Armello

Well, someone had to make a thread for this...

For the uninformed, Armello is a strategic virtual board game featuring anthropomorphic animals...hey, don't run away just yet. Anyway, as I was saying, in this game the King is deathly ill (and increasingly insane) due to evil magic. You play as a representative of one of four clans, trying to gain the throne and save the kingdom from the king's growing madness. Did I mention it was Australian?

Anyway, here's the place to talk about strategies, favorite heroes, frustrations, multiplayer, whatever.

Well they fixed everything that I had a problem with at the moment with their first post-release patch so...eh XD My favorite hero is definitely Thane, though.

I was vacillating on if it was worth making a thread for Armello, so thanks for creating it!

I don't really have a favorite to play as right now. I do randoms though re-roll when I get any of the bears. I don't have the bandit clan but I would sure love to try it.

Shall I spin a tale about how it took me 10 hours to get my first Rot Victory and then I won only because the stars aligned and I exploited River's sniper shot and how it messes with the victory conditions? I intend to do a Self-Imposed Challenge which is finally "correctly" winning Rot Victory through actual combat with The King. (Thane, River and the +2 rot amulet are banned.)

edited 22nd Sep '15 7:41:33 PM by FlamingoKai

I've gotten every kind of victory except for the Rot victory, myself. I actually was debating starting to write a story about what happens afterward, where a rebellion pops up against the new ruler because just because they became king doesn't mean the problems will go away.

While I'm reasonably good with them all, I'd say I like Amber the best. Especially if you can get an Explorer follower (which isn't too hard, since it seems to be the most common follower there is), then you can rake in so much gold and loot from hitting dungeons.

Going by Steam achievement stats, River's the most popular hero, while Sana is the least used.

Edit: Haven't got Rot or Kingslayer yet. I've never been so far back on Prestige that the latter was worth taking the risk, and I've only attempted Rot once. (Basically, Rot is all-or-nothing: you're not going to be able to switch gears and get some other victory type once you begin setting up for it.)

edited 22nd Sep '15 7:52:51 PM by TotemicHero

Now's the best time for River Rot victory. They might patch it out.

There are three scenarios I can think of that can make a good postgame story.

• Someone more rotten takes the throne. (Fisher King is why this is very bad.)
• Someone insidious (*cough*Mercurio*cough*) takes the throne.
• A "good guy" takes the throne, but the other factions are sore so here's a rebellion.

If yer trying to unlock Kingslayer or Rot Victory then you should just go for it even if you fail or have high prestige, you only need to do it once. As far as I know there's no running unlock for winning games (except the first time win with each character). I find Rot the hardest, but just use River.

Steam Achievement stats I think is just a judge of how easy it is to win. I guess River is popular by virtue of having a supa good skill that doesn't take any setup or luck to use (read:Thane).

edited 22nd Sep '15 8:06:09 PM by FlamingoKai

You get additional trinkets to pick at the beginning for a certain number of wins with each clan, remember? YMMV on how good they are, but I at least want to be able to try them all out.

Actually, it's just "finish" 10 games with that clan. Unless they changed it in patch 1.1.

I can't remember everything, but I have one particular unlock that is poignant in my mind: the rat clan's "first sword explodes" ring (5 games) is super good.

edited 22nd Sep '15 8:08:11 PM by FlamingoKai

Oh, it definitely requires you to win. Trust me, it doesn't count losses.

The other issue being that the unlock for winning Rot-style is a trinket that exists solely to make winning Rot-style easier. That's...not exactly a good incentive.

edited 22nd Sep '15 8:11:27 PM by TotemicHero

Huh. Well, that's a bug or bad text then.

The Prestige win reward is also that... but Prestige is the "default" easy victory condition anyway...

EDIT: I wonder if there's a trope that is the equivalent of "It's Too Random So It Sucks". Because there are a lot of complaints about it that are basically that. But then again, a ton of board games out there suffer from this.

edited 22nd Sep '15 8:34:03 PM by FlamingoKai

For my rebellion story it's less "The other clans are upset they didn't win" and more "everyone else is extremely upset over the destruction the war caused".

You know what'd be cool, a bigger map allowing 4-6 players.

edited 22nd Sep '15 9:15:54 PM by FlamingoKai

Eh, it didn't previously require wins if it does nowadays. Actually, no it didn't require wins couple last times I played

Anyway, while in early access I did manage to complete each victory condition so I have all of those stuff unlocked xD Trying to do it again to get the achievement

So far I had awesome dark horse victory that might have been due to bug where I managed to with win 6 prestige over someone with 7 prestige probably because they were corrupted? Hard to tell. Oh and rot victory with River and one which I still feel kinda bad about...

So one player was semi close to victory, they were outside palace with spirit stones trying to get in, so I lightning bolted them to death. Making it so it was impossible for them to get victory again due to amount of turns left. I was also prestige leader after really lucky turn where I killed two banes before lightning bolting them, but I went for combat victory and did win it. I feel kinda bad I didn't let them get inside the palace first,(and that I played lighting bolt out of turn since you can cast spells on foes when its not their turn, I casted it on king's turn) since they were so close to it and I would have gotten thunderdome achievement if I had let them in xP I kinda feel like jerk even though it was something I had to do because otherwise they might have won if they got past the perils and inside the castle. I don't think they had palace key quest so they might have not even gotten in, iirc reason why they had 3/4 hearts(aka enough for lightning bolt to kill) was because they failed one peril in first place

edited 22nd Sep '15 9:29:00 PM by SpookyMask

RNG and screwing over other players are part of the game, don't feel bad.

The only time you may feel bad is if it's a real board game and your buddy is right there. Board games wreck friendships just as much as friendly DOTA/League matches. Heh heh heh.

I may have done things like that a few times already.

As for prestige, I did experience the prestige victory when I'm supposedly in second place. I still don't get why it happens.

While were on the topic of Prestige, how are ties broken?

edited 22nd Sep '15 11:30:23 PM by FlamingoKai

I have no idea. I've been prestige leader when someone's had the same amount as me before.

The way it works seems to be rotating. One player will randomly get it first, then if the tie isn't broken by the next dawn it will move to a different player. (Since it's rare for a tie to last that long, you're not going to see it that often. I lucked into seeing it.)

They released a minor patch today, and one of the things it did was remove certain glitches that caused River not getting Kingslayer/Rot when her ability killed the king. So no, doesn't look like they plan to nerf her.

I already got Rot before with River without direct combat, so the explanation was I just didn't die in a fight before that? Weird. I would've been sore after 10 hours. But well there we go, the easiest way to get Rot victory is now even more consistent...

I think River's ability is just the easiest to see the benefits of.

Hmm, I wonder what NMA actually means. I'm assuming it has something to do with multiplayer disconnects...

And I wonder when the iOS port is coming out. I'm not gonna get it, but I'm just interested in the Bandit Clan being DLC to non-backers and late comers like me.

I thought they said the Bandit Clan wouldn't be released to non-backers?

No, it's getting released in December or early next year, alongside the iOS port.

And Skill Gate Character does seem to be an accurate assessment of River. On the surface, she has a lot of versatility stat-wise, and an ability that makes a last second Kingslayer win much easier. But she can't quite keep up with the more specialized heroes in getting Prestige or grabbing stones unless she gets a really strong early game, and that ends up making her predictable. Just keep her out of the Prestige lead (not hard), and be ready to hinder or stop her when she heads for the palace.

edited 24th Sep '15 5:35:59 PM by TotemicHero

Wohoo, awesome turnabout victory :D

So basically I managed to snatch spirit stone victory over prestige players'(they had 12 prestige. Seriously, nobody came close) because other player teamed up with me on them :'D To be fair, River's player had been rather annoying to both of us, so it was sweet sweet justice when Thane's player casted mirror image on me and all three guards failed to kill me so I banished king xD

Another awesome moment was previous time I attempted it, I'm sure it caused "Oh shit" reaction to River's player as they really did everything they could to kill me that time xD Basically, I casted teleport, got spirit stone from quest and entered palace in same turn.

Funnily enough, I probably won because I got second teleport right after I managed to complete my final quest before "enter the palace" quest <_< Otherwise wouldn't have reached the palace no matter what.

Close victories are awesome :'D Oddly enough I haven't yet seen an overwhelming victory in this game, all games so far have come to close

Also feels good since I got Mercurio's and Spirit Stone victory achievements same time, so I now have all hero victory and victory type achievements :'D

edited 26th Sep '15 9:40:08 AM by SpookyMask

How long does it normally take to get an online game?

Not that long .-. Can't remember any time it would have taken over minute or two

edited 26th Sep '15 10:14:15 AM by SpookyMask

You can play single player, which you can quit and save progress, while waiting for the online queue so you don't get too bored. Once the room fills up game will notify you to connect to that.

Had a pretty fun match today where all of us just went for Prestige (well, three of us did, the fourth started out with a half-hearted attempt at Rot, but gave that up). I came in second, one point behind the winner. The high point was me getting a Warlock follower and using my health to spell nuke two of the other players in a single turn.

On another note, I'm starting to think that the highest tier character in the hands of a skilled player is Brun. Dude can stack combat dice every turn consistently with spell use, allowing him to invest all his points in Wits and Spirit and then buff himself or nuke everyone at will.