Wait, what?

[nergalsmom]

If I play with more than one spirit, I have to control all of them? There is no AI in the game? What?

[Ruanek]

A lot of the game with multiple spirits is coordinating power usage with the other players, so unfortunately that would make having an AI pretty complicated (though definitely not impossible). I'd be concerned that the best implementation would involve the player making recommendations of when/where to use powers, though, which isn't very different from playing multiple spirits as a single player.

[nergalsmom]

Dang, I should have looked that up. Would you say the game is interesting enough playing with only one spirit against the board?

[Ruanek]

I think the game is great playing as one spirit, and as you get used to things playing as multiple spirits really isn't that hard (though admittedly I haven't gone higher than 2 spirits yet). The only real issue with 1 spirit is that some spirits are better or worse alone, and having another spirit or two to complement each others' weaknesses is really helpful.

[Obluda]

Originally posted by nergalsmom:

Dang, I should have looked that up. Would you say the game is interesting enough playing with only one spirit against the board?

Absolutely. I've played a lot of games like this and when learning a new Spirit it's my preferred way. You actually started playing at a really good time. There was a long-standing math problem with the blight that made games at one Spirit (and to a lesser extent two Spirit) somewhat harder than higher Spirit counts. An errata was released that fixed this math error and now one Spirit games are a bit less of a tightrope walk at higher difficulties.

Eventually, you will probably get to the point where two-handing (i.e. playing two Spirits) is doable and not overwhelming. These days, I prefer playing this way as the Spirit interactions add an interesting new layer and I no longer find it too much to handle.

FWIW, as you'll discover playing the game, coding a good AI would probably be incredibly difficult for this game. Since it was originally a board game, the game was not designed with an AI in mind.

[nergalsmom]

Thanks for the responses you guys, super helpful.

[Mack_H]

I was also very disappointed to find that there where no way to play with Ai controlled spirits. However complicated making a good Ai might be, I would very much prefer a dumb AI to no AI.

[Gorgo Primus]

You may think you do, but that'd mean you'd lose near every game due to stuff you'd have zero control over. Play with an extra empty board for a taste of what that would be like because the AI would not coordinate with you at all and would likely fail to manage even picking a new power let alone using it decently. That's a ton of work and resources wasted just to make a bunch of people complain about how awful the AI is.

The game works fine with one spirit, and irl people play multi-handed in Spirit Island all the time.

[nergalsmom]

My brothers in Christ I have not played the game in 4 years, why are you replying in this thread lmao

[Gorgo Primus]

Because it popped up to the top because of Mack_H, and I assumed it was current because why would an ancient thread be at the top. Oops, sorry.

[Dr. Egon Spengler]

Originally posted by nergalsmom:

My brothers in Christ I have not played the game in 4 years, why are you replying in this thread lmao

Because it's sooo gooood.

[MigrantP]

Locking this thread, please do not necro old threads.