We're nearing the silver level of our campaign (brother vs. brother plot.) and I'm evaluating which upgrades, if any, I should buy before the level switch. Greed and Hatred caught my eye; This card seems worth it to me, has it made a big difference in other games?

The great wurm is the avatar. I haven't purchase any avatar boosting upgrades yet, the only one that benefits all dragons (elder race i think, gives them all unstoppable) isn't to beneficial right now. I'm hoping to immediately upgrade my beasts to gold, and then one other category (leaning towards eldrich at the moment) to silver. Earlier in copper I bought 1 of each treachery, It transformed the lt. encounters into party killers.

So far the heros haven't had much luck drawing from the treasure decks: Drawing for markets tends to flip over treasure caches or weakish weapons. Greed and Hatred should make this worse. Also, the earlier this plot is purchased, the more game weeks it will effect. I'm not sure if that's enough reason to purchase it though...

Any input/questions appreciated

snacknuts said:

This is the one that razes forge, yes? It was a big blow to us as heroes in our campaign. We were planning to pick up unmovable for the unmovable/knight combo, as well as cautious to help reduce the power of the sorcerer king, and possibly skilled, and all were taken away before we had a chance. Good skills in forge, plus the market and the fact that if you play 20 more turns (not TOO unlikely after the start of silver) it will pay for itself is a pretty good deal.

The other thing I would do is make sure the heroes know you can raze olmric's hut but never actually buy it unless they actually get there. They will know that you'll gain enough cp during the time they head there (I'm assuming you've razed a town or three), to pay for it. That will force a map purchase if they want any more secret training.

nah, Greed and Hatred increases potion cost by 25 (to a new total of 75) and lowers the market value of all cities by 1 (to minimum of 1)

There's a good chance i got the name wrong, but I think I have it right.

snacknuts said:

wow...I could see that being both good and bad. Hitting the heroes in the pocketbook is always a good idea, but it probably depends on having the cp to spend on something like that.

If it's like 15 or 20, it's hard to choose that knowing you're halfway or two thirds to getting another monster category to silver. My experience at OL was that having at least everything silver was invaluable. It's really silver where everything now has actual damage potential against just about all the heroes. Getting monsters that have an effective attack power and a little better health will keep the heroes dying and maybe chase them out of a few more dungeons--limiting their monetary gains similarly.

Also, if you are going after the heroes finances, I would definitely make sure you have at least one event treachery already. Crushing Blow can take $500 out of the heroes hands in silver in a single lt. encounter or use in dungeon, and that's gonna take the heroes buying 20 potions before it evens out to even one of those.

Whether or not the heroes have upgraded their market at tamalir would be the other strong consideration here. Downgrading the market they can access every turn the spend in a dungeon from 2 to 1 is a lot more significant than taking it from 4 down to 3. If they haven't upgraded their market yet, you can pretty much force them to spend a turn or two in tamalir upgrading their market rating, which will earn you some cp...more if you have some lts. nearby who can beat them in a fight.