So I've been playing a lot of Culdcept Saga, and it's been popping up here and there in random threads lately, and I have seen no other dedicated thread for it, so here it goes!
So what is Culdcept? It would take too long to explain everything myself, other than the most basic description of 'Magic the Gathering + Monopoly = Fun!' which isn't 100% accurate. From the
wikipedia article:
Gameplay
As in Monopoly, players in Culdcept Saga roll a die and move around a game board, attempting to claim spaces and assess fees against other Cepters who land there. Unlike Monopoly, squares are claimed by summoning creatures to guard them, and players who land on them can opt to challenge this creature with one of their own rather than pay the toll. If successful, the challenger claims ownership of the square. The winner of the game is the first player to return to the starting location after amassing a sufficient quantity of magic/mana.
Cards
Creatures are summoned from customized decks ("books") of cards which players design ahead of time from their available pool of cards. Other cards in these decks bestow items to temporarily enhance creature abilities, or represent spells which can influence players or locations on the game board. The standard gameplay options fix the size of each deck at 50 cards, although this is customizable during multiplayer matches.
There are nearly 500 different cards in total, but players must earn the majority of these through skillful play and story mode progression before they can be used. Cards are earned simply for completing a match, regardless of whether one wins or loses, although the winner earns a greater number of cards than the opponent(s).
Strategy
While the game relies somewhat heavily on luck[2], strategy and planning play a strong role as well. Players have a choice over what cards make up their decks, as well as when to play those cards. The squares in the game consist of different terrain or elemental types (fire, forest, water, or wind), and the defensive capabilities of creatures can be bolstered by deploying them on an aligned square. Several more powerful creatures can only be summoned when a certain number of squares of a given terrain type are already controlled.
Players must also decide when to upgrade the squares which they currently control. Upgraded squares exact higher magic toll rates than non-upgraded squares when opponents land there.
Some things that aren't covered by what I quoted: You can customize your avatar's appearance by doing specific things in story mode or in Versus matches versus story mode characters (in fact for some of them that's the only way you're going to do them). The story in Story Mode is atrocious, as is the voice acting. I mean, it's a story about people who have 'epic battles' in the form of a board game, how good can it be? I hear that the manga is much better but I can't comment on that.
Also, a minor thing that confuses some people: Even with the superior translation of the 360 version, there are still some things that don't make too much sense, such as how the game uses the terms gold, magic, and mana interchangeably to indicate the same thing.
Screenshots!
A typical Card and description
It may look like this Sprite just got proper fucked, but no! Her ability is to neutralize creatures with MHP (I don't even understand how the hell it works other than that it's a number on the card) higher than 40. If I remember correctly.
Here we see our hero receiving moneys/mana/magic from the gods, in a map most Culdcept players have seen far too much of, Santana Village. It's the first map in every Culdcept game and it never changes other than the background. 4 player matches here are a bitch, taking as long as up to 4 hours. In my experience.
Another battle shot. Lizardman just jacked that Red Ogre (or Rogre as I call them)
A menu shot of someone picking out Avatar parts. I'm not sure why his face is all greyed out, it doesn't do that in mine.
So one thing that Saga has over previous versions is online multiplayer, which works for the most part pretty well. One person sets up the match, and if you're just wanting to play with friends, you set the match type from Ranked to Private, and invite your buddies. Yes, there is ranked multiplayer, but if the forums dedicated to Culdcept are any indication of the current state of things, I couldn't hope to touch most of the strategies they employ.
So what's the thread for? I don't know, talk about Culdcept, strategies, set up online matches with each other, or even talk about the upcoming (hopefully) DS iteration of the series, which is looking like sex on a stick.
I can even make a list of gamertags here of current Culdcept players (Cepters?...Nahhhh) if anyone wants to get some [Game On!] on.
My tag is DrPhibbs, if anyone wants to play.
Also! For those of you without 360s and still wanting to get in on this, there is a PS2 version with scads of animated sprites to choose from rather than avatar customization and no online multiplayer. This is the iteration of the series I cut my Culdcept teeth on and is a blast to play with a group of friends. Single player is still pretty shoddy as far as storyline goes but it's the only way to get the coveted E cards that will have your friends throwing blunt objects at you because your E card is more awesome than all of theirs combined. Or something.
Posts
The only other downside is that playing against a person can take forwever. It is not uncommon for a 2 person game to last over an hour.
I KISS YOU!
Ah, yes, I own that one too. All of the above applies except for avatar customization and online multiplayer. Guess I could add that in there.
猿も木から落ちる
Depending on your personal situation this may be a very good thing or a very bad thing. For me, there's just too many other games to be played to be able to sink that much time into the game.
With that said, the game is alot of fun and feeds all the things I love about CCG's minus the massive financial investment. If you like CCG's it's a great title and definately worth the budget price. Here is a review I did back when it hit.
The worst is when you spend over an hour on a match only to lose and then have to do it again.
That is what broke me.
I KISS YOU!
So hard
I'm going to trade it into Gamestop soon with Eternal Sonata for Mass Effect.
It takes a little bit of the edge off when you lose and still get some new cards. Or repeats of cards you already had, for good or ill.
I hate when you think you've got a level 5 all well protected, there is NO way it can be beaten. Then, hey look, the AI comes along with a card that totally ignores your leveled land HP bonus AND all of the defensive items in the game that don't say 'Blocks a scroll', of which there is only one that I know of.
Yeah, I'll agree that the AI cheats.
Click Edit on the first post. Click "Go Advanced." Change thread title. Profit.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Anyway, not an attempt at thread jacking, just curious if anyone's seen something in this vein in a portable variety. Seems like the DS would be all up in this sort of thing. I have the PS2 version, but honestly, my work and family time does not lend itself well to sit-down consoles lately
God damn it's frustrating. But other than that it's pretty cool. :P
Squirrine is actually pretty sweet if you use it correctly, it's Support, meaning you can use other creatures as items in battle, adding their HP and ST to its base stats. I have a problem with this myself, but try and stick it out, even if you lose, you still get cards. My friends all give me a hard time about it because they're like, 'Dude, you could have so many more cards if you would just stick through a game for once'. It's a pride thing. No other game can get me swearing up a storm like Culdcept when I'm playing Single player.
As far as the DS one, the only news so far is that it's basically a remake of the original game, which was only in Japan on the...PSX? The sprites are being redone, and the rules and cards are being updated to be current with Saga. Also the Japanese release date is late 2008, so maybe sometime next year? Probably safer to assume 2010 for us though. I can see a lot of the gameplay being streamlined through use of the touch screen. No more d-padding through all of your properties and the wonky map screen. It would also add an element of surprise if they opt not to let you see your opponent's cards, or at least have the option.
Because the voice acting is a guy. :P They didn't want to pay for another person.
Now I have to stick with the PS2 version if I wanted to make Najaran.
Now, that out of the way, this game is indeed fantastic. Unfortunately, the online experience is marred by:
a) a lack of online opponents, meaning you can only really play around 3pm when kids get out of school
b) games take a really long time to complete(I don't have a problem with it normally, but in multiplayer when you know you're going to lose it's pretty rough to keep playing for an hour)
c) it handles dropped connections very strangely. If someone drops connection, it will tell everyone that they've dropped and replace them with a 'bot. Which is fine, except from that player's point of view, the other players dropped. I've had games just mysteriously "split" down the middle, leaving us to discover via voice chat that 2 of us are playing one game while the other 2 are playing another ("Hahaha, landing on my level 5 space, huh?" "What the hell are you talking about? I landed on the castle.")
None of which stops it from being a very solid single player game, mind you. I recommend setting up a TV or DVD player to watch while playing, though, as it can at times move very slowly.
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It could be argued that the rate at which they move through cards without letting you read wtf it is, perfect knowledge of what boosts, unit abilities, item abilities, spells, and instants are active in any battle, as well as perfect knowledge of what you have in your hand at all times, could be considered a form of cheating. I like to think of it that way at least. I don't like to think that when I set up a versus match to farm avatar parts against a crappy story AI which is set up specifically to fuck the other character over, it's either blind-ass bad luck or total lack of skill on my part that I've lost the last 6 matches in a row.
That is to say, long story short, I got baited into using an item because I thought the AI was going to use a scroll it had in its hand, which it didn't, which allowed it to take a level 4 land, and subsequently use my total lack of a defense against scrolls on the next round to take a level 5. So I feel like a dumbass and it makes me feel better to believe the AI cheats. Happy?
Incidentally, before someone tries to argue that the AI fixes rolls by reloading a save game and watching the AI land in exactly the same places: the game preserves the random seed for the dice with the save. The rolls are indeed random, but they're going to be the same if you reload. In practice, it's like they made a list of random numbers before the match began.
Sorry if I sound defensive, but arguing the finer points of an RNG and the nature of true randomness with prepubescents on gamefaqs' message boards has driven me to distraction in the past.
The AI cheats.
:P
It might be awhile 'til I play, though, as Civ: Rev is so, so addictive.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
If you beat the first level I will punch you in the nuts. I've tried 3 times and failed. I just suck.
Ouch. I've only played with the SO, so I wasn't aware it was like that. Is the game just overly hard or is the "randomness" too random to allow for strategic gameplay?
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
Is it fun if you do?
Serrrrrriously. I have had Saga for a while, and nobody to play it with, and this thread appears now?
I guess that's OK but goddamn too much strategizin'
This would be an ideal DS game.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Anyway, the AI doesn't cheat, but it is frustratingly difficult at the beginning of the game. I also failed the demo first level many, many times before I got the hang of it and the luck to beat it. Later on in the game, as you start accumulating more cards and things like symbols open up, the game becomes a lot easier. At least for me it did. I don't think I ever lost a game after some brutal beginning battles.
I'd be happy to give some tips in this thread to those who need it. Also, the other Culdcept Saga thread had plenty of help that got me through the game initially.
BTW - The buzz around AI cheating claims is funny and nostalgic. I worked on a backgammon game many moons ago that became rather popular with users, although some swore that the game was "broken" because people or the AI were cheating and rolling doubles a lot more often "than normal". Of course we looked through the game many times and confirmed there was no hacking or cheating that was going on ... just plain old luck. Same thing has been claimed for Puzzle Quest and countless other games too.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
Yep, and I'm pretty sure it is up to 4 players offline, if I'm not mistaken. At least 2 for sure, because that is how my fiancee' and I play. The way the game is set up, there really is no advantage/disadvantage to knowing what the other player has in their hand, so it works great if everyone is playing on the same console together.
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
Any takers?
Also, is there any way to trade cards with people? I desperately need more Hive Workers.
There are many others like it, but this one is mine.