What are you playing?

#522

Apparently, Auto Chess is the Next-Big-Thing, or at least the flavor of the month, so I thought I would give it a chance. I played Auto Chess Origins a couple times on IOS, then a few matches of DOTA Underlords.

Honestly, I don’t get it. The idea of arranging a custom army on a board and then letting them loose against an opponent is appealing, but I would expect such a game - especially since it is played on a grid and has the word “chess” in the genre - to be more structured. This far, my impression is that the genre as a whole is a largely random mess. Yes, you have an idea how a unit will behave, but it is more of an educated guess than a scientific analysis.

Also, the game is way, way too long.

Not my thing, I guess.

2 Likes
#523

That’s a fair impression there. And I’m not denying it at all. But I do want to present that the attraction of Autochess(‘s) is actually the strategy and not the tactics (on the board). You’re right in that there actually isn’t much in common with chess at all. I think that’s somewhat of the irony.

But to go a little further, the attraction for those in to it is actually all the synergies and struggle to obtain synergy between deployed units. Through a match you may find yourself going heavily with one unit kind or having to switch unit kind focus several times over to become competitive. It’s learning these synergies and what decimates and what the chances of pulling those synergies are that people are attracted to.

There’s also an economy thing going on. In this fashion it’s actually much like a board game where getting your economy up and running at the sacrifice of some bad (chess) board results now will actually be of benefit to you in the long term. You are aware that you get extra coins per turn for EITHER of winning streaks AND losing streaks? So in some situations, it’s actually a short/mid term objective of some to actually lose the auto matches in order to gain economic income from lose streaks.
And then there’s a little mini goal thingy where every 10 coins in your bank, you generate extra (2 was it?) coin income per turn. So there’s a struggle to keep coin in your bank at the end of turn in a multiple of 10 level to make use of the extra income. That leaves you with real world problems of tough spending choices between the auto chess battles.

…so really, it’s the strategy. It’s not fine tactics like you find in chess.

I can really recommend Quill18’s beginner guide on this very much. He explains everything. This guy is really, really great at explaining quite a number of games we here at stately would dig actually. I found him really useful for Civ VI, through the ages, terraforming Mars, and this game. The guy must have a doctorate in picking up games and explaining them shortly after.

Quill18 dota guide -

2 Likes
#524

If I already own Civilization VI, is there any reason to get Civilization Revolution 2 for $2?

#525

Yeah, I have been playing Undlerlords a lot, and am really enjoying it. The economic decisions you have to make are way more complex than it might seem at first.

#526

Ugh, not at all imho. I hated Civ Rev - is like ’Civ super-lite. I couldn’t even bring myself to play it when there wasn’t full Civ on iOS.

#527

I have been playing Bloodborne. Soooo much Bloodborne.

1 Like
#528

How long is a game supposed to take? It seems like games take forever…

#529

The Dota one is coming in under 20 minutes a game for me. The other auto chess one takes mid 20 minutes or so i think

#530

So… after waiting a super long time, I have finally got 7th Continent in my home. Busted it straight out with my 6 year old (who can read pretty much all the stuff anyways).

A little dark in spots, but by using an upbeat outlook she is having an absolute ball. Had two sessions on it today and she still can’t get enough. She loves the crafting and the exploration and looking for secrets.

We haven’t died yet (and if we do, 777 ftw). A truly incredible game

2 Likes
#531

I picked up Destiny 2 in XB yesterday…or was it the day before…what day is it?

#532

I’m looking for a high-score-chasing dice roller on iOS. If any of these actually let you compare scores with friends, even better. I’m trying to decide between Qwixx, Noch Mal, Ganz Schon Clever, or Twice As Clever. Or another, if you’ve got a recommendation. Any suggestions?

#533

I’ve only played Noch Mal and Ganz Schon Clever from that list, and haven’t played any other dice rollers. I prefer Ganz Schon Clever–the variety in the way you’ve got to fill in the different areas based on different dice colors is more interesting to me than Noch Mal’s gameplay. However, Noch Mal lets you compare scores with friends through Game Center leaderboards, while Ganz Schon Clever does not.

#534

I’m currently playing Find My Lost Legacy Cards. There are only, what, 14 or so of them? They can’t be all that hard to find. Sure, they aren’t in their little pouch with the rules and cubes, but they can’t be all that hard to find amongst my 100+ games and thousands of Magic cards, right?

Sigh…

2 Likes
#535

Found them…in my Dead Man’s Draw box.

2 Likes
#536

Oh, thank god.

1 Like
#537

Finally decided to buy BATTlETeCH for PC.

Now to find time to play it…

1 Like
#538

So I must have played this in the past, but man is it slow to tactically obliterate ones opponents. Taking damage is awful, surgically removing enemies is satisfying

#539

Finally beat the last stage of Slay the Spire for the first time with the Defect. 90+ hours of gameplay with the PC version and I’m not even close to tired of it.

3 Likes
#540

I go through phases with it, but it mostly my go-to when traveling on business. The daily challenges are my favorites. There was an announcement that a 4th character is in the works.

1 Like
#541

I saw that—really looking forward to the 4th character. I played a ton of daily challenges to unlock cards at first, but switched over to standard runs so I could unlock the final boss and attempt to beat it.

I’m sure I’ll grab the game on Switch at some point and enjoy unlocking content all over again.

1 Like