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Hmm... some stuff in here that is counter to what I normally do. I tend to choose the one's I'm most sure to close first, figuring if I encounter a villain while at my initial locations, I have a very good chance to temp close everything else I'm at. And if I repeat that I can narrow down where teh villain is.
But I've not done the math to check the odds.
Very interesting. Something to think about.
My main group is made up of five players who play one scenario roughly every other week. Successfully completing the scenario takes precedence over everything except dying, so if we get a chance to close a location we take it unless the scenario dictates otherwise. Time to go through a stack of boons is a luxury we don't have.
We normally start at locations we have a good chance of closing without dumping a bunch of resources on it, hopefully leaving hard-to-close locations for villain funneling and team efforts.
My group and I tend to prefer to finish of the Easy To Close location first too. We do this so we can corner the Villain to Hard-To-Close locations, so we don't need to make the required checks for those, since the Villain will end up there.
I could draw out the percentages here, but I won't. I do really think that starting at the Easy locations is the better option.
Leaving a failed-to-close location is a must... You don't want to be at a location without a henchman or villain, but with 8 cards in it. Ugh. Waste.
Interestning because we play exactly as Parody described. I gues there is quite a difference between small and large parties, and also between parties where a sigle player plays multiple characters and the others.
3 things change depending of the party playing:
- odds to encounter the villain in a given location at start
- will to take the risk to kill a character or not
- focus on loot or focus on wining the scenario
I know there are exceptions, but as a general rule:
A single player playing a single character tend to focus on loot (games are short and easy to replay so "cost" of losing scenario is low... it could even be perceived as positive if you grab good equipment early and in great amount in a AD by replaying the first scenarios)
A player playing multiple characters also is more ready to take risks of dying (less personal role-play/interest in a given character)
A large party of characters have less risk of encountering the villain before closing the first location... thus aiming to easy to close locations for the first 2 locations makes more sense with 6 characters than 1.
All in all very good blog, but I wouldn't take all advices for granted.
All things being equal, what I generally want to do (with a large party) is:
1. Focus-fire until two locations are closed.
2. Spread out with a player at each remaining location. Generally every location has at least someone who can close it. From now on once you see the villain they're done for.
3. If you fail a close now, leave one player there to temp close it but don't prioritise their extra explores and don't double up there. Similarly don't double up anywhere else you know the villain isn't for any reason. In particular if you fail a temp close, then everyone who's not the only person covering another location should pile in on that location.
If you do this right, you'll only close each location (temp or perm) once. The only time this won't be true is in the middle of spreading out, which is why you should save your extra explores until that's finished.
In practice we're usually more spread out in step 1 than going all-in on two locations, but that's the theory anyway.
For smaller parties, if there's somewhere hard to close we tend to procrastinate it, as per the "impossible location" instruction. Certainly solo this is 100% correct, do them from easiest to hardest to close.
One other type of location that can change your plans is nightmare locations like the Torture Pit and Shrine to Norgorber. I learned the hard way not to procrastinate these until the end because you often need to take a rest from them so make sure there actually is somewhere left to rest.
I generally weigh the difficulty of closing locations against the difficulty of defeating the villain.
If the villain is relatively easy to beat (e.g. one combat check with only a penalty for failing) I'll be more inclined to actively chase it into hard to close locations.
If the villain is hard to beat or a major resource drain (multiple checks, automatic damage, summoned monsters - you know the sort) then I'll close as many other locations using henchmen as I can, and try to fight the villain only once.
Also, a scouting-heavy large party changes a lot of things. If you know in advance when an henchman or villain is on top of a location, it may impacts which other locations you explore or close.
Especially as it gives you a much better idea on how many explore you have left to do to complete the scenario, thus how many explore on the average each character should now aim for, thus maybe a change on the best use they can do of their ressources (allies, blessings...)
Typical example: 6 players, 8 locations, average 44 explorations to meet henchmen and villain (1 to 10 for each of the 8): normaly it's a run against the 30 turn blessing clock. But if we scout and discover that 3 henchmen are positionned 1 or 2 in their location deck, then we throw the guys and resources to close those immediately, whatever the difficulty.
Say we close 3 locations during the first 6 turns (1 per player), now triple benefit :
- We are now enough characters to spread and corner the villain
- Average now only 28 explores needed with 24 turns left (much better ratio)
- And if someone runs into the villain before we can corner it, the number of turns we will lose if we fail to defeat it will be much less
To build on that last point, we had an interestning discussion in my group on the "turn cost" (key issue with 5-6 players) of defeating or failing to defeat a villain. In addition to the obvious removal of blessings from the blessing deck in case you fail to deafeat, the addition of new blessings in locations also has a cost that is hard to evaluate and depends on your party (if all characters are divine, it's pure benefit at no cost, if none are, then you are out of luck) and the likeliness of being able to play those blessings, once acquired, more than once.
I've found that the few times we got greedy and opted not to close a location due to juicy boons, it cost us the game (or nearly so).
As some folks have said, there's certainly a difference between an easy-to-kill villain and a hard one, and that should be taken into account. My advice here mainly revolves around a hard-to-kill villain, where you don't want to fight him again and again (and again).
We're generally fans of hitting easy-to-close locations first, but we tend not to clump, so first or second round villains happen quite frequently.
And if they don't, it usually means someone has instead had the chance to go far enough thru their deck that they defeated its henchman and closed it. Especially if it's a blessing- or ally-heavy location (ahh, the stories I could tell about Alahazra at the Holy Isle).
What is curious to me about the article is how it kinda contradicts the first one about locations. "Choose Based on Your Character and the Locations' Benefits" is the opposite of "Visit the Hard-to-Close Locations First", isn't it?
I mean, obviously the subject has no clear answer and both aspects have to be taken into account. It just gave me pause. :)
I love these posts. They have been super informative when going through the app version of the game. They would also have been helpful when playing the physical version, but we finished that a while ago. They have made me a better player, and have actually improved my play style.
The delay between the posts can be frustrating, but they are always worth the weight. Thanks for putting these together, and please keep them coming!
I love these posts. They have been super informative when going through the app version of the game. They would also have been helpful when playing the physical version, but we finished that a while ago. They have made me a better player, and have actually improved my play style.
The delay between the posts can be frustrating, but they are always worth the weight. Thanks for putting these together, and please keep them coming!
Trust me, there are a bunch more coming.