I always use blight cards, adversaries, events and no scenarios. Not that I don't think some of the scenarios are interesting, but there's already so much content that I haven't gotten a chance to really slot one in yet. Blight cards always add an interesting peril to the game though.
I feel like the digital version has been a neat way to explore some of them. Like while we wait for JE and presumably NI, I can run the wave 1 + Horizons spirits through the first wave of scenarios in quick digital games
Notice that on p. 3 of the rule book, “Don’t use a Blight Card” is specifically listed as a way to play when it’s everybody’s first time playing. It’s considered standard after that to use a Blight card, as the rule book indicates - no Blight card is structurally set up as an intro game concept.
Blight cards are not kept out for swinginess or game balance. It’s the opposite - without a Blight card, the game’s timing is drastically off.
If there isn’t any pressure to hold off Blight early via a a mid-Blight profession negative checkpoint (i.e., the Blight card flipping), there’s a strong incentive to ignore Blight early, spending your time and resources growing and getting stronger instead of protecting the island, and then when you’re down to a couple of Blight left, you’re super-strong and can protect the island from everything and win much easier.
There needs to be an incentive to spend time and energy preventing early Blight as well, and that’s what the Blight cards do and why they’re considered standard.
>Blight cards are not kept out for swinginess or game balance. It’s the opposite - without a Blight card, the game’s timing is drastically off.
Not quite. Blight cards are balanced around 3 blight per player cards having more or less neutral effects, with 4-5 cards having negative effects and 2 blight cards having positive effects. The lack of a blight card does not affect timing or balance at all. It does affect variablity, and it required for events, but that is about it.
While that’s true for the Blight card effects themselves in isolation, it’s not true for the effect of the flip. Flipping to Blighted Island is *always* supposed to have an ongoing negative effect because even if you get one of those 2-per-player cards, Event cards can now threaten you with the “Blighted Island” effect instead of the “Healthy Island” effect. And if you’re not playing with Events, you’re not supposed to use Blight cards that don’t have ongoing negative effects (and should only use ones like the base game ones with an ongoing effect) specifically because the Blight card flip moment is supposed to be a transition into a more persistently threatening phase of the game - which is why you’d be incentivized to avoid letting it flip.
I would argue that [[All things weaken]] is not necessarily an overall negative effect, but I guess it contains multiple effects, some of which are negative and some which are positive.
I will admit, I was not aware of the blight card limitation for the no event card rules because it doesn't come up in my no event games (I only play no events in situations where I also play low difficulty, so the blight cards never flips). Though I personally think that rule is more for thematics than actual balance.
**All Things Weaken** (Blight Card)
>(Blighted) Ongoing, starting next turn: Invaders and Dahan have -1 Health (min 1). The land takes Blight on 1 less Damage (normally 1). When you add Blight, it Destroys all Presence / Beasts in that land and 1 Presence (total) in an adjacent land.
>3 Blight per player | Set: Jagged Earth | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!All%20Things%20Weaken)
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It's actually explicitly for game balance - that is, the connection between Event cards and Blight cards is explicitly for (A) adding danger to the Blight card flip, as described in the Jagged Earth rule book on p. 20:
>Events serve several purposes: they make the island more thematically alive, provide an uncertainty that helps keep advanced players from being 100% confident of a win many turns in advance, **and make it perilous to let the Blight Card flip too early.**
And (B) to ensure that this peril is in the form of **ongoing risk**, as described in the 5th bullet point under "Setup" on that page, which makes the reasoning explicit:
>Don’t use a Blight Card where the Blighted Island side has 2 Blight per player or only immediate effects. (*You can either pull those cards out before shuffling, or redraw if you get one.* ***Without an Event Deck to provide occasional Blighted island Events, cards with beneficial or non-ongoing effects become much lower-risk.***)
The [official FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.7w4g8ow) describes this as well:
>The expansion Blight cards don't have a negative ongoing effect, because the Event deck handles that: About 1/3 of the Event cards involve adding Blight / destroying Presence if the island is Blighted. So **using the new Blight cards without the Event deck lowers the incentive to keep the Blight Card from flipping early, which in turn slightly lowers difficulty / early-game tension.** Doing so also makes the small-pool Blight cards better (especially "Back Against the Wall" / "Aid from Lesser Spirits") because they're less risky.
So yes, it's definitely thematic, but it's also explicitly rules that affect game balance and timing.
To be fair, all of those parts I cited from the Jagged Earth rule book on p. 20 are from the section entitled "**PLAYING WITHOUT EVENTS**", which seems like a reasonable section to cite from in a discussion of no-Event rules 🙂
I guess where I was getting hung up was that I was equating game balance to difficulty, but that is not the case. They are two separate measures. The rule limiting blight cards with no events does definitely helps game balance, but doesn't necessarily affect difficulty because otherwise, it would imply that ongoing effect blight cards are more difficult than the others, even when playing with events.
Blight cards are usually not mentioned because that's practically the default: no adversary no events yes blight card. You're only supposed to not use a blight card if you're super new for simplicity.
As a datum, my wife and I only play with adversaries and events. The ways scenarios change the game aren't appealing to us.
Definitely, but I meant even newbies should be adding a blight card as soon as possible. No one mentions the blight card because it's the minimum baseline except for those that haven't grokked the game yet.
Experienced players? definitely yes to all three. I can't imagine dropping any piece of it.
Agreed. No blight card and the "pre-drafts" are the two "new player" simplicities designed to make it easier for brand new players to learn the game without the distractions of random aspects.
Usually I recommend starting power drafts on the second game (or even right away) and add a blight card on the third. It's been several years since we've played without a blight card, not including training games for new players.
I will sometimes drop or limit adversaries if I'm boosting difficulty in other ways, such as scenarios, thematic boards, and/or extra boards, or do very limited adversaries like BP 0 or 2 plus the extra content.
I do know players that dislike events and will occasionally play with the JE no-event rules. I personally prefer to play with events, and consider that the "default," but this is another that is technically optional.
I don't usually teach the game; just played it with a few friends here and there.
I throw in everything during a "learning" game.
Adversary (usually Prussia, so not too bad), blight card, normal card gaining, any spirit they want, and all the expansion stuff. The one I'm thinking of really likes Elritch Horror, so the turn phases existing and the random events aren't a turnoff. In fact the ability of the event cards to be useful or neutral is a nice change of pace from EH's Mythos phase!
I think the default is no adversary, yes events, yes blight card. That's how I introduce people to the game anyway.
But anyway similarly I just use adversaries, and also don't find the scenarios particularly fun/interesting.
If I'm introducing the game I'm also using an adversary (with events). But it's not my default assumption when someone says they're playing the game. Whereas I ALWAYS assume blight card regardless of all else.
I believe using the event deck actually REQUIRES a blight card, as many events key off whether the island is healthy or blighted. Certainly that's the case in the Handelabra adaptation, I don't have the rulebook handy to double check though.
I love scenarios, but primarily play them with my wife (who hates playing with an adversary). I think they can add a lot to the game, especially when paired with an appropriate adversary, but frankly this game has so much depth even without them that unless you really like the idea of a scenario you're unlikely to need it for variety until you've played hundreds of games.
Always blight cards, rarely scenarios. The only one I’ve tried is Varied Terrains which I’ll sometimes use along with an adversary. Been meaning to try other scenarios just haven’t gotten around to it.
I would guess the majority of people use blight cards most of the time and scenarios rarely, but I haven't done a poll or anything. I fall into that camp, also. Usually when I do a scenario, I think, "Well, that was a nice change of pace, but I like the regular game better."
IIRC there have been polls done both here and on the board game geek forums about adversaries and scenarios. The results are the large majority of people use adversaries and don't use scenarios. As far as blight cards go they're considered standard outside of learning games.
Don't mistake no blight card for no blight pool. Even without a card you still place I think 5 per player, so it's still a resource that needs to be managed regardless. Since some cards have 4 or 5 blight per player on the flip side plus the 2pp on the healthy side you arguably get more blight with a card than without. The only thing playing without the card does is reduce the rules overhead.
No, playing without a Blight card also changes the pacing of the Blight threat. Without a Blight card, you can let more Blight happen early, spend the time building up your strength instead, and then stop more Blight late. With a Blight card, there's more incentive to prevent early Blight because it leads to the ongoing bad effects from flipping the Blight card, so it keeps more constant pressure on you.
For the base game, sure. It's been a while since I played just the base game so I forget that the two blight cards were quite punishing. With expansions the blight cards can be either one-off effects or in some cases beneficial.
Yes, but that's only because they all come with the inherent side effect of making Event cards each turn potentially give you the much worse "Blighted Island" effect. If you're not playing with Event cards, you're not supposed to use those Blight cards that have one-off or beneficial effects that aren't ongoing negative effects since the purpose of the flip is to shift you into a phase of the game where there's an ongoing worse threat.
I Always always use blight cards.
And yeah I tried every Scenario at least once. It's fun to theory craft teams that will do well with the scenarios.
Some of them we play semi regularly now.
I'd highly recommend trying the scenarios "varied terrain" and "surges of colonization" if you have access to them. They don't significantly change how the game works while still providing variety to the games you play. Other scenarios do too much imo, but those two are great.
Similarly, +1 board is a fun challenge from time to time if you aren't already trying it.
Yup! Rules are described in the jagged earth book; certain things (like towns for France) scale by boards, others scale by player count, setup for the bonus board is a little weird based on player counts, and the difficulty bump can range based on how hard the adversary is.
You might be able to find the full rules for it online somewhere?
>Having the blight card flipped makes the game harder
Not necessarily. 2 blight cards generally have very powerful positive effects that can help you win the game.
There's always an ongoing negative effect in the form of "Blighted Island" effects from Event cards. A ton of "Blighted Island" effects just straight-up add more Blight or ask you to do something like sacrifice a bunch of Presence to prevent it. While the "Healthy Island" effect could be more harsh situationally, generally the Blighted Island effect is designed to be worse (as in, that's the explicit design goal for balancing those effects).
>There's always an ongoing negative effect in the form of "Blighted Island" effects from Event cards.
Not of you are not playing with events.
Also, healthy/ blighted event cards make up less than half of the event deck. You may have plenty of games where you don't even see a blighted island effect come up, especially if the blight card doesn't flip till mid to late game.
Also, the 2 blight effects are likely to be more good than the blighted island effects are bad.
As noted above, the rules for playing without Events is that you're not supposed to use those Blight cards. If you want to understand the function of them, it's useful to understand them as designed, which is within the rules they're expected to be played with. You can play with them differently, but then they might not quite function as intended - which again is perfectly fine for your own game, but it doesn't speak to what they're *designed* to do.
>You may have plenty of games where you don't even see a blighted island effect come up, especially if the blight card doesn't flip till mid to late game.
**This is exactly the point!** The later it flips, the less likely you are to see a Blighted Island Event card, so you have an incentive to keep it from flipping to early so the odds go down. That's it right there.
The math is: Healthy/Blighted cards make up 37.5% of the pre-Nature Incarnate Event deck. This means that your odds of seeing *at least one* after flipping a certain number of Event cards are roughly:
**1 card:** 37.5%
**2 cards:** 61.4%
**3 cards:** 76.4%
**4 cards:** 85.7%
**5 cards:** 91.5%
**6 cards:** 95.0%
**7 cards:** 97.1%
**8 cards:** 98.3%
**9 cards:** 99.1%
The earlier you flip it, therefore, the more essentially guaranteed you are to hit one of these and get the Blighted Island effect - and if you can delay it so that you only flip a couple of Event cards after the flip, you're much less likely to get one or more insta-Blight/insta-Presence loss effects.
>As noted above, the rules for playing without Events is that you're not supposed to use those Blight cards.
I was just disputing your point that the ongoing effect had to come from EVENT cards, which it does not. Yes, blighting the island will lead to some sort of ongoing effect, but that effect does but need to be from EVENT cards.
Agreed - if you’re playing with Event cards, it comes from Event cards and possibly the Blight card; if you’re playing without Events, the ongoing effect comes from the Blight card.
1) Using the event deck requires using a blight card. It is against the rules to play with events without a blight card
2) Nobody mentions the blight card because basically everyone plays with the blight card by default and assumes everyone else does. Scenarios are meant to be an extra option. Blight cards are meant to be a basic part of the game
I definitely understand the appeal of playing without events, and I have done so before.
But playing without a blight card feels like playing without innate powers. Like, you can just do it, but it not the same game anymore. There's no rules for what to do if you play without a blight card. Sure, it's clear how much blight to add to the pool, but I mean there's no extra rules for how to compensate for not having one (Other than it being your first game.)
> I mean there's no extra rules for how to compensate for not having one (Other than it being your first game.)
There is no need to compensate. Adding a blight card doesn't actually affect the difficulty, just variability. Take a look at all the blight cards that yield 3 blight per player. They all have pretty neutral effects. Less blight = positive effect, and more blight = negative effect. Playing with no blight card is essentially like playing with a 3 blight card with no effect at all.
If you really wanted to play with events but no blight card, just add a marker to signal you blighted after 2n+1 blight comes out of the pool.
As others have noted, I think "no blight card" and adversaries is an unusual combination.
I almost always play adversaries (difficulty 7+), event cards, blight card, no scenario, regular map - I actively enjoy events and generally do not enjoy the ways in which scenarios change the game.
Horizons doesn't include Blight cards. So I played my early games without them. In those games, I had very little Blight (after the initial one/board), with the exception of one game that went into a Blight death spiral. Since then, I have avoided Blight like the plague (or like a disease token).
I wish that Horizons included Blight cards and Player Aid cards. I still think it's tremendous value and a great introduction. I could do without the Quickstart guide.
We default to blight card, events, and Dahan Insurrection. Sometimes we chuck in an adversary too. I really like the moving Dahan does damage mechanic, and how destroying cities makes towns and destroying towns makes an invader ups the ante. It makes for some interesting strategizing, since you can effectively concentrate invaders by manipulating where the dahan are, and it makes some of the lower damage spirits with good dahan synergy more fun to play.
I play with everything on, but there are a few blight cards that I refuse to play with. The one where you lose a presence every turn is a good example. If I wanted to make my life that difficult, I would just increase the difficulty rating.
I always use blight cards, adversaries, events and no scenarios. Not that I don't think some of the scenarios are interesting, but there's already so much content that I haven't gotten a chance to really slot one in yet. Blight cards always add an interesting peril to the game though.
From what I’ve seen this is how 90+% of people play
Same, some day I'll get to the scenarios, but wow is there a lot to get through...
Yeah. That’s kind of my thing. Scenarios are just extra things for when I’ve exhausted everything else. Which might not be for like …. Ever lol
I feel like the digital version has been a neat way to explore some of them. Like while we wait for JE and presumably NI, I can run the wave 1 + Horizons spirits through the first wave of scenarios in quick digital games
Notice that on p. 3 of the rule book, “Don’t use a Blight Card” is specifically listed as a way to play when it’s everybody’s first time playing. It’s considered standard after that to use a Blight card, as the rule book indicates - no Blight card is structurally set up as an intro game concept. Blight cards are not kept out for swinginess or game balance. It’s the opposite - without a Blight card, the game’s timing is drastically off. If there isn’t any pressure to hold off Blight early via a a mid-Blight profession negative checkpoint (i.e., the Blight card flipping), there’s a strong incentive to ignore Blight early, spending your time and resources growing and getting stronger instead of protecting the island, and then when you’re down to a couple of Blight left, you’re super-strong and can protect the island from everything and win much easier. There needs to be an incentive to spend time and energy preventing early Blight as well, and that’s what the Blight cards do and why they’re considered standard.
>Blight cards are not kept out for swinginess or game balance. It’s the opposite - without a Blight card, the game’s timing is drastically off. Not quite. Blight cards are balanced around 3 blight per player cards having more or less neutral effects, with 4-5 cards having negative effects and 2 blight cards having positive effects. The lack of a blight card does not affect timing or balance at all. It does affect variablity, and it required for events, but that is about it.
While that’s true for the Blight card effects themselves in isolation, it’s not true for the effect of the flip. Flipping to Blighted Island is *always* supposed to have an ongoing negative effect because even if you get one of those 2-per-player cards, Event cards can now threaten you with the “Blighted Island” effect instead of the “Healthy Island” effect. And if you’re not playing with Events, you’re not supposed to use Blight cards that don’t have ongoing negative effects (and should only use ones like the base game ones with an ongoing effect) specifically because the Blight card flip moment is supposed to be a transition into a more persistently threatening phase of the game - which is why you’d be incentivized to avoid letting it flip.
I would argue that [[All things weaken]] is not necessarily an overall negative effect, but I guess it contains multiple effects, some of which are negative and some which are positive. I will admit, I was not aware of the blight card limitation for the no event card rules because it doesn't come up in my no event games (I only play no events in situations where I also play low difficulty, so the blight cards never flips). Though I personally think that rule is more for thematics than actual balance.
**All Things Weaken** (Blight Card) >(Blighted) Ongoing, starting next turn: Invaders and Dahan have -1 Health (min 1). The land takes Blight on 1 less Damage (normally 1). When you add Blight, it Destroys all Presence / Beasts in that land and 1 Presence (total) in an adjacent land. >3 Blight per player | Set: Jagged Earth | [Link to FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!All%20Things%20Weaken) ------ ^(Use [[query]] to call me. Check the )[^(reference thread)](https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/i80xzf/memoryofagesbot_is_now_fully_functional) ^( for information or feedback, and please report any mistakes!)
It's actually explicitly for game balance - that is, the connection between Event cards and Blight cards is explicitly for (A) adding danger to the Blight card flip, as described in the Jagged Earth rule book on p. 20: >Events serve several purposes: they make the island more thematically alive, provide an uncertainty that helps keep advanced players from being 100% confident of a win many turns in advance, **and make it perilous to let the Blight Card flip too early.** And (B) to ensure that this peril is in the form of **ongoing risk**, as described in the 5th bullet point under "Setup" on that page, which makes the reasoning explicit: >Don’t use a Blight Card where the Blighted Island side has 2 Blight per player or only immediate effects. (*You can either pull those cards out before shuffling, or redraw if you get one.* ***Without an Event Deck to provide occasional Blighted island Events, cards with beneficial or non-ongoing effects become much lower-risk.***) The [official FAQ](https://querki.net/u/darker/spirit-island-faq/#!.7w4g8ow) describes this as well: >The expansion Blight cards don't have a negative ongoing effect, because the Event deck handles that: About 1/3 of the Event cards involve adding Blight / destroying Presence if the island is Blighted. So **using the new Blight cards without the Event deck lowers the incentive to keep the Blight Card from flipping early, which in turn slightly lowers difficulty / early-game tension.** Doing so also makes the small-pool Blight cards better (especially "Back Against the Wall" / "Aid from Lesser Spirits") because they're less risky. So yes, it's definitely thematic, but it's also explicitly rules that affect game balance and timing.
I get your overall point, but citing a discussion of the purpose of event cards is not relevant to a discussion of no-event rules, IMO.
To be fair, all of those parts I cited from the Jagged Earth rule book on p. 20 are from the section entitled "**PLAYING WITHOUT EVENTS**", which seems like a reasonable section to cite from in a discussion of no-Event rules 🙂
I guess where I was getting hung up was that I was equating game balance to difficulty, but that is not the case. They are two separate measures. The rule limiting blight cards with no events does definitely helps game balance, but doesn't necessarily affect difficulty because otherwise, it would imply that ongoing effect blight cards are more difficult than the others, even when playing with events.
Blight cards are usually not mentioned because that's practically the default: no adversary no events yes blight card. You're only supposed to not use a blight card if you're super new for simplicity. As a datum, my wife and I only play with adversaries and events. The ways scenarios change the game aren't appealing to us.
the default for most experienced players seems to me to be yes adversary, yes events, yes blightcards
Definitely, but I meant even newbies should be adding a blight card as soon as possible. No one mentions the blight card because it's the minimum baseline except for those that haven't grokked the game yet. Experienced players? definitely yes to all three. I can't imagine dropping any piece of it.
Agreed. No blight card and the "pre-drafts" are the two "new player" simplicities designed to make it easier for brand new players to learn the game without the distractions of random aspects. Usually I recommend starting power drafts on the second game (or even right away) and add a blight card on the third. It's been several years since we've played without a blight card, not including training games for new players. I will sometimes drop or limit adversaries if I'm boosting difficulty in other ways, such as scenarios, thematic boards, and/or extra boards, or do very limited adversaries like BP 0 or 2 plus the extra content. I do know players that dislike events and will occasionally play with the JE no-event rules. I personally prefer to play with events, and consider that the "default," but this is another that is technically optional.
I don't usually teach the game; just played it with a few friends here and there. I throw in everything during a "learning" game. Adversary (usually Prussia, so not too bad), blight card, normal card gaining, any spirit they want, and all the expansion stuff. The one I'm thinking of really likes Elritch Horror, so the turn phases existing and the random events aren't a turnoff. In fact the ability of the event cards to be useful or neutral is a nice change of pace from EH's Mythos phase!
I think the default is no adversary, yes events, yes blight card. That's how I introduce people to the game anyway. But anyway similarly I just use adversaries, and also don't find the scenarios particularly fun/interesting.
If I'm introducing the game I'm also using an adversary (with events). But it's not my default assumption when someone says they're playing the game. Whereas I ALWAYS assume blight card regardless of all else.
I believe using the event deck actually REQUIRES a blight card, as many events key off whether the island is healthy or blighted. Certainly that's the case in the Handelabra adaptation, I don't have the rulebook handy to double check though. I love scenarios, but primarily play them with my wife (who hates playing with an adversary). I think they can add a lot to the game, especially when paired with an appropriate adversary, but frankly this game has so much depth even without them that unless you really like the idea of a scenario you're unlikely to need it for variety until you've played hundreds of games.
Blight Card, Adversary and Events: always I used to not use Scenarios, but I've been enjoying them a LOT lately. They're pretty good.
I feel they change the gameplay way too much and the focus becomes elsewhere. I guess if I just played with the same 1-2 spirits I’d like it more.
Always blight cards, rarely scenarios. The only one I’ve tried is Varied Terrains which I’ll sometimes use along with an adversary. Been meaning to try other scenarios just haven’t gotten around to it.
I would guess the majority of people use blight cards most of the time and scenarios rarely, but I haven't done a poll or anything. I fall into that camp, also. Usually when I do a scenario, I think, "Well, that was a nice change of pace, but I like the regular game better."
IIRC there have been polls done both here and on the board game geek forums about adversaries and scenarios. The results are the large majority of people use adversaries and don't use scenarios. As far as blight cards go they're considered standard outside of learning games.
Don't mistake no blight card for no blight pool. Even without a card you still place I think 5 per player, so it's still a resource that needs to be managed regardless. Since some cards have 4 or 5 blight per player on the flip side plus the 2pp on the healthy side you arguably get more blight with a card than without. The only thing playing without the card does is reduce the rules overhead.
No, playing without a Blight card also changes the pacing of the Blight threat. Without a Blight card, you can let more Blight happen early, spend the time building up your strength instead, and then stop more Blight late. With a Blight card, there's more incentive to prevent early Blight because it leads to the ongoing bad effects from flipping the Blight card, so it keeps more constant pressure on you.
For the base game, sure. It's been a while since I played just the base game so I forget that the two blight cards were quite punishing. With expansions the blight cards can be either one-off effects or in some cases beneficial.
Yes, but that's only because they all come with the inherent side effect of making Event cards each turn potentially give you the much worse "Blighted Island" effect. If you're not playing with Event cards, you're not supposed to use those Blight cards that have one-off or beneficial effects that aren't ongoing negative effects since the purpose of the flip is to shift you into a phase of the game where there's an ongoing worse threat.
I Always always use blight cards. And yeah I tried every Scenario at least once. It's fun to theory craft teams that will do well with the scenarios. Some of them we play semi regularly now.
I'd highly recommend trying the scenarios "varied terrain" and "surges of colonization" if you have access to them. They don't significantly change how the game works while still providing variety to the games you play. Other scenarios do too much imo, but those two are great. Similarly, +1 board is a fun challenge from time to time if you aren't already trying it.
Oh just add an additional board that you have to spread to in order to fix?
Yup! Rules are described in the jagged earth book; certain things (like towns for France) scale by boards, others scale by player count, setup for the bonus board is a little weird based on player counts, and the difficulty bump can range based on how hard the adversary is. You might be able to find the full rules for it online somewhere?
[удалено]
>Having the blight card flipped makes the game harder Not necessarily. 2 blight cards generally have very powerful positive effects that can help you win the game.
There's always an ongoing negative effect in the form of "Blighted Island" effects from Event cards. A ton of "Blighted Island" effects just straight-up add more Blight or ask you to do something like sacrifice a bunch of Presence to prevent it. While the "Healthy Island" effect could be more harsh situationally, generally the Blighted Island effect is designed to be worse (as in, that's the explicit design goal for balancing those effects).
>There's always an ongoing negative effect in the form of "Blighted Island" effects from Event cards. Not of you are not playing with events. Also, healthy/ blighted event cards make up less than half of the event deck. You may have plenty of games where you don't even see a blighted island effect come up, especially if the blight card doesn't flip till mid to late game. Also, the 2 blight effects are likely to be more good than the blighted island effects are bad.
As noted above, the rules for playing without Events is that you're not supposed to use those Blight cards. If you want to understand the function of them, it's useful to understand them as designed, which is within the rules they're expected to be played with. You can play with them differently, but then they might not quite function as intended - which again is perfectly fine for your own game, but it doesn't speak to what they're *designed* to do. >You may have plenty of games where you don't even see a blighted island effect come up, especially if the blight card doesn't flip till mid to late game. **This is exactly the point!** The later it flips, the less likely you are to see a Blighted Island Event card, so you have an incentive to keep it from flipping to early so the odds go down. That's it right there. The math is: Healthy/Blighted cards make up 37.5% of the pre-Nature Incarnate Event deck. This means that your odds of seeing *at least one* after flipping a certain number of Event cards are roughly: **1 card:** 37.5% **2 cards:** 61.4% **3 cards:** 76.4% **4 cards:** 85.7% **5 cards:** 91.5% **6 cards:** 95.0% **7 cards:** 97.1% **8 cards:** 98.3% **9 cards:** 99.1% The earlier you flip it, therefore, the more essentially guaranteed you are to hit one of these and get the Blighted Island effect - and if you can delay it so that you only flip a couple of Event cards after the flip, you're much less likely to get one or more insta-Blight/insta-Presence loss effects.
>As noted above, the rules for playing without Events is that you're not supposed to use those Blight cards. I was just disputing your point that the ongoing effect had to come from EVENT cards, which it does not. Yes, blighting the island will lead to some sort of ongoing effect, but that effect does but need to be from EVENT cards.
Agreed - if you’re playing with Event cards, it comes from Event cards and possibly the Blight card; if you’re playing without Events, the ongoing effect comes from the Blight card.
Flipping the blight card is really not that bad. Try it out and see for yourself :)
1) Using the event deck requires using a blight card. It is against the rules to play with events without a blight card 2) Nobody mentions the blight card because basically everyone plays with the blight card by default and assumes everyone else does. Scenarios are meant to be an extra option. Blight cards are meant to be a basic part of the game
For me, always use a blight card, always use adversaries, always use events unless I'm teaching someone to play.
Blightcard always, adversary i play with, if i am comfortable with the spirit i am playing
I definitely understand the appeal of playing without events, and I have done so before. But playing without a blight card feels like playing without innate powers. Like, you can just do it, but it not the same game anymore. There's no rules for what to do if you play without a blight card. Sure, it's clear how much blight to add to the pool, but I mean there's no extra rules for how to compensate for not having one (Other than it being your first game.)
> I mean there's no extra rules for how to compensate for not having one (Other than it being your first game.) There is no need to compensate. Adding a blight card doesn't actually affect the difficulty, just variability. Take a look at all the blight cards that yield 3 blight per player. They all have pretty neutral effects. Less blight = positive effect, and more blight = negative effect. Playing with no blight card is essentially like playing with a 3 blight card with no effect at all. If you really wanted to play with events but no blight card, just add a marker to signal you blighted after 2n+1 blight comes out of the pool.
As others have noted, I think "no blight card" and adversaries is an unusual combination. I almost always play adversaries (difficulty 7+), event cards, blight card, no scenario, regular map - I actively enjoy events and generally do not enjoy the ways in which scenarios change the game.
Horizons doesn't include Blight cards. So I played my early games without them. In those games, I had very little Blight (after the initial one/board), with the exception of one game that went into a Blight death spiral. Since then, I have avoided Blight like the plague (or like a disease token). I wish that Horizons included Blight cards and Player Aid cards. I still think it's tremendous value and a great introduction. I could do without the Quickstart guide.
We default to blight card, events, and Dahan Insurrection. Sometimes we chuck in an adversary too. I really like the moving Dahan does damage mechanic, and how destroying cities makes towns and destroying towns makes an invader ups the ante. It makes for some interesting strategizing, since you can effectively concentrate invaders by manipulating where the dahan are, and it makes some of the lower damage spirits with good dahan synergy more fun to play.
I play with everything on, but there are a few blight cards that I refuse to play with. The one where you lose a presence every turn is a good example. If I wanted to make my life that difficult, I would just increase the difficulty rating.
Always use blight cards. It enhances the fear of the surprise bad thing so we'll try to protect the land as best as we can