Culdcept Saga Gamertags, Questions & Strategies

[Goodwill Hunter]

Thought I'd start a dedicated thread for fans of Culdcept to swap gamertags for live matches, questions about the game, and strategies for deck construction and beating the tougher boards. I'll start with my tag and update the list as others are added (can you tell I got my 360 with Culdcept in mind?):

Gamertag - DP ID
-----------------------------------------------
InnerCepter - Goodwill Hunter
Half Japanese - Half Japanese
FantasiaWHT2 - FantasiaWHT

I just finished the battles with the 4 surrounding kingdoms, and thought the board for the water kingdom was by far the toughest. It has 3 loops with the middle loop being a dead area you only go to if you land directly on one of 2 warp squares. Take all of the movement spells you have to avoid them, as getting sucked into there can just kill any momentum you may have built up. Took 4 tries to beat it for me, but the strategy I developed there, made the final (yellow) kingdom a breeze.

Once I get a bit farther into the single player game and beef up my deck, I'll be trying live for the first time...see you other DP Cepters in there!

Rich

[blissfulnoise]

Not that this necessarily the thread to post this on, I don't really see a need for more than one Culdcept Saga thread.

Culdcept is the first game in a long time I've convinced myself I'm going to return.

I really wanted to like the game but, so far, random outweighs skill five to one. The best board games balance control of both. I've only beat the first two boards, and each one required me to restart multiple times after developing a big lead just to have it crushed with a few bad die rolls.

Perhaps the strategy element increases as you get more options to build out your deck with, but with the slow ramp up, I don't see it as being worth it.

The Monopoly analogies are pretty dead on. But without the ability to trade property or strike deals with your opponent, most of what makes Monopoly fun is lost in the translation. It doesn't help that each game feels about as long as a game of Monopoly actually is. You're not going to finish any board quickly.

To top it off, the graphics, sound, and presentation are all "meh" at best. The card art varies, but nothing is amazing so far. "Wow, a picture of a sword.". And the card "battles" could have been the one element of the game they could have focused the presentation on but instead tried to make them as long and boring as possible.

I plan on reading a bit more and learning more how to make the game more skill based but, as is, this game stands as a dull, tedious multiplayer exercise and fustrating single player one.

[Half Japanese]

My gamertag is the same as my username here: Half Japanese

I haven't played too much yet, though I've gotten pretty lucky so far considering my general lack of cards.

[FantasiaWHT]

Blissfullnoise, the skill definitely comes mostly from building a good deck, and you admittedly can't do that in the beginning of the game.

If you're a little frustrated with the slow buildup, here's a suggestion.

Create an AI (which you do under maintenance). Then create a versus match against the AI on the first map and set the winning condition to 1000g. Takes about 5 minutes and twice around the board to win (or lose, but you still get cards if you lose, of course). That's a quick way to pick up a few hundred cards in a few hours so you can experiment with real deck building.

My gamertag is FantasiaWHT2 (I had an Xbox years ago with a Live account, but I couldn't recover it)

[Half Japanese]

Here's a thought: with the last Live update it has become possible to see which of your friend's friends are online. Why don't we create a free silver account that someone logs in to every few days or so and accepts friend requests on, and everyone send a friend request to that account? It's quick and easy and saves a lot of time entering in usernames with the D-pad. Something like 'DP Culdcept,' or hell, just one for DP in general: 'Friends of DP' perhaps?

I've seen some folks at the Something Awful forums do this for live games and it seems to work well enough. I would take it on myself, but I've got a full courseload and full-time work this semester, so I'm not on Live as much as some others may be and this would really work best if someone could log on every two days or so.

[Goodwill Hunter]

Still haven't gone online, would be interested to hear anyone's recap of an online battle.

I'm roughly 20 battles into the single-player game, and am going with an almost exclusively green deck at this point. Ever since the Water Kingdom battle, I have found a combination of Wolverine, Lichenoid, and Spud Folk with plently of defensive spells and items to be unstoppable. Not as automatic as Kelpie or Old Willow usage was in the PS2 versions, but so far, just as effective.

Rich

[64Bits]

I'm putting some heavy thought into picking up this game, since a lot of my friends have already picked it up. If I do, I'll throw my gamertag up there.

[Goodwill Hunter]

If you want to quickly build up your deck, here’s a technique from the PS2 version that’s even easier in Saga:

Create an AI battle book of nothing but movement, card acquisition, and gold acquisition cards.

Create an AI opponent, and give them a deck of nothing but weapons. Set up a custom versus battle with the following settings:

Rule Settings: Custom
Card Count: 30-60
Capture Cards: 0-0
Total Magic: 1000-1000
Match Duration: 10-Unlimited
Time Limit: 10-10s

And then select “Set”

Choose the Zanador map of 5 connected rectangles, as you only need to pass through 2 of the 4 forts to head to the castle (which means you can reach your goal in about 3 minutes, and get 15 cards!).

Select “Create Game”, sign in, choose your AI opponent, and press “Y” to finish setup. Then select your AI deck, select ready twice, and begin your battle.

If you just let the battle run automatically, you’ll win half the battles, but playing just a few “Haste” or “Drain Magic” cards up front means you should win after 2 trips around the rectangles.

And for 3 minutes work, you’ll get 15 cards…hard to beat that!

Rich

[sirhansirhan]

I bought Culdcept Saga new before I learned of the existence of the mini strategy guide pre-order bonus, or else I'd've been more careful to get a copy that came along with it. Does anyone have that mini strategy guide? Is it handy, or just useless? What kind of information does it contain? How many pages is it?

Any help would be appreciated, while there's still time to track one down fairly easily.

[Ikari Warrior]

My friend got the guide when he picked it up and I was jealous until I got a look at it. It's basically promo fluff with most of the "strategies" taken right from the instruction booklet. It tells you about leveling up land, land bonuses, etc. It's really just an ad for the game, so it's meant to introduce the concept of the game to new players. You're not missing out on anything major.

[bcks007]

Here is a ebay auction, if you want to buy the mini guide.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Culdcept-SAGA-Mini-Strategy-Guide-RARE-Promo-Xbox-360_W0QQitemZ220206800854QQihZ012QQcategoryZ62053Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[dave2236]

I bought mine last week on ebay, couldn't find a copy locally. So in a couple of days I'll get some practice and start building a deck.

gamer tag is vgkyourmom

[sirhansirhan]

Okay, now that I've put some time into it (I'm maybe 20 boards into the single player game, and have only lost twice), I thought I'd ask what everyone's favorite cards are. I played the PS2 incarnation quite a lot (though only by myself, and I never did anything too crazy like acquiring all of the cards or anything), so some of my opinions are trickling over from that experience.

So yeah, so far in this game, my two favorite cards are Vampire and Flying Puffer. I keep a Flying Puffer in my deck despite the fact that it is my only yellow card in there (and on top of that, you have to have a yellow territory to play it). Vampire was actually my favorite from the original Culdcept; I haven't gotten one in this game (yet). I'm a big fan of most of the rare green creatures, though. My deck is almost all green creatures, with maybe five or so red creatures (Chimera's great early in the game) and the one Yellow Puffer.

I haven't gone online with it yet. Hopefully I will within the next month or so, but I just got my 360 less than a week ago and haven't gotten Live all connected and everything yet. Something tells me I won't fare as well when I'm playing against the hardcores.

And why the hell isn't there a strategy guide for either the PS2 version or the 360 version of this game? I'd love a handy, full-color reference of all of the cards and what they do and their rarity and all of that nonsense. This is maybe the single game in the world that I most want a strategy guide for, but one doesn't exist.

[Goodwill Hunter]

I beat the game with little more than 2 green creatures, Wolverine and Lichenoid, and cards to support and defend them. With Lichenoid's ability to raise HP and Wolverine's 1.5x toll, I would invariably bankrupt any foe and clear the board of their creatures. I'm on to achievements now, and plan to go online after clearing the solo ones.

In terms of a listing of cards, this one is pretty good:

http://home.comcast.net/~yomibear/culdcards.html

Enjoy!
Rich