using > to represent small gaps and >> for bigger gaps): England > Scotland > HME > Russia >> Prussia >> Sweden > France > HLC
I love Prussia for the same reasons. Simple and low time investment. Russia on the other hand is a truly love hate relationship.. it's tuff and fun, but the cognitive taxation from the level 2 rule mostly is time consuming AF 😅
It's damage "to the land", in the same way that Blight gets added when 2 or more damage are dealt "to the land." Defense gets subtracted from the invaders' total power before they deal damage. So in your own words, 6 damage needs to be left after the defense for an extra Blight to be added.
It's fallen down a bit. Game is very predictable and usually ends right on the Salt Ravage. And when I say end, I mean it's pretty solved, but goes on a few more turns.
"We tend to play the random garb- uh weak tier spirits". :D You hurt Shadow's feelings. :p
Lol I think France is my favorite adversary. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I just enjoy the tension between stopping builds and stopping blight with the choice from the escalation giving you some control. Events can cause major issues though
I've always loved the Slave Rebellion event that goes with France. I like the theme of it, I like that it is predictable (you can add a little randomness in its position, if desired) and I love adding Dahan to the board (for thematic reasons as much as for scoring and for their help in winning the game).
For other people ranking adversaries (albeit not as relevant for you Red), not included here, would be leveling-up progression of the adversary itself. This refers to how does the adversary feel when played over time, starting from level 1 and reaching level 6. People I play with real life highly rank France and Sweden for this scaling reason. Going up from France/Sweden level 3->5 or 4->6 is a lot more manageable (providing a better increased gameplay experience) compared to Russia/England level 3->5.
Oh and the record for myself (1-2 player game): Russia > England > Scotland > Habsburg (Either) Habsburg (Either) > Sweden > Prussia > France
and 3+ player games: Russia > England > Prussia > France > Mining > Roving Bovine > Sweden > Scotland
HME is solidly at my #1 because everyone has something they can do about it/its loss condition (and not having to deal with blight cascades is nice). Defense? Prevent/remove blight. Control? Move invaders out of clusters, break up or form mining lands. Offense? Kill things, obviously. It doesn't add many fear cards to the deck, either.
HLC has a special place in my heart because it feels like it borrows something from every other adversary. France's extra towns, England/Scotland's adjacency building, Sweden/Russia's extra damage, BP's accelerated deck. England's extra health... It feels like a good one to learn early to prepare you a little bit for just about everyone else.
Dislike England for the reason I love HME, which you outlined - feels like spirits that rely on clearing lands early just get screwed over, and I like having a flexible spirit selection. Maybe if I picked some spirits that I know would be good against it; I know I had a particularly frustrating game early on as Wildfire that really left a sour taste in my mouth...
My Rankings:
1. Scotland - a great all-around challenge, not too tough or swingy. Most spirits have a good chance
2. Prussia - I absolutely love those simple/quick games. I also like how all spirits can do well. I do find it's not very forgiving for early mistakes though, so it's a bit of a trap for new players IMO.
---
3. HME - I don't have much experience, but the games feel fresh and exciting. I probably only have it here because it's new to me
4. Russia - I'm bad at it but that's ok. I find it so tough to plan around those fear bombs, and pushing explorers can feel bad/overwhelming. It's a good challenge though.
5. England - For when I'm looking for that long challenge, which is usually fulfilling. I don't like how it invalidates some spirits.
---
6. Sweden - Too easy, too swingy. But new players seem to enjoy it, so I find I play against it a lot.
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7. Habsburg Livestock - Too hard, not worth my time. Maybe I'm not being fair but no one in my group seems to like it so we don't give it any attention.
8. France - Too easy, but sometimes you lose for random reasons. I HATE the slave rebellion card as a mechanic. I want my teammates to know about it but you can't read it while discussing your plan. Also I often mismanage the order of the event deck for turn 1 event discard, events that recycle, fractured, etc
you made me want to start using adversaries
Go for it. You're probably better at the game than you give yourself credit for!
@@Reggie1408 sure, when i got jagged earth i didn't use events, because i thought they will ruin the balance or make the game unfun, but i've started using them and now i prefer playing with events
If you're interested in adding adversaries, I'd recommend starting with Prussia. Other than the stage 2 adversary effect, all the extra rules are handled during setup, so it's the lightest adversary in terms of rules to remember.
@steffen6252 also, Prussia tends to have the least rock paper scissors effects when it comes to certain spirit matchups.
There seems to be a strong correlation between how difficult the adversary is and how much you enjoy them. Would you say that’s fair to say, or is it more about consistency vs. swinginess?
I didn’t think about it that way while writing the list, but ye it checks out lol
i’m currently doing an adversary campaign with my SO and we have found that prussia is nasty
I'm glad you put France where you put it. It is also my least favourite adversary in the solo games I do, for pretty much the same reasons.
Just wanted to test SI with adversaries, so this vid was a great intro.
England if my favorite too! I love their resilience and that they change how you need to look at some tools! Probably play the most games against Scotland and Prussia, speed for Prussia and fairness for Scotland.
I can see not liking Scotland 6 but I think it’s important to give the adversary some sort of teeth, playing Scotland 5 feels like, “solve land 2 in 4-5 turns… gg. :P
I can't play againt England, not for any sort of difficulty problem, but because the adjacency build takes _so_ much of my brainpower to manage that it sucks all of the fun out of the game for me; my England games don't go long because they take a lot of turns to beat, they go long because it takes forever for me to resolve the invader phase on my board every turn and make sure I didn't forget anything.
Shout-out to France for making me develop a very specific grudge towards them while I was playtesting a custom spirit; said spirit was designed to use a single explorer kill to control its early game (a la River), but we got something like four France games in a row, meaning I wasn't getting any testing data on the _intended_ tempo of the spirit and was instead only getting to test one of its worse matchups.
I like prussia. I do it on a board in multi spirit solo, so having an advesaey that doesnt add a ton of overhead is good for me.
I did France would end up last. Honestly I’ve also grown to not like the adversary and couldn’t figure out why for the longest time till I realized it was all from how much the event deck affected them more than others.
Do you have any thoughts on the scenarios? I've never touched them, and I haven't seen mention of them on this channel.
I do not like scenarios, but they are a fun way to mix up the game if things are getting old.
I’m curious if Roots made you like HLC more? Because that surprisingly became one of my favourite matchups to play, getting to unlock and hurl back major powers
I started liking the matchup while playing Starlight and Many Minds. Then both HV and Roots have fun HLC games. Behemoth and Gaze also have intricate matchups.
I have thought about the "worst luck" game scenario, and while I think stacking the event deck works, I don't know if a full stacking of the power deck is realistic for an even a 1 in ten thousand game scenario, and could be a better representation if it was a draw 8 or so cards, pick the worst 4 or something other than a full top to bottom deck stack. This may be less important for spirits that can depend on their uniques, but for starlight, a full top to bottom stacking would be near unplayable.
Do you do Adversary combination? What I mean is something like this: "I don't like Habsburg level six. If I want to play similar difficulty Habsburg but without level 6, I use Habsburg level 5 and Prussia Level 2?"
Yes I do, and I think the combinations would make adversaries look completely different!
@@RedReVenge007 Looking forward to the video if you decide to do it :)
I agree that France is easier than advertised. And I also agree about the S tier spirits… longer games tend to be more “fun” because your spirit grows so strong, so those S tier adversaries really lengthen the game. I hover around difficulty 5/6 for my own games… lower difficulty is too easy and higher I tend to find it more thinky and I lose way more often. What is your opinion on scenarios? Are they too swingy? I assume so since France is your last pick because it’s swingier.
Scenarios just mix up the game too much. I don't consider them to be Standard SI. Sometimes we play them, but it's seldom.
Yes! Very happy to see some England love. I rank them very highly too for the exact reason you mentioned - it's one of the few adversaries that reliably take you to the late game. I really wish we'd get some more of those. Scotland is great too for it's fairness and semi-long games. Russia is a lovely and unqiue puzzle each time. I enjoy Prussia for the ease of play (although the double land 3 explore can be punishing for some spirits as you mentioned). France is situationally pretty fun too unless you draw some silly events. Prefer them as the secondary adversary so the loss condition isn't as puinishing. HME was a bit disappointing for me. The idea is fun and unique but the games are just way too short. Sweden and original Habsburg are the lowest for me. Habs have some slightly silly rules, can be suspectible to event misfortune, are tough on some spirits and very easy with others and they reward you for doing poorly. Sweden is a bit like HME as in technically the game is over in a few rounds depending on your spirit and mainly the first few explores - it feels much less important how well I do compared to what happens - at least in terms of difficulty consistency.
I agree very much with these rankings and with the reasoning behind them! (Only notably different opinion I have is that I find England 6 a lot harder than Russia 6.)
That france loss condition doesn't even take having the decks stacked. sometimes it just hits with one bad draw that you could normally play around of that one bad event that you could play around. Yet every so often that one bad event comes up an you think "well that sucks but I can play around this , I've done it hundreds of times." Then Coasts comes up or a bad stage 3 right after and you can't even play make a play against it , you just lose. that's what sucks about france . not that it is a tough loss condition just that sometimes without any meaningful ability to attempt to change the outcome you lose.
sure it is rare , but boy does it suck. Like gee why don't i just go play chutes and ladders and let RNG guide the whole game instead of my strategy or skill.
Good points all around. I didn't go into this in the video, but I also hate executing France 6 and don't like how France 5 just makes blight removal useless.
Surprisingly my list is quite similar (using > to represent small gaps and >> for bigger gaps):
England > Scotland > HME > Russia >> Prussia >> Sweden > France > HLC
I love Prussia for the same reasons. Simple and low time investment. Russia on the other hand is a truly love hate relationship.. it's tuff and fun, but the cognitive taxation from the level 2 rule mostly is time consuming AF 😅
Judging by your thumbnail, your favourite adversaries are the ones that hit themselves :P
For Sweden, the 6 damage is after defense or it's irrelevant?
It's damage "to the land", in the same way that Blight gets added when 2 or more damage are dealt "to the land." Defense gets subtracted from the invaders' total power before they deal damage. So in your own words, 6 damage needs to be left after the defense for an extra Blight to be added.
@@SCRur88scr Great. Thank you very much for replying.
Are there any good custom/fanmade adversaries?
None that I’ve tried at this time.
I would love to concoct you an unwinnable game seed 😈
HME not top 3 any longer?
It's fallen down a bit. Game is very predictable and usually ends right on the Salt Ravage. And when I say end, I mean it's pretty solved, but goes on a few more turns.
5-10% is your lose rate against lvl 6 adversaries, right?
My personal rate is around 0%, but Ofcourse this is based on spirit selection. Playing with people increase the %.