Hugin

I’ve read that some people are getting this incorrect and either just playing wrong or creating house rules. And this is because the rules themselves do not mention this situation. Thankfully, the official FAQ does.

When a mission says that each player receives XP, each hero gains that XP even if one player is controlling multiple heroes.

From the official FAQ;
Q: When a Rebel player is playing as multiple heroes, does
each hero still receive 1 XP when the rules say each player
receives 1 XP?
A: Yes.

[FAQ can be found here: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-imperial-assault/ ]

Sometimes we like things to be different; randomly different. So why always have exactly 6 asteroids on the battlefield? (Battlespace?).

Without needing to have another die or dice laying around, I use the 3 attack dice that are included with the game. Roll the 3 dice and;
– each critical hit result adds 3 asteroids,
– each hit result adds 2 asteroids,
– each focus result adds 1 asteroid,
– each blank result adds 0 asteroids, or alternatively, it adds one of the Satellite tokens as “space debris”.

Obviously, if you have only a single core game then the max will still be 6 asteroids, but if you have more available all the better. You can also use another die roll for a higher density of obstacles or for larger play areas.

One thing that I found odd in Runebound was the fact that you needed the same amount of experience to level up the first time as it did the tenth time.

During the beginning of the game you are generally getting only 1 XP from a challenge, meaning it could take you up to five of them to level up. Later, closer to the end of the game, you could possibly level up after each challenge.

To help even out the time spent at each level and difficulty (green, yellow, blue, and red), I use the following chart:
Lv..XP
1…–
2….3
3….4
4….4
5….5
6….5
7….6
8….6
9….7
10…7
11…8
12…8
13…9
14…9
15..10

The first time you level up, i.e. go to level 2, you need to spend 3 XP. The easiest way to know what level you are currently at is to count all your experience counters plus your hero card. So, if you have 3 experience counters with your hero, you are at level 4, and it would cost 5 experience points to level up to level 5.

For games with 3 or more players you should reduce the XP required by 1.

The Long Dark has a new “Locate Test” mechanic that can result in the players being “Lost” and suffering from various Lost Effects.

The way to Pass a Locate Test is for the first player to discard a card from their hand, allowing him or her to discard a card from the Encounter Deck. If that card has “Pass” on it (in the lower right), the party is not lost and doesn’t suffer any Lost Effects. This can be repeated for each card you discard from your hand.

As you can imagine, this can eat up a lot of your cards if you are unlucky. The odds of success is roughly 1 in 4. Because of this, it is generally better to be lost and possibly suffer some negative effects, than it is to use up your limited card supply. I wouldn’t attempt to pass this test more than once or twice a game.

If you have the ability to look at the top card of the Encounter Deck, take advantage of it before attempting the Locate Test and discarding a card from your hand.

The Solo Adventure Variant is a different way to experience solo play with Thunderstone Advance. In this variant, the monsters attack the village and surrounding countryside, taking plunder and damaging the region’s production. These attacks make existing demand go up while supply goes down, and so as a result, things become more expensive.

Thankfully, there are heroes that can take the fight back to the home of these monsters, recover supplies, and give hope to the common folk to repair their village and continue business.

[I suggest using the Wilderness side of the board as this is the only way I have play-tested this variant. You will also need a 12-sided die or an electronic die roller as well as all 50 XP tokens.]

Set-up: The village is setup as normal, however the Dungeon deck is created differently. Once the three monster groups are chosen (one from each of the three levels), randomly take only six of the ten monster cards in each group. With the three piles (one for each monster group level) you take two of the level 1 monsters, three of the level 2 monsters, and four of the level 3 monsters.

Shuffle them together and place three face down on the space for the Dungeon deck. Place the Thunderstone-Bearer on top of those three cards and the remaining six cards on top of him. Now take the nine monster cards that were left over from before (four level 1′s, three level 2′s, two level 3′s), shuffle them together, and place them on top of the Dungeon deck. It may be necessary to turn over some monster cards from the Dungeon deck and place them in the Dungeon Hall, depending on the level of difficulty you wish to play;

Easy Mode – There are no monsters starting in the Dungeon Hall. At the end of your first turn you will take the top card from the Dungeon deck and place it face-up in the right-most rank (rank 4 on the wilderness side).
Normal Mode – Begin the game with one monster in the Dungeon Hall in rank 4.
Difficult Mode – The games begins with a monster in rank 3 and one in rank 4 of the Dungeon Hall.

Numbering the Village Cards: The Village cards are numbered 1-12 beginning with the left-most hero card. Do not include Basic cards in this numbering process as they are not effected. Thus, the hero cards are numbers 1 through 4; the regular is a Basic card and so is not counted.

The left-most weapon card is number 5 if there is any. Count any other weapon cards or go to the left-most item card. Keep counting the cards in this left to right, top to bottom fashion, until all the cards are numbered. The right-most Villager card will be number 12 (or right-most Spell card if there are no Villagers).

End of Turn: Use the official solo rules, but instead of a monster being placed in a “monster score pile” when it leaves the dungeon, never to be seen again, it now attacks the village. Slide the monster from rank 1 to the side of the board and each of the monsters to the next rank. Take the top card from the dungeon deck and place it in rank 4.

Now we resolve the monster attack on the village. Take a number of XP tokens (now called ‘plunder’ tokens) from the supply equal to that monster’s VP value (that’s VP not XP!). If there are no tokens left in the general supply, see “Party Frustration” below. Roll a 12-sided die to determine which village card to place a token on (remember, Basic Cards are not attacked). Make a roll for each plunder token.

A card pile can only have a maximum of five plunder tokens on it. If another token is to be be placed on that card, place it on the next pile that does not have five tokens on it.

A card’s cost is increased by 1 for each plunder token on it. The monsters have killed and driven away heroes and villagers, taken weapons and items as well as destroyed places where they were made, and increased demand on magic. With all these supplies lowered and production limited, prices are on the rise!

When a Thunderstone-Bearer attacks the village, things get really plundered! Resolve the attack as above, however there are two plunder tokens placed for each die roll. (So, if the Bearer’s VP value is 4, roll the 12-sided die 4 times and place two plunder tokens for each result).

Finally, take the monster that attacked the village and place it face up on the dungeon pile. It has retreated to the deepest part of the dungeon to rest and revel in its plunder. It cannot be directly attacked but it is still considered in the Dungeon Hall.

Party Frustration: If a monster attacks the village and there are not enough tokens in the general supply to use as plunder tokens, they are taken directly from the player’s XP token pile! Unfortunately, the persistent attacks on the village’s region has left the party’s reputation as plundered as the land around them. The harsh treatment they are receiving, compounded by their own feelings of frustration over the losses, is limiting their potential.

Party XP: After a monster is killed, you gain the monster card and the XP as indicated on the monster’s card, as normal. The XP tokens are taken from the plundered village cards first. Your success has returned some of the plundered resources and given hope to the people to rebuild. You can only take a single token from any one card pile unless there are no other cards with plunder tokens on them. If there are no more plunder tokens left on any cards you take one from the supply. Any bonus XP earned from cards, such as Thunderstone Shard, are only ever taken from the supply.

End Game: The game ends in one of two ways: either all the tokens have been placed on village cards as plunder tokens (in which case the village is destroyed and the monsters have successfully driven the population away; you lose), or, the party defeats the Thunderstone-Bearer and saves the village (you win).

If you win, there is also the question of how well you won. Add up all your VPs and subtract the number of plunder tokens on the village cards. If the number is positive you have gained a good reputation and the village prospers. The higher the number, the greater the reputation. If the number is negative, your reputation is tarnished as the impoverished and struggling population wonders if they have anything left worth rebuilding. There are no rewards or acclamations.
_________

I’d be very interested in any feed-back from play or questions. It seems fairly balanced in the several times I’ve tried it, although it may not be quite a difficult as I’d like – the games have been fairly tense and close but I only lost once. But then again, I’m a relatively new player. I’ve personally really enjoyed this way of playing solo as it creates a real sense of impending doom. Play time is about 90 minutes for me, including set-up and putting away.

Update: Added the difficulty modes.

A number of the Kobolds allow the player who defeats them to place them in another player’s discard pile. This can be a good idea since some very few VPs or even negative VPs, and they clog up your hand. I have been hampered quite a bit before in a 2-player game where the other player was placing these Kobolds into my deck early in the game.

This doesn’t work quite the same in solo play as a player has no fear of an undefeated Kobold ending up in their hand. As a variant, I play that any undefeated Kobold with the ability to be placed in another player’s discard pile gets put into my pile. If I defeat it, I have the option to put it into the monster score pile.

I find that exhibits don’t get claimed much, so to provide just a little boost to their payoff, try adding on a “prestige” VP bonus to the exhibition’s base VP value. The more exhibits you do, the more well known you become. To each exhibition that a player puts on, add another point per exhibition that player has in total.

So if you have one that’s worth 4 points and another worth 5 points, you gain a total of 13 points (4+2 and 5+2). Having only one worth (for eg.) 5 points would still give you 6 (5+1).

When possible, and (as always) depending on what your opponents are doing, try to perform your digs late in the year. Ideally, dig for only a moderate number of weeks instead of for the maximum – you get more pulls from the bag by digging twice for six weeks then once for twelve weeks.

So why late in the year? If you time it so that after your first dig you are now in the new year, you get a new permit, allowing you to dig again next turn without wasting and time traveling around.

I wouldn’t do this every time but if you can get it to work without too much other sacrifice then go for it and gain some efficiency.

This is what I’ve been using in my solo games but should work well for multi-player as well. It gives the feeling of progressing further and further with each foray into the dungeon/wilderness against tougher and tougher opponents.

As normal, take a stack of a random level 1 monster group, a level 2 group, and level 3 group. However, shuffle each stack/group individually. Then, take 2 of the level 1 cards, 3 of the level 2 cards, 5 of the level 3 cards, and the thunderstone bearer. Shuffle these together and place on the board. This makes the final third of the dungeon deck, and skews it toward the harder monsters.

Make the middle third of the dungeon deck by taking 3 level 1 cards, 4 level 2s, and 3 level 3s. Shuffle these cards and place on the other cards already in the dungeon deck space on the board. Finally, make the first third of the deck by taking the remaining cards (5 level 1’s, 3 level 2’s, and 2 level 5’s) and shuffling them together. Place them on the other cards to complete your dungeon deck.

A quick visual of this method is:
1.2.3… (the levels of the monsters)
2-3-5… (the bottom of the deck; also add in the thunderstone bearer)
3-4-3… (the middle of the deck)
5-3-2… (the top of the deck)

AEG has now produced a Compatibility Guide to answer your questions about how to handle cards from older sets with Thunderstone Advance.

You can find it on their website at:
http://www.alderac.com/thunderstone/2012/03/21/in-with-the-old-a-compatibility-guide/

One of heaviest factors in making this adventure so difficult when playing solo is the fact that no matter how many, or few, players there are, there will always be four of those nasty, unique, trolls. As a way to scale this quest (if you’re finding it as difficult as I do) is to use fewer Trolls.

For the easiest step in difficulty, use only one troll per player, randomly picked and kept face down until he appears in the staging area.
For the next step in difficulty, use one troll per player plus one additional troll; face up being slightly easier or placed face down for slightly more difficult.

And remember, when playing “two-handed” solo (i.e. 2 decks and 2 sets of three heroes as if two players were playing) still counts as playing with two players.

Here is the address for the Official Errata (version 2.2) for Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game. It is in pdf format.

http://images.freddistribution.com/docs/Civ2_ERRATA.pdf

Hopefully this may help some people out.

Do not ignore the Eastern Corridor of cities that stretch from Boston in the north down to Richmond and Norfolk. These cities are very close to each other which translates into cheap railway links. If a player is allowed to have a monopoly in this region they will have a significant advantage.

However, if everybody else goes there, the advantage of going there yourself is significantly decreased as competition rapidly erodes the return on investment. So, if all the players are fighting each other there, perhaps look elsewhere such as the Louisville-Chicago area. But as always, keep a close eye on the cards available in choosing where to go. If necessary, build in an place that isn’t connected to your existing track; you don’t have to have all your tracks (links) connected to each other.

This is a rule that I misplayed for a long time, and in fact, had never seen anyone else use it until fairly recently. The rule is “Each resource that a player has on his player board scores 1 point” found under “Final Scoring & Winner” but for some reason is often overlooked (at least that’s been my experience). I wonder if perhaps people just forget about it.

There may have been games I’ve played in the past where this could have altered who won the game. Well, at least going forward we’ll play it. And if you’ve been playing correctly, well done!

For casual games of Agricola I have used a “Stage 0” Round to help give players a bit of a helping hand to start the game. Everything works the same as usual except that we play a round without having the first “Stage 1” card revealed for Round 1 play.

It’s a small boost at the beginning of the game that makes a nice difference when the game is played casually or infrequently. I definitely don’t recommend this for experienced and regular gamers.

As an alternative to the agony of choosing modules (or the staleness of always having the same ones chosen), I keep a 20-sided die in the box for determining which modules are used in the game. Generally, we give each player a roll of the die, meaning more modules are used when playing with more people (Vizier’s Favor is always used with 4 or more players).

If a player rolls the number of a module already included (or a 1, being the Vizier’s Favor) we allow them to chose to reroll or to say that no module is included for their roll. This could be varied to suit the group too. For instance, you could just predetermine that there are “X” number of modules to be used and so roll that many times. You could also allow the player that rolled a duplicate roll to chose a module.

You’re using a die so just roll with it! Sometimes the combination is much better than you would have guessed.

In the Czech edition of Stone Age the penalty for not having enough food to feed your people was altered to be -4 VP per unfed person. Personally, I favour this rule over the English version of a flat -10 VP penalty. Give it a try and see what your group thinks about it.

If you’re feeling especially chaotic one day and “the winds, they be a changing”, try playing Pirate’s Cove using random appearance for the Legendary Pirates. After every one has revealed their destination islands roll a die to determine which of the six islands the Legendary Pirate visits – the number on the die corresponding to the island’s number. Decide at the start of the game if your group wishes to have the Legendary Pirate automatically go to Treasure Island on turn 12 (my personal preference) or have it random as well.

Homesteaders was unfortunately plagued by production quality issues when it was first released, ranging from slightly off-center die-cut tokens/tiles to severe mold attacking cardboard components. This meant that the quality of those components in any given box was in question.

Fortunately, this wonderful game has since been re-released as a Second Edition (which is clearly identified as such on the box cover) whose components were made by a different manufacturer. The results are day-and-night in difference of quality. The board is now mounted instead of thin cardboard, the warping issues have been resolved, and tokens/tiles are centered, giving Homesteaders the presentation it deserves.

Then everything’s alright. This quest has only two stages which need to be completed. Unfortunately, the publisher (Fantasy Flight Games) left out the phrase the lets you know you’ve defeated the quest once the second stage has been completed. It may be obvious to some but it also never hurts to hear something confirmed.

There is a rule that appears that many, including myself, has misplayed. It involves the Legendary Pirate fighting off multiple players. Essentially, the Legendary Pirate will attack each player in a specified order until all players engaged with him or her have been attacked. Here’s an example of Blackbeard attacking three players:

When Blackbeard’s turn comes up in the first round he attacks the player’s ship that has the most cannons. Everybody has only one turn (volley) each round of combat, even the Legendary Pirates. Next round, however, Blackbeard will attack the player with the next highest cannons. So, if there were three players fighting with Blackbeard, and we assume that each player survives the first attack from him, after three rounds of combat the players will be attacked once again in order of highest (most) cannons to lowest (least) cannons in the following rounds.

Turn order is determined by sails (fastest ship). The attack (volley) order for the Legendary Pirates is determined by the ship section specified on the pirate’s card. (See page 13 of the rulebook for this.)

Remember also that ties, even for determining the order in which the Legendary Pirates attacks, are broken by rolling a die. (See the last two sentences of the left column on page 6 of the rulebook.)

My gaming groups range from avid gamers to casual gaming with family/friends. It has been our experience, especially with the more casual gamers, that the “Captured!” travel card is just not fun for the one captured, and fun/enjoyment is one of the main goals of gaming. And to that end, Shadows over Camelot has supplied a lot of fun for us.

As a result of this we have since always excluded this card from play. I understand that thematic reasons and strategic decisions that this card presents when used but have not found it worth the negative experience that player has in an already difficult game.

My suggestion is that this expansion is used without that card, but another option is to make it simply a ‘lose your turn’ card, and require the knight to use a move action to go a location of his or her choosing next turn (without drawing another travel card).

This game is very difficult played solo unless you’re an accomplished deck constructor. I am not one of those people, in fact this is my first game of this type. I was reliably beat by this game in my first many solo games as I played single-sphere, out of the box decks.

I do like a challenge but this was beginning to sour my taste for the game. Then I tried playing “two-handed” (or “two-fisted”, i.e. as if two players). This did incredible things for me in rekindling my enjoyment of the game. Without the need to construct multi-sphere decks I was now able to see the great interactions between the various spheres. Plus, it brought the game into the range of challenge where I can win (some of the time).

So, if you’re playing solo and finding the game too tough, try playing with two hands and see if Middle-Earth isn’t habitable for you again.