Learning

Frequently Asked Questions

General Play
Power Cards
~ Expansions, Promos, and Publishing
  • What happens if you just add some of the Branch & Claw expansion cards / elements to the game? Do you think you could play with everything from the expansion but the Event Cards?
    Many expansion elements rely on each other to a greater or lesser extent. Mixing in some without others won't break the game, but may skew it.
    Going item-by-item:
    • Scenarios: Are fine to use. Most of these are in the expansion purely because they use the expansion's Scenario Tokens.
    • Adversary: France can be used at Level 1 and below without any trouble. Level 2+ will be harder without Strife tokens and the Event Deck. (Though you can fix the latter by just resolving Slave Rebellion every 4 turns.)
    • Events: Most of them should be usable by skipping the token Event... but this will make the game harder. However, if you look up the Jagged Earth rulebook online, it has rules for playing without Event Cards (without kneecapping Beasts-using Spirits like Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves).
    • New Fear Cards: There are about half a dozen fear cards that don't reference tokens. (They're in the expansion because of new rules, or just to keep effect distribution even.) Including just those 6 will slightly skew the effects of the fear deck, but not in any way that you're apt to notice unless you're a very experienced player.
    • New Blight Cards: 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.
    • Spirits: Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds needs Wilds tokens. It may have a slightly harder time of it without the possibility of players gaining Minor/Major Powers that add Wilds, but is probably fine. Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves needs Beasts tokens to function well, and Beasts need Event Cards to be good; without Events, Sharp Fangs is almost certainly underpowered unless you use the "Play Without Event" rules from Jagged Earth.
    • New Power Cards: Adding only a subset of new Power Cards is likely to change the distribution of different types of effects, and near-certain to change the elemental distribution (both how often each element appears, and how often each pair of elements appears). The game will absolutely still work, but some Spirits will be invisibly penalized / rewarded (because Power Card draws will on average be lousier/better for their elements), and it may skew strategy depending on what types of effects get added to the deck. This isn't apt to be a big deal if you're just adding a few cards, but if you're adding half the new cards it could be more pronounced. Also, some Major Powers are in the expansion because they shouldn't be part of a small Major Power deck.
    And finally, "Everything except the Event Cards": If you omit the starting Disease from each board, and don't use the "Aid from Lesser Spirits" / "Back Against the Wall" Blight cards, my educated guess is that using everything but the Event Cards wouldn't mess with game difficulty too much - Beast tokens will be much worse (mild difficulty boost), and the Blight Card changes will make things slightly easier. (You could also use Event Cards for token Events only, in which case you're probably making your game easier by 1 or 2 Difficulty?) It's totally untested that way, but if you want to give it a shot, please go for it - and if you have a chance, post to BGG or the >G forums to let me know how it went!
    (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Events, Learning, Difficulty
  • When is a good time to add the expansion materials from Branch & Claw to the core game?
    The only firm answer is "not right away!" - it adds extra complexity while you're learning the core rules, makes some core Invader dynamics more variable (and thus harder to learn), and the awesome variety it offers isn't nearly so awesome without understanding of the core game.
    As a rough gauge, the more of the below questions you'd say "yes" to, the more natural it'd be to start using the expansion:
    • Are you comfortable with the core game's mechanics? (No longer need to use the player aid cards / look up basic rules in the rulebook while playing, though you might consult the FAQ for edge cases. This question is the most important of the lot.)
    • Have you played some of the Medium/High-complexity Spirits?
    • Have you seen much of the core game's diversity? (Played many of the Spirits / played alongside all of them; taken or considered-taking all of the Minor Powers and many of the Major Powers.)
    • Are you winning games with Difficulty higher than 0? (Playing against Adversaries, or the more difficult Scenarios.)
    • Do you REALLY REALLY like new stuff and want to add the expansion materials as soon as possible?
    • Are there more-experienced players in the game with you? (Particularly if they're already familiar with the expansion materials.)
    • Are you able to predict victory more than a turn in advance? (With the only Invader randomness being the new Explore card, seasoned players can reach a point where they foresee victory multiple turns ahead of time, even when playing on a good difficulty level for them. If you've hit this point, I actively recommend breaking out the expansion, as its Event deck returns an edge of uncertainty - and thus, tension - to such situations.)
    If you can say "yes" to at least 2-3 of these - definitely including the first one - then introducing the expansion is reasonable. If you can say "yes" to 4 or more of them, then by all means, break it out!
    (Another reasonable POV someone expressed: "Events - added in the expansion - are best when you have enough of the game system internalized that it's easy to predict what the Invaders will do. The Event Deck combats this by adding some randomness. But if you're not yet at the stage where you feel like you can picture the board 1 or 2 turns in advance, adding Events will just make it harder to do that. So waiting on the expansion until then isn't a bad idea." Though some folks like the Events more for their theme and occasional hard choices than their effects on the Invaders per se, so this may not be universal.)
    (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere) (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Learning