Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply, as well as your recommendation at the end of your post. I think a lot of what caught me off guard here is that I found 2 infinite loops in effectively my first curse (though I did do the PnP). So, I was wondering how other people felt, just to get a sense of the game and design intent.
In case you're curious, I decided that: - The Terracokus card only allows switching a card with the skill keyword. This could have been design intent, and it breaks that loop. - For the other music-related loop, I'll use it as much as I want on that specific terrain card, but once I leave, I won't come back to use it again. I also won't get any more copies of Card 50, since that's some of the most fun exploration/new content, and I don't want to spoil it all for myself on my first game.
Thanks again for your thoughts! Out of curiosity,
what's the name of the curse that deals with the XP grind?
I think of them as being like cheat codes. Most people don't want to cheat in a solitaire/co-op game, and it doesn't really hurt those people that it's technically an option.
But that's the problem - it's not cheating at all. It's following the rules of the game. Is it cheating to use food to put cards back in your action deck? What about hunting a second time to get more food and then putting more cards back in your deck? Can I use Restful sleep once? What about using Remember to do it again? etc.
Of course I can define "infinite loop" as off limits, and anything short of an infinite loop OK, or whatever I want as a player. But that's a bit unsatisfying to me. Instead, I'd rather like to know what the designers intended - when balancing the game and difficulty, did they account for infinite loops or not? Are they intentional or not? If they are intentionally included, then we should feel free to use them. If they aren't intentionally included, we should avoid them and ideally have errata for those cards.
My feeling is that they are probably unintentional, but I wonder about that since there are clearly quite a few. I just found another one today using music cards, and I wasn't looking for it...
The active player may exchange 1 Skill card from their hand with the card of their choice from the Action Deck.
And since any non-Curse card in the action deck is a Skill card, I'm pretty sure this does work as written. Maybe the design intent for that card is to read "1 card with the skill keyword" instead of "1 Skill card" ?
It seems to me that there is an infinite combo. I'm posting to confirm that I'm playing everything correctly, I haven't missed an errata, etc. It seems unsatisfying to use it, so I won't, but I'd like the designers to fix it or say something like "we really do intend for you to use this if it comes up."
Here are the pieces you need:
1) Scholar skill that allows -1 card, +1 star to Handle actions. 2) Card 50: Terrocokus: Handle action while on Terrocokus terrain: Swap a card in your hand with a card in the action deck. 3) Be on a terrain card with Terrocokus. 4) Have the advanced skill card Restful sleep somewhere in your deck. (Rest action: 0+ cost, 2 stars required: Take 5 cards from discard and shuffle into Action deck, then discard this.) 5) Have an empty discard pile
And here's how you run the combo:
Get Restful sleep in your hand using Card 50 ability. Costs nothing and always works due to Scholar skill. Get the Raft in your hand, then build it. (Rest works automatically for 2 successes.) Costs 5, 4 cards in discard. Play Restful sleep, using Raft, 3 durability left. 4 cards go back into deck, Restful sleep in discard. Get Remember in your hand using Card 50 ability. Use Remember to get Restful sleep back into your hand. Play any 4 cards you want (make items, gain XP, draw more card 50, etc.) Play Restful sleep, using Raft, 2 durability left. Repeat indefinitely. When Raft gets used up, just get it and build it again, then keep going. As long as the discard pile never includes Restful sleep and all 3 Remember cards, you can always keep this going.
I've played 2 games so far, and I got the Scholar + card 50 combo in game 1 (which is already quite powerful to search through the deck). Now in my second game I got that combo again, plus I just drew the Restful sleep advanced action, which makes things go infinite, as far as I can tell. I can get unlimited XP, draw all of the card 50s, and build every item in any order I want.
Note that I also got the Artisan advanced skill in game 2, so I don't even need to bother rebuilding the Raft - I can just use Artisan to ensure it never goes away, which is actually relevant since I have some non-action deck items merged with the Raft at the moment.
I'm hoping this isn't intended design, and there's some proposed fix for it other than "just don't use it." Alternately, maybe it is intended, and it represents true mastery of living in the wild - you are completely self-sufficient if you manage to get that full combo assembled. Since I've only played 2 games and I've gotten part of the combo in game 1 and all of the combo in game 2, it just seems a bit too easy to achieve to me, but maybe I've just gotten lucky.
Actually, it's not hard to calculate the chances, considering the number of copies of card 50, and the number of advanced skills. I guess it would normally be relatively rare... but even a rare infinite combo could be unintentional...
