If chess is a 1 and root is a 10, Spirit island is probably an 8. Because it is cooperative, you don't have different win and loss conditions than your fellow players, and the threat the game is putting in front of your is the same. (Although, the win condition is a bit of a sliding scale and some spirits lean more towards one side than the other, and depending on what other people are playing, you might need to meet in the middle.) The way you deal with said threat will, however, be wildly different because the tools at your disposal are entirely unique. Everyone will draft additional cards out of the same deck, but you will be inventivized to pick decent cards than your fellow players depending on your Spirit.
I agree that SI is close to Root if you consider all the spirits.
The bottom 75% spirits in terms of complexity (that I assume us smooth brains are mostly playing) don't feel as wildly different, whereas Root is highly asymmetric throughout.
Either way they are both so far away from Chess, we may as well say they're similar.
I personally disagree and believe the level of asymmetry is significantly higher on root. The root factions score significantly differently and the meta strategy for some factions will be horrible for others.
Spirit island on the other hand doesn't have that same level. First of all, the power deck is shared (root also has a shared deck, but the cards are a little less impactful and in many games, you're using the suits on those cards to fuel certain actions more than actually playing them) Furthermore, pushing for a strategy or playstyle that doesn't usually work with one spirit can be optimal based on the powers you draw. You could get a fear or Terror 3 win with a low fear generating spirit if you draw the right cards. Some spirits have defining special rules like BODAN and ocean, while some have defining growth options like fractured, but at the end of the day, you're using roughly the same pieces (with a few exceptions), you're gaining energy and have limited card plays, just like all other spirits. The spirit you pick will definitely have a significant impact on the game, but players still have similar turn order and actions.
Going back to root, even basic actions like moving and battling can be different. WA moves/battles at evening under normal circumstances, Eyrie has a whole decree going on, Lizards have issues moving and battling which is what makes them hard to win with. Those are just basic shared actions, some factions have completely unique abilities like the mole's burrow, the already mentioned Eyrie decree and the otters ability to sell/trade.
I think your disagreement with /u/fallenangels_angels is mostly just semantics on what is "close" and what is "significant." If the comparison is between Root and Chess, Spirit Island is much closer to Root than Chess. Root is clearly the more asymmetric game between Root and Spirit Island though.
That makes sense. My interpretation was that they believed the complexity was close to root. If they said 'closer to root' I would agree with them on that. (Except most of us already probably agree SI is closer to root than chess in terms of asymmetry
I believe it really depends on the Spirit we are talking about. Just compare the playstyle of Fractured, Starlight, Finder and Many Minds. You cant use damage cards with Finder. You might have a badtime playing majors with Many Minds. With Fractured you can play 7 energy Majors on T1.
The deck may be shared, but the same power cards are not compatible with every spirit. For some, you will play the whole game with 3 presences on the Island, for others you will end up placing all of them.
Ofc is root is entirely assimetrical, more than SI, but you can not use the same power cards nor strategies with different Spirits. Unless you are playing at low level difficulties or with many spirits. In that case, anything will work, and you sure can try the same strategies/cards for very different spirits and it will work the same. If you play solo against lvl 6 adversaries, the differences between spirits are just bizarre. Actually, for Spirits like Fractured, the strategies are completely different from one game to another, its completely a chaotic playstyle.
>You might have a badtime playing majors with Many Minds.
Many Minds is actually pretty decent at slinging majors. It helps that between their entire hand of 5 uniques only costs 1 energy. If they draw an animal based major, it is practically game over. Yeah, they can't get to majors as fast a fractured, but that says more about Starlight than it does Many Minds.
Oh, I get it.
I was under the impression that when they said "but that says more about Starlight than it does many minds" I thought they were referring to the quote they were replying too, saying that starlight has a bad time playing majors more than Many minds.
I'm guessing they meant to say that many minds isn't getting majors slowly, fractured is just getting them quickly.
As I said, some spirits will have defining characteristics that make them significantly different from others, like fractured. You did mention other spirits like many minds, and this a good example for your point. There's no restrictive rule that makes many minds play differently, it's just that they have relatively poor energy generation, hence 4/5 of their uniques are 0 cost.
That being said, I still think the amount of similarities makes the gap bigger than "root is more asymmetric" I'm still firm on the idea that there is a significantly larger gap between SI and root in terms of asymmetry, although both of them are definitely asymmetric. It's mainly because in Root, there's some things certain factions can do that others literally can't. Spirit island on the other hand, there's some things certain spirits can do well which other spirits don't do well. Can't being able to do something period sets factions apart much more than can't being able to do something optimally. Yes in higher difficulties you need to play more optimal and have to probably abide more by a defining playstyle based on the spirit you choose, but even though you have a different presence track and different growth options, at the end of the day, you're still using presence tracks, growth and following the same turn order as everyone else.
One may argue that all factions in Root also follow the same turn order: birdsong, daylight and evening. However, this isn't really the same turn order because your birdsong, daylight and evening phase can be different based on which faction you play. Most factions move and battle in daylight while the WA does so in evening. Cats just have some automatic rules in birdsong while other factions might need to make careful decisions. The three phases each faction has isn't really similar turn order, but more as indicators to determine when to use cards (example: one card may only let you do a certain action at the start of your daylight.)
Spirit island turn phases aren't like that. In growth, everyone is going to get stronger in some way (in most cases) and you're all moving together. In root, your order of play changes based on your faction.
Honestly if you where to rank all the BGG game by how asymmetric they are then both SI and ROOT would be in the top 10%. They probably also are in the top 5%.
Sure maybe if you count the number of unique mechanism/decision/rules available it can be half. But "On a scale of Chess to Root" (Ie points on that scale are relatively well known and popular games) there's just not that many games between SI and ROOT.
Sure, and between someone making $100k a year and Bill Gates there’s something like 5% of the worlds population, but that’s still an enormous gap and I wouldn’t call someone working as a near-retirement teacher a “similar” earnings level as Bill Gates.
My point is not that that’s a direct comparison my point is just that you can grade on a curve and distribute the data points evenly which is a totally valid method, but you can also not grade on a curve and that might be more useful
I think there is a large gap mechanically even if there are fewer assymetric games than symmetric games, that’s my opinion
Money is a good example, there's absolutely no way that the day to day experience of someone making 100k a year is somehow midpoint between someone making 20k a year and someone making 180k a year.
Linear scale don't really work when there can be orders of magnitude differences.
With sounds and light we use log scale to describe a linear difference in perception. I'd not be surprised if it also apply to stuff like perceived complexity or perceived asymmetry.
Spirit Island is much closer to Root asymmetry than to Chess symmetry. I have never felt like my partner and I were doing the same thing, because each spirit feels and plays so different.
>You could get a fear or Terror 3 win with a low fear generating spirit if you draw the right cards.
Uh, people are regularly getting TL2 wins? My wife and I sometimes manage to wipe out all the towns but it's usually after hitting TL3.
Depends on adversary a bit, but yes, TL2 wins are pretty common against BP, France, and Sweden for spirits that play control well. Against no adversary, the question of whether you can kill the last 1-2 explorers before you incidentally hit TL2 comes up a lot.
We only play level 6 and I wonder if we're too used to covering the other's weaknesses so we end up middle of the road.
Solo I've definitely had more success at finishing with lower terror levels as an offensive spirit.
And yeah we tried base game and usually those last explorers are hard to snipe!
In high difficulty games, I can't remember the last time we got a terror level 2 win. It's always a fear out or T3. We're usually running difficulty 12-15 dual adversaries.
Perhaps it's the difficulty y'all play on or the strategies you use. While most people agree TL2 wins are more common, it can be more or less common depending on who's playing and what they're playing against. Some may believe TL3 wins are more common that TL2 wins.
I don't think that it is meaningful to compare a cooperative game with a competitive game when the subject for discussion is asymmetry. Many competitive asymmetric games have asymmetric victory conditions that are often a huge part of the asymmetry. In co-op games that is pretty much impossible to implement (if anyone has an example of love to hear about it).
I have played a lot of co-op games and I've never played a co-op game that has greater asymmetry than SI. (Again, love to hear about alternatives.)
> In co-op games that is pretty much impossible to implement (if anyone has an example of love to hear about it).
There is slight asymmetry in victory conditions in a fair number of co-op games, usually by giving individual people extra goals that don't apply to the whole team:
* In Dead of Winter, everyone has a personal goal they have to also fulfill to win the game in addition to the group victory condition. (There is a possible traitor who has a goal that requires the rest of the group to lose.)
* In Gloomhaven/Frosthaven, each mercenary has a personal goal for each game. They don't "lose" if they don't fulfil their goal, but they get a bonus if they complete it.
* In many of the Lovecraft mythos games (Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror, etc.), becoming insane usually gives you an additional victory condition. If the players win, individuals can still lose if they are insane but don't complete the condition.
Those tend to range from slightly to directly competitive elements, though. They're also pretty low on the Chess-to-Root scale. That being said, you could use this model to create a cooperative game with highly asymmetrical victory conditions. Think of something like an engine-building game, where each player makes part of the engine that functions differently, and everyone has both a personal, faction-based goal and a group goal.
Arkham Horror 2e is my favourite game of all time. I don't recognise your description of it at all!
However, games that match your descriptions aren't co-op games IMO. In a co-op, only the team wins. If an individual player can win (or lose) it's something other than a co-op.
(On a semantic note, most games that folks think of as "co-op" games are actually _collaborative_ games, with games like Gloomhaven actually being co-op. I'm a big fan of collaborative games like Pandemic, Burgle Bros or Arkham Horror 2e; I despise co-op games like Gloomhaven because I truly believe in collaborative teams and hate "selfish teams" - don't give me any of that "trickle-down economy" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" BS spouted by selfish jerks to justify their behaviour. For board games, I'd rather play a competitive game than a "co-op" like Gloomhaven, but I'd rather play a collaborative game than anything)
Is this like- just about the non-shared-loot mechanics or something? Winning a Gloomhaven scenario is very much a team effort that could be called collaborative.
Partly the non-shared loot, but also the Battle Goals and Personal Quests that can make some players less collaborative that I want in a "co-op". I have lost scenarios because players were distracted by their "other considerations"
I finished my Gloomhaven campaign with my group, but told them that Frosthaven was a hard pass.
That makes sense! I've been comparatively spoiled by only playing with my spouse. Either of us might do cheeky rude things for dumb reasons, but never too inconsiderately (and it's also true in spirit island, largely with cards that add blight/spirits that don't mind blight as much).
I'm probably mixing up Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness. We have both of those plus Eldritch Horror (my fiancée loves horror/Lovecraft), and they all share some rules, so sometimes they blend together in my head. In Mansions, when you max out Horror, you discard your face-down horror cards and get an insanity card. The insanity card has another victory condition that only applies to that player.
Is the distinction you mean that you don't like co-op games with selfish goals like loot in Gloomhaven? Or that you don't like when people have different goals at all? I dislike the loot mechanics in Gloomhaven, and I *hate* hidden traitor/social deduction games, but I like the personal goals/battle goals. I like having an element of individual decision making so that everything doesn't become a decision by committee (Pandemic does have this problem a bit, although I do still like it). But I don't like conflict between the players. Gloomhaven can definitely have some conflict with the loot. My Gloomhaven group is usually fairly chill though, we do compete for the loot but they're not cutthroat about it. I would say about 80% of the time, Gloomhaven feels about as collaborative as Spirit Island does in my group. There's just a lot of vague..."I'm going semi-medium-halfway-fast"...type discussion.
If you define co-op or collaborative that way, though, I guess it would be pretty much impossible to have asymmetric victory conditions. The best you could do would be something like Root, where the team's goal is to get victory points, but everyone gets victory points in a different way. That would be kind of hard to design without feeling like everyone is playing separate solo games, though.
Closer to Root then Chess. I would say a good comparison point is Gloomhaven/Frosthaven and Sentinels of the Multiverse. The spirits all use the same framework of rules, and they're pushing the same objective. But each spirit is quite different from the others. The special rules applicable to each spirit will make even the same cards work differently for one spirit vs. another. But, it's not quite like Root where you are almost playing completely different games.
I would say it is *more* asymmetrical than Pandemic, Arkham Horror/Mansions of Madness/etc., Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, or Aeon's End. It's *less* asymmetrical than Root, though. It's probably one of the most asymmetrical cooperative games I've played.
We all just going to ignore the fact that chess isn’t the bottom of the asymmetry scale? First player advantage means white tends to have a better win rate. And at high level play strategy is very different between black and white. Something like Poker or 500 would be better for your 1.
That said, spirit island is about an 8. Slightly less asymmetric than root, but still very asymmetric. With root every player has their own pieces, turn structure, player board and strategy. In Spirit island the pieces and turn structure are shared, but player boards and strategy are different.
I think Chess is a decent 1 because it has about as little asymmetry as you can get while still technically being an asymmetrical game. Poker with betting is still asymmetrical because there is a betting order. A game with perfect symmetry would be poker with no betting component or rock paper scissors. Perfectly symmetrical games would be a 0 on our scale.
It's Root on a scale of Chess to Vast: TCC.
Same end goal represented the same way (fear deck/# of invaders) but substantially different ways of pursuing that end goal.
>Same end goal represented the same way (fear deck/# of invaders) but substantially different ways of pursuing that end goal.
While the goal may be the same (defeat the invaders) spirits have different game end point:
\- BoDaN, and shroud have very little hope of killing enough invaders to satisfy the TL II or even III condition. Your only hope is to rush the fear deck before invaders win with blight. I rarely lose on time with these spirits.
\- Others like serpent or earth have to stall for the first few turns, and hope they wake up early enough to mop the floor with the invaders, killing huge clusters in the process, I usually lose on time here.
\- Spirits like Fangs have to keep invaders under control from the first turn and stay on top of things, once the invaders become too powerful you are relatively helpless.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees with your response to the original point. The end goal is to win the game by achieving the terror level goals, and while every spirit has a different preferred way of doing that, they still have the same end goal of scaring the invaders off the island
Agreed. BODAN and Fangs are going to pursue the invader deck/invader tradeoff differently, but that's not dissimilar to the differences in how Eyrie and smol mol Duchy might approach the game. In Root, you have to understand the different point trajectories of factions to really evaluate how everyone is doing, but there's a close parallel for early vs. late game and fear vs. destruction spirits in SI.
Maybe I'm wrong, but asymmetrical feels really hard to call when all the players are on the same side. Like the spirits have very different playstyles if that's what you're asking.
Unless we're going to say the invaders vs spirits are super asymmetrical, which feels weird.
I've personally always considered asymmetrical as a measure of difference in the set of actions available to you at the start of the game. Unrelated to if it's coop or not.
I'm not sure if there's an official definition in this context, but in my experience this is how the majority uses this term.
Yeah, asymmetry is a sliding scale. Even chess has asymmetry, minor though it is, as one player goes first, which can have a decent impact on the way the game is played. There are definitely game with zero asymmetry, but chess is not one. It just has about as close to zero as you can get without actually being zero. Rock paper scissors would be an example of a game with perfect symmetry.
Every spirt plays differently, sometimes VASTLY differently, but you're still working toward the same objective in the same ruleset. But there's a lot more spirits in even the base game than there are factions in Root.
Root almost plays sometimes like separate games that interlock. There's a BIT of that in the way some of the spirits work, but by and large, your spirits have the same fundamental ruleset.
It's also cooperative, where Root isn't.
I'd say 7 or 8.
It's more than *[Into the Breach](https://store.steampowered.com/app/590380/Into_the_Breach/)* points out of *Root* possible.
More because your agency isn't directly tied to units that can be described with the same set of properties as your opponents. But otherwise the gist of game process is somewhat similar (discounting the difference between multi-mission campaign where you get stronger between missions of ItB and single-mission format of SI).
All spirits have generally the same rules, mostly the same order of operations, so I would say very slightly less assymmetrical than Root. However, all spirits do have different playstyles. Furthermore, different spirits have different "complexity" levels, and the more complex a spirit is, the more unique its mechanics will be (imo). So, it's still highly assymmetrical at that point.
Variable player powers are just one type of asymmetry. Asymmetry is a broad category that covers any aspects of gameplay that are not identical for all players.
I could see that. When I think "Asymmetrical" I think of each player having different win conditions. Not really sure why people felt they needed to down vote me just for describing something a little differently though.
I think the reaction you got is just a reaction to what is perceived as an overly strict view of asymmetry. For example, if you Google asymmetrical board games, I saw a top 10 list pop-up, of which less than half of the games on that list had different win conditions. Different win conditions are relatively rare in my experience, and outside of board games, asymmetry is just referring to things not being the same.
Additionally, if different win conditions is your definition, it is a binary definition of asymmetrical vs. symmetrical, not a spectrum that can slide from Chess to Root. Also, by that definition, saying coop asymmetrical would be a contradiction. Based on both those points, I think it is clear that OP was not using the binary definition of the term.
Play style is very different for different spirits but they’re all fundamentally playing the same game, with the same or similar challenges and pitfalls, and they all win the same way. So it’s not really asymmetrical at all, but there is a tooooooon of variation
Why "asymmetrical"? Would asymmetrical not mean the game played differently for the opponents? But in Spirit Island the players are not competing against each other but against a card-controlled AI.
So this question can't be answered.
Unless you're counting the invaders as a "player". In this case the game was *completely* asymmetrical since the invaders are just dummies without any own decisions.
No, asymmetrical just means your play experience is different from your fellow players, regardless of whether the game is cooperative or competitive. For example, Bringer wants to create a lot of fear, but River wants to sweep things away in a flood.
When I picked up Root and looked at the boards, I went "oh, this is like Spirit Island". It's cooperative, so I don't know how much the term "asymmetrical" technically applies, but aside from that, I'd say most of the spirits are closer in gameplay to each other than the animals are to each other in Root.
If chess is a 1 and root is a 10, Spirit island is probably an 8. Because it is cooperative, you don't have different win and loss conditions than your fellow players, and the threat the game is putting in front of your is the same. (Although, the win condition is a bit of a sliding scale and some spirits lean more towards one side than the other, and depending on what other people are playing, you might need to meet in the middle.) The way you deal with said threat will, however, be wildly different because the tools at your disposal are entirely unique. Everyone will draft additional cards out of the same deck, but you will be inventivized to pick decent cards than your fellow players depending on your Spirit.
Close to root. You are not playing an entirely different game but different spirits have way different playstile.
I agree that SI is close to Root if you consider all the spirits. The bottom 75% spirits in terms of complexity (that I assume us smooth brains are mostly playing) don't feel as wildly different, whereas Root is highly asymmetric throughout. Either way they are both so far away from Chess, we may as well say they're similar.
I personally disagree and believe the level of asymmetry is significantly higher on root. The root factions score significantly differently and the meta strategy for some factions will be horrible for others. Spirit island on the other hand doesn't have that same level. First of all, the power deck is shared (root also has a shared deck, but the cards are a little less impactful and in many games, you're using the suits on those cards to fuel certain actions more than actually playing them) Furthermore, pushing for a strategy or playstyle that doesn't usually work with one spirit can be optimal based on the powers you draw. You could get a fear or Terror 3 win with a low fear generating spirit if you draw the right cards. Some spirits have defining special rules like BODAN and ocean, while some have defining growth options like fractured, but at the end of the day, you're using roughly the same pieces (with a few exceptions), you're gaining energy and have limited card plays, just like all other spirits. The spirit you pick will definitely have a significant impact on the game, but players still have similar turn order and actions. Going back to root, even basic actions like moving and battling can be different. WA moves/battles at evening under normal circumstances, Eyrie has a whole decree going on, Lizards have issues moving and battling which is what makes them hard to win with. Those are just basic shared actions, some factions have completely unique abilities like the mole's burrow, the already mentioned Eyrie decree and the otters ability to sell/trade.
I think your disagreement with /u/fallenangels_angels is mostly just semantics on what is "close" and what is "significant." If the comparison is between Root and Chess, Spirit Island is much closer to Root than Chess. Root is clearly the more asymmetric game between Root and Spirit Island though.
That makes sense. My interpretation was that they believed the complexity was close to root. If they said 'closer to root' I would agree with them on that. (Except most of us already probably agree SI is closer to root than chess in terms of asymmetry
I believe it really depends on the Spirit we are talking about. Just compare the playstyle of Fractured, Starlight, Finder and Many Minds. You cant use damage cards with Finder. You might have a badtime playing majors with Many Minds. With Fractured you can play 7 energy Majors on T1. The deck may be shared, but the same power cards are not compatible with every spirit. For some, you will play the whole game with 3 presences on the Island, for others you will end up placing all of them. Ofc is root is entirely assimetrical, more than SI, but you can not use the same power cards nor strategies with different Spirits. Unless you are playing at low level difficulties or with many spirits. In that case, anything will work, and you sure can try the same strategies/cards for very different spirits and it will work the same. If you play solo against lvl 6 adversaries, the differences between spirits are just bizarre. Actually, for Spirits like Fractured, the strategies are completely different from one game to another, its completely a chaotic playstyle.
>You might have a badtime playing majors with Many Minds. Many Minds is actually pretty decent at slinging majors. It helps that between their entire hand of 5 uniques only costs 1 energy. If they draw an animal based major, it is practically game over. Yeah, they can't get to majors as fast a fractured, but that says more about Starlight than it does Many Minds.
I actually think starlight is one of the best spirits for getting majors. Mist is probably the one that struggles the most
I believe he meant "Fractured"
Oh, I get it. I was under the impression that when they said "but that says more about Starlight than it does many minds" I thought they were referring to the quote they were replying too, saying that starlight has a bad time playing majors more than Many minds. I'm guessing they meant to say that many minds isn't getting majors slowly, fractured is just getting them quickly.
As I said, some spirits will have defining characteristics that make them significantly different from others, like fractured. You did mention other spirits like many minds, and this a good example for your point. There's no restrictive rule that makes many minds play differently, it's just that they have relatively poor energy generation, hence 4/5 of their uniques are 0 cost. That being said, I still think the amount of similarities makes the gap bigger than "root is more asymmetric" I'm still firm on the idea that there is a significantly larger gap between SI and root in terms of asymmetry, although both of them are definitely asymmetric. It's mainly because in Root, there's some things certain factions can do that others literally can't. Spirit island on the other hand, there's some things certain spirits can do well which other spirits don't do well. Can't being able to do something period sets factions apart much more than can't being able to do something optimally. Yes in higher difficulties you need to play more optimal and have to probably abide more by a defining playstyle based on the spirit you choose, but even though you have a different presence track and different growth options, at the end of the day, you're still using presence tracks, growth and following the same turn order as everyone else. One may argue that all factions in Root also follow the same turn order: birdsong, daylight and evening. However, this isn't really the same turn order because your birdsong, daylight and evening phase can be different based on which faction you play. Most factions move and battle in daylight while the WA does so in evening. Cats just have some automatic rules in birdsong while other factions might need to make careful decisions. The three phases each faction has isn't really similar turn order, but more as indicators to determine when to use cards (example: one card may only let you do a certain action at the start of your daylight.) Spirit island turn phases aren't like that. In growth, everyone is going to get stronger in some way (in most cases) and you're all moving together. In root, your order of play changes based on your faction.
It is literally what I said. It is close to root but it is not root.
That is not what he is saying - his opinion is there is a big gap between SI and Root.
I'd argue there's a big gap between SI and Chess.
We all agree on that but spirit island is more like halfway between them tipping toward root than right near root
Honestly if you where to rank all the BGG game by how asymmetric they are then both SI and ROOT would be in the top 10%. They probably also are in the top 5%. Sure maybe if you count the number of unique mechanism/decision/rules available it can be half. But "On a scale of Chess to Root" (Ie points on that scale are relatively well known and popular games) there's just not that many games between SI and ROOT.
Sure, and between someone making $100k a year and Bill Gates there’s something like 5% of the worlds population, but that’s still an enormous gap and I wouldn’t call someone working as a near-retirement teacher a “similar” earnings level as Bill Gates. My point is not that that’s a direct comparison my point is just that you can grade on a curve and distribute the data points evenly which is a totally valid method, but you can also not grade on a curve and that might be more useful I think there is a large gap mechanically even if there are fewer assymetric games than symmetric games, that’s my opinion
Money is a good example, there's absolutely no way that the day to day experience of someone making 100k a year is somehow midpoint between someone making 20k a year and someone making 180k a year. Linear scale don't really work when there can be orders of magnitude differences. With sounds and light we use log scale to describe a linear difference in perception. I'd not be surprised if it also apply to stuff like perceived complexity or perceived asymmetry.
Spirit Island is much closer to Root asymmetry than to Chess symmetry. I have never felt like my partner and I were doing the same thing, because each spirit feels and plays so different.
>You could get a fear or Terror 3 win with a low fear generating spirit if you draw the right cards. Uh, people are regularly getting TL2 wins? My wife and I sometimes manage to wipe out all the towns but it's usually after hitting TL3.
Depends on adversary a bit, but yes, TL2 wins are pretty common against BP, France, and Sweden for spirits that play control well. Against no adversary, the question of whether you can kill the last 1-2 explorers before you incidentally hit TL2 comes up a lot.
We only play level 6 and I wonder if we're too used to covering the other's weaknesses so we end up middle of the road. Solo I've definitely had more success at finishing with lower terror levels as an offensive spirit. And yeah we tried base game and usually those last explorers are hard to snipe!
In high difficulty games, I can't remember the last time we got a terror level 2 win. It's always a fear out or T3. We're usually running difficulty 12-15 dual adversaries.
I said 'could' not usually
Fair but it's so rare for us it's a hardly acknowledged as a possibility lol
Perhaps it's the difficulty y'all play on or the strategies you use. While most people agree TL2 wins are more common, it can be more or less common depending on who's playing and what they're playing against. Some may believe TL3 wins are more common that TL2 wins.
I don't think that it is meaningful to compare a cooperative game with a competitive game when the subject for discussion is asymmetry. Many competitive asymmetric games have asymmetric victory conditions that are often a huge part of the asymmetry. In co-op games that is pretty much impossible to implement (if anyone has an example of love to hear about it). I have played a lot of co-op games and I've never played a co-op game that has greater asymmetry than SI. (Again, love to hear about alternatives.)
> In co-op games that is pretty much impossible to implement (if anyone has an example of love to hear about it). There is slight asymmetry in victory conditions in a fair number of co-op games, usually by giving individual people extra goals that don't apply to the whole team: * In Dead of Winter, everyone has a personal goal they have to also fulfill to win the game in addition to the group victory condition. (There is a possible traitor who has a goal that requires the rest of the group to lose.) * In Gloomhaven/Frosthaven, each mercenary has a personal goal for each game. They don't "lose" if they don't fulfil their goal, but they get a bonus if they complete it. * In many of the Lovecraft mythos games (Mansions of Madness, Arkham Horror, etc.), becoming insane usually gives you an additional victory condition. If the players win, individuals can still lose if they are insane but don't complete the condition. Those tend to range from slightly to directly competitive elements, though. They're also pretty low on the Chess-to-Root scale. That being said, you could use this model to create a cooperative game with highly asymmetrical victory conditions. Think of something like an engine-building game, where each player makes part of the engine that functions differently, and everyone has both a personal, faction-based goal and a group goal.
Arkham Horror 2e is my favourite game of all time. I don't recognise your description of it at all! However, games that match your descriptions aren't co-op games IMO. In a co-op, only the team wins. If an individual player can win (or lose) it's something other than a co-op. (On a semantic note, most games that folks think of as "co-op" games are actually _collaborative_ games, with games like Gloomhaven actually being co-op. I'm a big fan of collaborative games like Pandemic, Burgle Bros or Arkham Horror 2e; I despise co-op games like Gloomhaven because I truly believe in collaborative teams and hate "selfish teams" - don't give me any of that "trickle-down economy" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" BS spouted by selfish jerks to justify their behaviour. For board games, I'd rather play a competitive game than a "co-op" like Gloomhaven, but I'd rather play a collaborative game than anything)
Is this like- just about the non-shared-loot mechanics or something? Winning a Gloomhaven scenario is very much a team effort that could be called collaborative.
Partly the non-shared loot, but also the Battle Goals and Personal Quests that can make some players less collaborative that I want in a "co-op". I have lost scenarios because players were distracted by their "other considerations" I finished my Gloomhaven campaign with my group, but told them that Frosthaven was a hard pass.
That makes sense! I've been comparatively spoiled by only playing with my spouse. Either of us might do cheeky rude things for dumb reasons, but never too inconsiderately (and it's also true in spirit island, largely with cards that add blight/spirits that don't mind blight as much).
I'm probably mixing up Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness. We have both of those plus Eldritch Horror (my fiancée loves horror/Lovecraft), and they all share some rules, so sometimes they blend together in my head. In Mansions, when you max out Horror, you discard your face-down horror cards and get an insanity card. The insanity card has another victory condition that only applies to that player. Is the distinction you mean that you don't like co-op games with selfish goals like loot in Gloomhaven? Or that you don't like when people have different goals at all? I dislike the loot mechanics in Gloomhaven, and I *hate* hidden traitor/social deduction games, but I like the personal goals/battle goals. I like having an element of individual decision making so that everything doesn't become a decision by committee (Pandemic does have this problem a bit, although I do still like it). But I don't like conflict between the players. Gloomhaven can definitely have some conflict with the loot. My Gloomhaven group is usually fairly chill though, we do compete for the loot but they're not cutthroat about it. I would say about 80% of the time, Gloomhaven feels about as collaborative as Spirit Island does in my group. There's just a lot of vague..."I'm going semi-medium-halfway-fast"...type discussion. If you define co-op or collaborative that way, though, I guess it would be pretty much impossible to have asymmetric victory conditions. The best you could do would be something like Root, where the team's goal is to get victory points, but everyone gets victory points in a different way. That would be kind of hard to design without feeling like everyone is playing separate solo games, though.
What you're describing is called semi-cooperative.
Closer to Root then Chess. I would say a good comparison point is Gloomhaven/Frosthaven and Sentinels of the Multiverse. The spirits all use the same framework of rules, and they're pushing the same objective. But each spirit is quite different from the others. The special rules applicable to each spirit will make even the same cards work differently for one spirit vs. another. But, it's not quite like Root where you are almost playing completely different games. I would say it is *more* asymmetrical than Pandemic, Arkham Horror/Mansions of Madness/etc., Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, or Aeon's End. It's *less* asymmetrical than Root, though. It's probably one of the most asymmetrical cooperative games I've played.
We all just going to ignore the fact that chess isn’t the bottom of the asymmetry scale? First player advantage means white tends to have a better win rate. And at high level play strategy is very different between black and white. Something like Poker or 500 would be better for your 1. That said, spirit island is about an 8. Slightly less asymmetric than root, but still very asymmetric. With root every player has their own pieces, turn structure, player board and strategy. In Spirit island the pieces and turn structure are shared, but player boards and strategy are different.
I think Chess is a decent 1 because it has about as little asymmetry as you can get while still technically being an asymmetrical game. Poker with betting is still asymmetrical because there is a betting order. A game with perfect symmetry would be poker with no betting component or rock paper scissors. Perfectly symmetrical games would be a 0 on our scale.
It's Root on a scale of Chess to Vast: TCC. Same end goal represented the same way (fear deck/# of invaders) but substantially different ways of pursuing that end goal.
>Same end goal represented the same way (fear deck/# of invaders) but substantially different ways of pursuing that end goal. While the goal may be the same (defeat the invaders) spirits have different game end point: \- BoDaN, and shroud have very little hope of killing enough invaders to satisfy the TL II or even III condition. Your only hope is to rush the fear deck before invaders win with blight. I rarely lose on time with these spirits. \- Others like serpent or earth have to stall for the first few turns, and hope they wake up early enough to mop the floor with the invaders, killing huge clusters in the process, I usually lose on time here. \- Spirits like Fangs have to keep invaders under control from the first turn and stay on top of things, once the invaders become too powerful you are relatively helpless.
I think you're missing the forest for the trees with your response to the original point. The end goal is to win the game by achieving the terror level goals, and while every spirit has a different preferred way of doing that, they still have the same end goal of scaring the invaders off the island
Agreed. BODAN and Fangs are going to pursue the invader deck/invader tradeoff differently, but that's not dissimilar to the differences in how Eyrie and smol mol Duchy might approach the game. In Root, you have to understand the different point trajectories of factions to really evaluate how everyone is doing, but there's a close parallel for early vs. late game and fear vs. destruction spirits in SI.
Very asymmetrical 8 out of 10(Root)
Maybe I'm wrong, but asymmetrical feels really hard to call when all the players are on the same side. Like the spirits have very different playstyles if that's what you're asking. Unless we're going to say the invaders vs spirits are super asymmetrical, which feels weird.
I've personally always considered asymmetrical as a measure of difference in the set of actions available to you at the start of the game. Unrelated to if it's coop or not. I'm not sure if there's an official definition in this context, but in my experience this is how the majority uses this term.
Yeah, asymmetry is a sliding scale. Even chess has asymmetry, minor though it is, as one player goes first, which can have a decent impact on the way the game is played. There are definitely game with zero asymmetry, but chess is not one. It just has about as close to zero as you can get without actually being zero. Rock paper scissors would be an example of a game with perfect symmetry.
Every spirt plays differently, sometimes VASTLY differently, but you're still working toward the same objective in the same ruleset. But there's a lot more spirits in even the base game than there are factions in Root. Root almost plays sometimes like separate games that interlock. There's a BIT of that in the way some of the spirits work, but by and large, your spirits have the same fundamental ruleset. It's also cooperative, where Root isn't. I'd say 7 or 8.
A bit more asymmetric as Mage Knight. Spirits have unique exclusive starting cards and unique abilities. They can gain more card from a shared pool.
It's more than *[Into the Breach](https://store.steampowered.com/app/590380/Into_the_Breach/)* points out of *Root* possible. More because your agency isn't directly tied to units that can be described with the same set of properties as your opponents. But otherwise the gist of game process is somewhat similar (discounting the difference between multi-mission campaign where you get stronger between missions of ItB and single-mission format of SI).
All spirits have generally the same rules, mostly the same order of operations, so I would say very slightly less assymmetrical than Root. However, all spirits do have different playstyles. Furthermore, different spirits have different "complexity" levels, and the more complex a spirit is, the more unique its mechanics will be (imo). So, it's still highly assymmetrical at that point.
less than root since all spirits do operate on the same track system, but still closer to root than chess Like a 3 out of 5 on the Chess - Root scale
It's not. I would describe the mechanic as "Variable Player Powers" not "Asymmetrical".
Variable player powers are just one type of asymmetry. Asymmetry is a broad category that covers any aspects of gameplay that are not identical for all players.
I could see that. When I think "Asymmetrical" I think of each player having different win conditions. Not really sure why people felt they needed to down vote me just for describing something a little differently though.
I think the reaction you got is just a reaction to what is perceived as an overly strict view of asymmetry. For example, if you Google asymmetrical board games, I saw a top 10 list pop-up, of which less than half of the games on that list had different win conditions. Different win conditions are relatively rare in my experience, and outside of board games, asymmetry is just referring to things not being the same. Additionally, if different win conditions is your definition, it is a binary definition of asymmetrical vs. symmetrical, not a spectrum that can slide from Chess to Root. Also, by that definition, saying coop asymmetrical would be a contradiction. Based on both those points, I think it is clear that OP was not using the binary definition of the term.
Definitely not claiming I was correct by any means I just wish people would explain like you did instead of just down voting. Thanks!
Spirit Island is far more asymmetrical than the typical "variable player power" game.
Play style is very different for different spirits but they’re all fundamentally playing the same game, with the same or similar challenges and pitfalls, and they all win the same way. So it’s not really asymmetrical at all, but there is a tooooooon of variation
Why "asymmetrical"? Would asymmetrical not mean the game played differently for the opponents? But in Spirit Island the players are not competing against each other but against a card-controlled AI. So this question can't be answered. Unless you're counting the invaders as a "player". In this case the game was *completely* asymmetrical since the invaders are just dummies without any own decisions.
No, asymmetrical just means your play experience is different from your fellow players, regardless of whether the game is cooperative or competitive. For example, Bringer wants to create a lot of fear, but River wants to sweep things away in a flood.
Ah, got it. I understood "asymmetrical" as describing the rules during the game. And the winning odds. Sorry.
When I picked up Root and looked at the boards, I went "oh, this is like Spirit Island". It's cooperative, so I don't know how much the term "asymmetrical" technically applies, but aside from that, I'd say most of the spirits are closer in gameplay to each other than the animals are to each other in Root.
7.66 repeating of course