Three new cards & a sort option

Anton has made some great new artworks, e.g. for the Forest and for the Dagger of the Spider Queen. There are also 3 new ones. I think I have found some fitting rules for them. So be sure to check out:

• Attack of the Dragon King
• Forest Beast
• Forest Worm

A new feature is also available. Starting now, you can sort the CardList and the Collection in the Deckbuilder by Attack, Health etc. I know .. I know – the select-box looks ugly there, but a redesign will follow soon.

Well done, guys. I like how the projekt has changed cince I registered- the design update, the reworked card list and deckbuilder and now the sorting feature! I think it’s going in the right direction.

There’s only one small point left: Could you put in a sorting option that seperates all the cards that either store or generate recources? It will certanly save a lot of time when you build up the economics of your decks.

Hey guys:

The game looks a lot better now — and it’s flowing a lot more smoothly. I really think you’re onto something now…

And: I mentioned it a while ago, and want to remind you of some card ideas:

It would be particularly useful to have some cards that increase your storage capacity of one resource at the cost of another (e.g. increase wood storage by 1, decrease stone storage by 1). It would really help to get some bigger creatures out more quickly, and for mono- or duo- resource decks it would be really helpful. No one could have too many of any of them, but a couple in each deck could be great.

And: It would also be great to have some “basic” cards for each resource — creatures and effect cards that cost 1 resource. They don’t need to be great, but I often think that these foundational cards become the basis for later developments. So an Iron creature that has 2 armor and 1 life; a Magic creature that you draw a card after casting; a Stone card that replaces the resource it uses; a Wood card that moves & attacks quickly; a Gold card that does something…

Thanks!

It would also be great to have some “basic” cards for each resource — creatures and effect cards that cost 1 resource. They don’t need to be great, but I often think that these foundational cards become the basis for later developments.

I agree that some resources could use some more basic cards, but I don’t think every resource needs them. For example, I don’t think every resource should necessarily have cards that…

moves & attacks quickly

This is what makes some resources different. For example, stone based combat units tend to move slowly but have higher health.

I agree though that I think there should be more basic (weaker) combat units that are easy to get out earlier for each resource. I tend to look at gold as a secondary resource though. Gold is dependent on other resources. There is nothing (that I know of) that produces gold without requiring another resource, so it’s not possible to run a mono gold deck. I tend to look at resources as…

PRIMARY RESOURCES
• Iron
• Mana
• Wood

SECONDARY RESOURCES
• Gold
• Stone
• Population (could also possibly be considered primary resource for evil themed decks in the future)

Some of these primary resource types can be played mono, whereas others can not. For example, Wood has many combat units that require only Wood or Wood + Gold. This list is rather long, so I’m going to break it up into multiple posts.

¤ I initially had Stone as a primary resource, but after a closer look I think it is more of a secondary resource in the game in its current state. That may all change as more cards are introduced.

Mono Wood
• Aggressive Grizzly – 3 wood, 1 gold
• Animal Lord – 4 wood
• Elven Sniper – 1 wood
• Forest Beast – 5 wood, 1 gold
• Forest Spider – 1 wood, 1 gold
• Forest Wyrm – 4 wood
• Gammut the Wood Trader – 2 wood (gold production)
• Mountain Wolf – 2 wood
• Parasitic Beetle – 1 wood
• Urum the Wood Troll – 2 wood, 2 gold
• Wood Beetle – 1 wood

Wood is easily playable mono due to Gammut the Wood trader being an easy and viable source of gold. Storage isn’t an issue either as Redwood only requires wood and Village Warehouse only requires wood and gold.

Mono Iron
• Alexandro, the Assassin – 1 iron, 2 gold
• Armored Guard – 2 iron
• Lexa Quickblade – 1 iron, 1 gold
• Nator, the Barbarian – 2 iron, 1 gold
• Olun, Master Armorer – 3 iron, 1 gold
• Sir Aran, Elite Knight – 4 iron, 2 gold
• Sir Galeen, Armored Knight – 3 iron, 2 gold
• Sir Roland, Mounted Knight – 2 iron, 2 gold
• Sword Master Calain – 2 iron, 1 gold
• Warrior of Light – 1 iron, 1 gold
• Xila, the Master Assassin – 1 iron, 1 gold

Mono iron runs into a huge problem with both iron & gold production and also storage capacity.

Currently, the only way to produce gold without using another resource is via the event card Sell Iron (sell 2 iron for 2 gold). Thus, you are limited to 8 gold and have no way to guarantee production. As you can see, every combat unit except one requires gold which creates a huge demand for gold. In order to sell or transmute iron for gold, you will need either a Market (1 wood, 1 stone) or Nicolas, the Alchemist (1 iron, 1 mana).

Iron production and storage also becomes a issue due to the fact that Deep Mines requires wood and Village Warehouse requires 2 wood.

Mono Stone
• Gundar the Stone Trader – 2 stone (gold production)
• Melon the Sabateur – 1 stone, 2 gold

As you can see, there are no real combat units for mono stone yet. I’m not sure it would make sense either since stone seems like more of a building resource, with the exception of animated stone, ie – golems, which require magic (mana).

STONE & MANA
• Greater Stone Golem – 4 stone, 1 mana
• Lesser Stone Golem – 3 stone, 1 mana

While they may not fall under combat units, there are quite a few defensive buildings which can be thought of as immobile combat units to slow down opposing combat units, all of which require stone. Such as…

DEFENSIVE BUILDINGS
• Guard Tower – 3 stone, 1 wood
• Small Guard Tower – 1 stone, 1 wood
• Stone Wall – 1 stone (no attack)

Stone does have ways to generate gold (Gammut the Trader) and storage (Large Quarry) without the use of other resources.

In effect, we can probably look at stone as a secondary resource as well. At least for now.

Mono Mana
• Arina, the Psychic – 1 mana, 1 gold (mana production)
• Flying Unicorn – 1 mana, 2 gold
• Golden Dragon – 3 mana, 4 gold
• Griffin – 2 mana, 2 gold
• Lady Starshine – 1 mana, 1 gold
• Matus, the Ancient Sage – 1 mana, 1 gold
• Parin, the Fire Mage – 2 mana, 2 gold
• Rotting Corpse – 1 mana, 1 population
• Sibil, the Unicorn – 1 mana, 1 gold
• Teeraal, Greater Demon – 3 mana, 7 population
• Yato, the Angry Wizard – 2 mana

• Lesser Chain of Mind
• Greater Chain of Mind

While these last two are not direct ways to produce combat units, I thought it was at least worth mentioning them.

Theoretically, it is impossible to run mono mana since there is no way to generate mana other than via Magic Tower (1 stone) or Enchanted Forest (1 wood). Contrary to the other decks though, this would only require 1 card (Stone Quarry, Ancient Woodland or Forest) at the beginning to get this deck rolling.

Excluding the 1 card required to get this deck started, this deck is easily viable as mono mana. Storage limits are obviously not an issue since there is no storage cap on mana. Gold production does become an issue in order to play many of the combat cards, but there are plenty of spells which capture enemy units or directly damage the enemy population that these gold dependent units are not required.

With all that being said, I think Iron becomes the most dependent on running with multiple other resources. Stone seems more of a defensive and support (secondary) resource to me since it doesn’t really have any combat units or any real offensive capabilities.

In order for Iron to become playable “mono”, it would need one or two weaker combat units that don’t require gold and a way to generate gold similar to the traders that wood and stone have.

Currently, it’s very hard to run a heavy iron deck without wood and stone. It is definitely a slower deck from the start because of this, but that’s what Iron seems to be. Slow, but powerful. There are many cards in iron that boost attack power or have high armor values. Because of this, you can create some extremely powerful combat units, but it is slow developing.

Allowing iron to be played mono and ramp up very fast could create some serious balance issues. This also runs the risk of making the resources less unique.

first, thanks to all

@deadwolf:
I like the idea of one-ress-units, this will give the early game more possibilities.

@Cheezypoofs
You know FC much better than i do XD
much thanks, for this analysis.

One think:
We (the developer) dont want make a typical “colours and races” game, they are to many already in the internet. we want be something special. So we want that every deck !must use different ressources, but of course every deck can have a main ressource. This allows much more gameplay dynamic than the principe “I need only one ress”
Because of this i dont like deadwolfs idee of cards which increase storage in cost of other ress storage.
every game should be a challange.

just my two cents

Thank you Cheezypoofs, your list is very helpful. There is just one card you overlooked: mana-streams are generating mana for free, but only three times each. By selling iron for gold you might get closer to mono-mana:

• mana streams to get your “starting mana”
• the alchemist and iron mines to get gold
• Arina, the Psychic as your alternative to magic stones and enchanted forests
  With this economy you should get a quite pure mono-mana-deck.

EDIT: We overlooked another card: the magic mushroom. By discarding it and another card you gain on mana instantly. This is making it faster than the mana streams. But the mana streams still have the advantage that you don’t have to sacrifice cards. I don’t think that it’s better, but I don’t know.

So iron remains the only primary resource you can’t really play as a “mono-recource”.

Thanks vlad, I overlooked Mana Streams. I didn’t include the Magic Mushroom because it really doesn’t generate a source of mana. While it provides 1 mana, but isn’t reuseable like the Magic Tower or Enchanted Forest.

Also, don’t forget the spell Conjure Gold (1 mana) which produces 3 gold. You would still run into the problem of only having a gold capacity of 1. So you would have to waste a couple of these cards just to get your capacity up to 3 to get the full use of the cards.

With the use of Mana Streams, we can now theoretically cally build our mono mana deck. :)

We could build a deck with mana only (almost no gold) or one with mana and 7 gold max. Both would have a restricted mana supply, but it might be enough.

Mana Only

Activate: Mana Streams (up to 4)

Cast: Conjure Gold #1
Gold = 1/1, the remaining 2 gold is destroyed

Activate: Arina, the Psychic #1
Gold = 0/1

Repeat previous 2 steps.

Mana & 7 Gold

Activate: Mana Streams

Cast: Conjure Gold #1
Gold = 1/1, the remaining 2 gold is destroyed

Expand: Gold to 2
Gold = 0/2

Cast: Conjure Gold #2
Gold = 2/2, the remaining 1 gold is destroyed

Expand: Gold to 3
Gold = 1/3

Activate: Arina, the Psychic #1
Gold = 0/3

Cast: Conjure Gold #3
Gold = 3/3

Activate: Arina, the Psychic #2
Gold = 2/3

At this point, you will now have up to 5 more gold (including 3 more from Conjure Gold #4) to use to activate more Arina, the Psychic’s, or spend how you wish depending on your needs and desire.

With both of these decks you better hope that your opponent doesn’t destroy or capture Arina. :P

Great Analysis!

We (the developer) dont want make a typical “colours and races” game, they are to many already in the internet. we want be something special. So we want that every deck !must use different ressources, but of course every deck can have a main ressource.

@raptor: Do you think that it is a problem, that there are many pure wood-cards available? At least, all ‘mono’-decks still need gold.

In principle, I like deadwolf’s idea of cards that increase something, while decreasing some other thing – in this case storage. But it needs to be done in a way, that it doesn’t leads to a pure mono culture. And it’s difficult to balance – high storage shouldnt be received too early in the game.

Perhaps we should do the 1-ress-units next, deadwolf mentioned?

@Cheezypoofs, @vlad: Do you think, there is any need to change iron or mana yet? I could easily add an iron trader if needed. What about the mana-Decks? Are they so much overpowered that we should change some cards now like suggested (it might take some time till we can set individual limits on the amount of cards per deck)?

I’m not sure if you need to change either of them yet. Iron could probably use a 1-res combat unit.

I’ve played quite a few games over the past few days. I have been noticing that the games are all very short and I’m not going very deep into my decks. What I mean by that is that I try to run as close to 30 cards as I can. Most of my decks are 30-32 cards with about 12-14 combat units. In almost every game I’ve played, the game ended before I went through half of my deck. It was rare that I ever played more than 3 of my 12-14 combat cards.

I know the current meta-game is rush decks, but the thing is, I’m not using rush decks. I’m winning a majority of the games I’m playing with only a few combat units and just about every game is over in under 8 minutes. I think the pace of the game is in a good spot right now. It might be a little fast for beginners, but that’s probably unavoidable.

I think it might be a little too easy to win. More specifically, the starting population might be a little low though given the attack power of the combat units and strength of the spells out there.

It might just be my experiences, but if this is the case across the board, then here are a couple suggestions…

• Increase population, maybe 40 or so.
• Combat units in rank 2 do half damage to castle and full damage when they reach rank 1.

@DarkRune
For the last 2 cards we can maybe add an another ress.
What do the Community think? Which ress should we add?

Like you said;
In principle, we should avoid a pure mono culture.

And yes, i have started to create Images which can be used as 1 storage units.
This units shouldnt be fast/rush units. With this cards we can make the early game more interessting, too.

And i think, to set a individual limit for cards is the wrong way to go. there must be an other solution.

@Cheezypoofs
In the earlier stage the Population was 40.
Have you try to build your start-hand-buildings in the first row?
I think you can dam up a rush.

I’m not having any problems stopping rush decks. My non-rush decks are killing people with only 2 or 3 combat units getting out.

I’m just saying that I’m only using about 12-14 cards per game or so when I win. 7 of these are from my starting hand, plus a few more random draws. I rarely get into the heart of my deck. When the game ends, I still 15-20 cards left in my deck. I usually run between 30-32 cards per deck, rarely more. I don’t even think some of the decks I’m building are that strong. Some of my weakest combat units are enough.

Maybe the attack power on some of the lower resource cards (or maybe all cards) might be a little high… I’m not sure. But the games don’t seem to be going deep enough into decks on average in my opinion.

The best game experiences I have had are the games which last a little longer.

Hi Everybody:

Well, let me clarify what I was thinking about:

The “increase one resource at the cost of another resource” cards can be quite different from one another — one might be an event, one might be a resource providing card, one might be a creature — it’s up to the logic of each of the resources. So it might make sense that Stone has a Strip Mine: it provides 1 stone per 24 seconds (or whatever), increases stone storage by 1, and reduces wood storage by 1. Gold might have an Imperial Currency event — increase gold storage by 1, reduce metal storage by 1. There’s options…

And the 1 resource creatures shouldn’t be game breakers — they should be filler, but filler that helps flesh out the game in interesting ways.

There might be a mono-tendency, but that can really only be unsettled by having duo- or trio-decks (or whatever) that are worth the potential setback of needing more than 1 sort of resource-providing card. So that too is a burden of card creation. I think — to that end — it might be nice if some of the resource providing cards were dual-providers (produce Wood or Stone, Metal or Stone, etc.); and it might also help to have some of the resource providing cards have the ability to “discard to draw a card” — that way if you have a bunch of Mines in play, you can discard the ones you draw in hopes of a Forest of some sort…

It might be interesting to have cards that affect resources globally, e.g. Recession: No player may store more than 4 gold. Or Tectonic Shifts: No player may produce Stone for 3 minutes… (There could be Forest Fire that does the same to Wood, and Mineral Impurities that does the same to Iron.) That way people could shut down mono decks pretty quickly.

Excelsior.