Tips for Cartovore?

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Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Shadow_Fox » Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:38 pm

I started messing around with this game again cause its kinda neat. Only thing is.... I'm kinda bad at it. Started with the girlyburp starter deck, if anyone has any tips on how I can stop sucking that'd be cool
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Aleph-Null » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:03 pm

Well general CCG strategy all applies to this game.

First keep your deck small, use the minimum cards if possible. Because there is a maximum number of any specific card you can have in a deck, (three) the larger your deck is the smaller percentage of that deck each individual card represents. So by keeping the deck small you exert more control over the random process of what cards you will draw.

Second, develop a general sense or your decks strategy. It doesn't matter what that strategy is, it could be anything from a weapon heavy deck to a soldier deck to a deck that focuses on something very specific like feeding morsels to a specific girl to buff her out. Granted that last one may not be one you want to start with it does work.

Once you know what strategy you want build your deck around that. Figure out what core elements you need for this to work and throw that in. Next add in support or cards that will improve your survivability. Try to keep under the 40 card limit. If you need to push up to 40 cards you may consider weapon cards. Since weapon cards allow you to draw an extra card on the next round they do not impact your control over the random draw process as much as other cards will.

Now it's time to play test. Play out a game or two. If your strategy can not be executed (for example you lose) then you need to take note of what is impeding it and how to keep your strategy viable.
As examples:
- In a soldier deck you may not have enough powerful girls for later game. This could mean your army gets mopped up after 10 or so rounds.
- In a soldier deck you may not have enough cheap girls. Not only do you lack defense early on but you lack the money and hearts to get your big guns out. After a few rounds your girls are fainting as they are played.
- In any deck you may have to many non-essential cards. If you have to many cards in your deck that are not related to your core strategy then you run the risk of not getting the cards in hand that you need to launch your strategy. Sometimes your core strategy will rely on to few cards, you may have to augment this by including secondary cards that have similar effects allowing you to implement a lesser version of your core strategy in the contingency that you do not draw the necessary cards.

The things I usually have to tweak in a new deck are early game economy (getting the right mix of cards so that your resources increase properly). As well as having enough early game protection (if your girls are dying they aren't producing resources).

As to actual game play, I suggest you micromanage your forces. If you have superior numbers in the beginning focusing your assault on your enemies soldiers is probably the best way to go (keep their econ down as well as reduce their protection). But never forget that the over arching goal is always to kill the commander. At some point in any game you will be able to win just by ordering everyone to attack their leader. It doesn't matter how much damage you take so long as their leader is loosing lager percentages of their health. Where you are in the game (early, mid, late) is relative to what is on the table, not the number of turns taken. Thus attacking your opponent's cards on table is the same as delaying their progress. If you don't have what you need in hand yet delaying your opponent's progress is a viable way to stay in the game.

As to the girlyburps in general, they are weak when you only have a couple on the board, but a lot of them have abilities that are augmented by the number of girlyburps on the table (or have abilities that augment all girlyburps on the table). As such they tend to be good in large numbers.

I recommend building a soldier deck with an even distribution of weak to stronger girls. Throw in a few of the girls with large scale augments and concentrate on getting to mid or late game. Any disruption you can throw at your opponent will help this process. Also any healing you can get will keep your girls in the game longer.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Revx_Z » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:59 am

Gahh. Typed up a long reply, lost it, will recompose later if I can be bothered. Meanwhile, here's a differing point of view. Also, just to wave my e-penis credentials, I've beaten every enemy in the game. Yes, that includes Fallen and Kathaint.

Aleph-Null wrote:Well general CCG strategy all applies to this game.

First keep your deck small, use the minimum cards if possible. Because there is a maximum number of any specific card you can have in a deck, (three) the larger your deck is the smaller percentage of that deck each individual card represents. So by keeping the deck small you exert more control over the random process of what cards you will draw.
I disagree. Play everything that's useful.
1) You can run out of cards, leaving your girls without backup as you hope they'll win against an enemy who, at this point in the game, can easily drop a Fireball and/or Healing Wave and/or Outer Wall or some other major nasty that cramps your style horribly when you don't have backup.
2) The randomness is mitigated a lot by the cheapness of card drawing. Gwen Candybubble, weapon cards, drawing two instead of one a turn, and later on, things like Quickening. It's easy to cycle through options.
3) The control isn't as useful as in most CCGs, since Cartomancer has both players declare a set of plays at the start of the turn, then the computer resolves them in a long complicated process that you don't get to interfere in. No opportunity for counterspells or the like. (IMO, this is the main point that makes a lot of general CCG strategy inapplicable.)
So I'd say to play more cards, but obviously not everything. Do focus on your core strategy (see below), but don't be afraid to add backup, recovery etc.

Aleph-Null wrote:Second, develop a general sense or your decks strategy. It doesn't matter what that strategy is, it could be anything from a weapon heavy deck to a soldier deck to a deck that focuses on something very specific like feeding morsels to a specific girl to buff her out. Granted that last one may not be one you want to start with it does work.
He's playing a girlyburp deck and just started again. IMO, only one thing really works there, and they call it "KEKEKE ZERG RUSH". Important components are Gwen Candybubble (draw a card for every Girlyburp that you play), Mandy Lynn (+2 strength for every Girlyburp in play) and Healing Wave (+15-45 health to every Girlyburp in play). And lots of Girlyburps.

Aleph-Null wrote:Now it's time to play test. Play out a game or two. If your strategy can not be executed (for example you lose) then you need to take note of what is impeding it and how to keep your strategy viable.
As examples:
- In a soldier deck you may not have enough powerful girls for later game. This could mean your army gets mopped up after 10 or so rounds.
- In a soldier deck you may not have enough cheap girls. Not only do you lack defense early on but you lack the money and hearts to get your big guns out. After a few rounds your girls are fainting as they are played.
- In any deck you may have to many non-essential cards. If you have to many cards in your deck that are not related to your core strategy then you run the risk of not getting the cards in hand that you need to launch your strategy. Sometimes your core strategy will rely on to few cards, you may have to augment this by including secondary cards that have similar effects allowing you to implement a lesser version of your core strategy in the contingency that you do not draw the necessary cards.

The things I usually have to tweak in a new deck are early game economy (getting the right mix of cards so that your resources increase properly). As well as having enough early game protection (if your girls are dying they aren't producing resources).
I started a new game with the Girlyburp deck to do some testing and got no such problems.
Early game: Drop two cheap girls (Rachel, Villager, Mary Jane, Emily) and a training card every turn. Gold will flood in. Build deck around gold, back it up with mid-level mana and hearts stuff, ignore monsters. The girlyburp starter deck only comes with about two monster cards anyway, not counting Shaman Training.
Late game: Drop a major girl (including some from other clans like Loelle Heartspear) and one backup each turn (Healing Wave, Outer Wall, etc). Win.

Aleph-Null wrote:As to actual game play, I suggest you micromanage your forces. If you have superior numbers in the beginning focusing your assault on your enemies soldiers is probably the best way to go (keep their econ down as well as reduce their protection).
Agreed. Specifically, micromanage your forces so that they're all attacking the same target, which should not be the enemy leader until mid-game or unless there are no other targets. Don't worry, as targeting can't be lost - girls and weapons will both autoretarget if their assigned target is dead. (As your forces grow, split micromanagement at two targets instead of one, but stay focused. You want unconscious enemies ASAP.)
Aleph-Null wrote:But never forget that the over arching goal is always to kill the commander.
Definitely. Additionally, as long as you're playing to win (rather than e.g. playing to fap/shlick, which I do much of the time, but if you're asking for advice, I assume you're playing to win) remember the Spike Rule: "Style points don't show up on score cards." Throw in girls from other clans, drop by the Enchantress and enchant the awesome cards like Brightwind's Embrace / Quickening / Eridassa / <foo> Totem / <foo> Gene / Smuki the Giantess down to zero cost and/or huge duration/charges, then play them early. Theme is secondary to effectiveness when playing to win.

Aleph-Null wrote:I recommend building a soldier deck with an even distribution of weak to stronger girls. Throw in a few of the girls with large scale augments and concentrate on getting to mid or late game. Any disruption you can throw at your opponent will help this process. Also any healing you can get will keep your girls in the game longer.
I'm starting a new game with the Girlyburp basic deck and testing my effectiveness now. I'll report back on deck composition afterwards, but my general plan so far has been to ignore composition and throw in every Girlyburp except Smuki and every weapon except Claw and Erin, then pour out cards.


Final word: If you still suck too much, I suggest restarting with the Blood Fane starter deck, then playing with Shiacanda as your leader. Free girls = awesome.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Shadow_Fox » Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:04 pm

Still have a bit too many cards, working on dropping that number, but I'm doing alright. Thanks for the tips.

On a side note, I totally picked girlyburps cause they have all the hot asian girls <.<
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Revx_Z » Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:59 pm

Like I said, don't drop the number too much, you can run out of cards during a game. The deck I used for testing compared to your situation was made up of 54 cards selected from a strict subset of the starting cards from the Girlyburp pack, meaning you shouldn't have to buy anything to be able to make it, unless the starter packs are random, which they're not AFAIK.

Aside: Learning the deck sort tool.
1) "Sort by trait" accepts a number of things to sort by, which have less-than-obvious names such as "GOLDCOST" (rather than e.g. "GOLD"). Good ones I can think of are NAME, GOLDCOST, MANACOST, HEARTCOST, MONSTERCOST, CLAN, FANE, TRIBE, DURATION, CHARGES, HP, WEAPON, VORACITY, PLAYER, GIRL, DEMON, MONSTER, TRAINING. (If you sort by VORACITY you may notice a curious thing: Shamma Whitethroat appears first with a value of... -5.)
2) The sort tool is what sorting programmers call stable: if you sort by one thing such as NAME or GOLDCOST, and then by a second thing such as CLAN, cards with the same CLAN will stay sorted by the previous thing. Searching by NAME and/or COST followed by something like CLAN, FANE or WEAPON is often useful for me.
When all else fails, sort by name. (I've modded my game so that premium cards are suffixed by [+] and don't have a prefix, so they appear in normal order.)


Leader: Sandy Sailheart.
Girlyburps:
2x Gwen Candybubble, 1x Katarina Sailheart, 1x Mandy Lynn, 2x Britney Girlyburp, 1x Jessica Lynn, 1x Coronya Sailheart, 1x Maya, 1x Ekimei, 2x Fawna Girlyburp, 3x Mary Jane, 1x Sayuri, 3x Emily, 3x Rachel, 1x Caroline, 2x Villager (Heart), 2x Villager (Mana), 1x Villager (Monster)
Other:
1x Loelle Heartspear
Support:
2x Blaze, 2x Healing Wave, 3x Kcaresta I, 1x Kcaresta II, 1x Outer Wall, 3x Steel Longsword I, 3x Steel Longsword II, 2x Steel Longsword III, 1x Steel Longsword IV
Training: 3x Leadership, 3x Magic Training

This deck went 4-0 against Shiacanda for 400 tokens. The 5th time, a bug removed Shiacanda and it was unwinnable, but I should have won. >_> I ran out of cards once.
Then it went 5-0 against Tsakima for another 500. I ran out of cards once more during this.
Then 5-0 against Dassanna for 1500 tokens. Ran out of cards twice.
If you can manage the same, you'll win 2500 tokens, and you can get a lot of improvement and/or cardbuying done. Do that, then report on your situation. Feel free to ignore this deck entirely and tell us about your own instead.
(I also got 100 tokens winning against Chanelle, but that was a close one, so I don't suggest that until you improve the deck.)

Aside:
The "voracity" stat is, AFAIK, the base percentage chance (that many out of 100) that the creature will swallow its target on a turn. It is modified by -1 for every 5hp the target has and +10 if the target is fainted.


On local strategy:
The Girlyburp starter pack contains only six monster-related cards: three Shaman Training, a Rapid Breeding, a Claw Attack II and a Whitefeather Shaman. Unless/until you buy a monster starter pack, just ignore monsters.
If you play a deck like the one I described above, you need a fast start. The closest game I had was when I could only play one girl for each of the first two turns. The others were relatively smooth sailing.
Hold back Healing Waves until they will have large benefit. They will not affect girls in stomachs. If any important girls of yours are swallowed, micromanage the rest of your army and use weapon cards on whoever ate her.
Hold back Blaze, Fireball etc. similarly. As a rule of thumb, the enemy should have >4 creatures or girls in play and unfainted for you to use it. Less than that and you're probably better off changing targets and using weapons.
My opinions on what to enchant from the starter cards:
1) Your leader, +1 gold production if you can afford it. Faster start much of the time.
2) Your expensive girls, -1 goldcost repeatedly until you can play any of them on the first turn.
3) Weapon cards, especially the higher Kcaresta versions, and Outer Wall -1 heartcost a few times. Weapons boost one another when played at the same time, so you want to be able to play everything you have at once.
4) Weaponsmith and Temple of Healing -1 goldcost repeatedly, add to deck.
5) Digestion +1 duration a few times, then add it to deck.
When buying more cards, if you're not getting particularly useful stuff from booster packs or you feel unlucky, consider buying another Girlyburp pack and piling more Girlyburps into your deck from there.

There are several cards worth looking for in booster packs that are expensive, but great if you enchant their cost down. A shortlist from memory:
Eridassa, Brightwind's Embrace, Giant Faerie Honey, Power Overwhelming, Demonwing Totem (increase duration to over 10, play early), Gaiasen (flyer, high voracity, immune to fire), Quickening.
Obviously the simple "big creatures" like Green Dragon and stuff too, but you can probably recognize those yourself.

Easily overlooked gems from my experience: Double or Nothing, Shrink Spell, Glompf!, Inside Her Stomach, Down the Throat, Blood Fane Imp + Esimi (poison is calculated very oddly), Jennifer.

My question: What kind of stuff have you gotten in booster packs, if you bought any of those?
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Aleph-Null » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:56 pm

I suppose I should have put up a disclaimer that I haven't used the enchanter in years and my decks are usually built around a novel (if only to me) strategy. I usually build either a Hail Mary deck relying on 3-9 cards or build around a strategy that is not optimal for winning like using Chanelle's stomach as a safe haven/regen chamber for your girls.

I also often just build them to test a specific enemy under certain circumstances, like see if you can survive until your opponent runs out of cards.

The majority of my post (all except the last two paragraphs) was intended as general advise that could be applied to anything, not just his situation.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Shadow_Fox » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:43 pm

I got some decent stuff in the boosters, nothing spectacular. Got Smuki the giantess, but at 30 gold cost she's not going in yet

I seem to be doing pretty now after a little tweaking. I was able to beat Hagatha, but I don't know if it was glitch or something cause she seemed to just stop playing cards. Even then it still took a while to chew through all that health.

Fighting Dassana went well, especially when Fawna at Ryu whitefeather or what ever that big dragon thing is \o/
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Bright » Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:36 am

I remember a tactic I had, it wasn`t with Girlyburps, but anyway:

It might have been an early version of Cartovore 2, but in any case, I played with a harpy leader that let her play whitefane monsters cheaper. My opponent was a tiny girl who could use shrinking as a special ability, in addition she had a phobia of monsters.

So, I had five sparrow harpies cards (they were weak, so I could have more of them) which cost 2 per each (but with the whitefane leader, they were free),
Then I had some multiply cards, I do not remember their names now, but it was something along the lines of twins/quintuplets.

I waited until I had some cards, then laid them all on. Bam! Army of sparrow harpies.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby deej1011 » Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:49 am

Someone made mention of defeating all the enemies, and that lead me to this question: How many enemies are there in all? And how does one advance to getting more than just the 10 or so the game starts with?
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Revx_Z » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:34 pm

deej1011 wrote:Someone made mention of defeating all the enemies, and that lead me to this question: How many enemies are there in all? And how does one advance to getting more than just the 10 or so the game starts with?

There are 16 enemies, AFAIK. (At least, no more popped up after I defeated Kathaint, who looks like the final boss.) You advance to getting more by defeating the existing ones.

Starter enemies: Chanelle, Dassanna, Gizaga, Hagatha, Jalara, Lilly Snowfeather, Sara Shan, Shiacanda, Tsakima.
Unlock list:
Defeat Tsakima and Dassanna to unlock Ailosa.
Defeat Sara Shan and Lilly Snowfeath to unlock Sandy Sailheart.
Defeat Shiacanda and Gizaga to unlock Lady Amaretta.
Defeat Jalara and Chanelle to unlock Fayzee.
Defeat Dassanna, Fayzee, Sara Shan and Lady Amaretta to unlock Fallen.
Defeat Fallen to unlock Nifirica.
Defeat Nifirica to unlock Kathaint.
(note: these were extracted from the game files, not from experience. The program may interpret them differently.)

Will go and play a quick game against each of them, then come back with a report for those who want to know what to look forwards to. ^^;

Edit: Here.
Ailosa: 5 gold, 3 hearts, 3 mana, 3 monsters. Whitefeather Harpy with a mixed monster-girl deck. 100 tokens for defeating. Special ability: +1 gold for every 3 creatures controlled.
Sandy Sailheart: 5 gold, 4 hearts, 4 mana, 0 monsters. Girlyburp girl with corresponding deck. 100 tokens for defeating. Special abilities: May intercept attacks, extra weapon damage if Girlyburps have been digested.
Lady Amaretta: 8(!) gold, 3 hearts, 5 mana, 1 monster. Blood Fane demoness with magic-focused deck. 300 tokens for defeating. Special abilities: +1 gold for every 2 items or buildings, double duration magic.
Fayzee: 6 gold, 5 hearts, 2 mana, 2 monsters. Gurglemeister girl with corresponding deck. 300 tokens for defeating. Special ability: Can jump into a stomach to become untargetable and get an ally out.
The last three are "bosses" and are really, really, really nasty, all with huge HP and special abilities that I think it's appropriate to keep slightly secret so you can have the fun of discovering them for yourself. Expect to lose repeatedly playing against them.
Fallen: Velvet Flower girl. 2000 hp, 9 gold, 15 hearts, 3 mana, 2 monsters.
Nifirca: Blood Fane demoness. 3750 hp, 12 gold, 9 hearts, 7 mana, 5 monsters.
Kathaint: Sosash tribe ice dragon. 9000 hp, 10 gold, 3 hearts, 9 mana, 9 monsters. (Also, 30 armor. >.> )
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Snorlaxkid » Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:08 pm

Too bad the original version's "Create an enemy deck" system got taken out.... (infinite personal playing cards= infinite play)
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Aleph-Null » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:52 am

The versions I DL are always corrupted. The only enemy chain that is consistently locked for me is Fallen and up. Additionally I have never had Shiacanda's ability work when she is in my deck.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby DarkTau » Mon Oct 26, 2009 3:46 am

How did you beat Kathaint? She always kills me on turns 3-5.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Revx_Z » Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:51 am

Short version: You don't.
Moderate version: Spend truckloads of tokens on enhancing your leader's hit points and getting a Giant Faerie Honey card, fill out rest of deck with useful stuff.
Long version of how I did it is on my blog.

Giant Faerie Honey has a rarity of 98. Good luck...
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby DarkTau » Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:57 pm

o.O Umm... If I knew the cardname and it's properties I could probably add it to my deck manually. IDK if that can really be considered a valid strategy though. >.>;
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby SomeGuy1294 » Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:43 am

The most important aspect in Cartovore is to make good use of all the resources you crank out. I'm specialize in Blood Fanes, but for Girlyburps... I would recommend using a lot of villages to get a high heart count. You're need a lot of healing magic, because Girlyburps depend on hanging out long enough to swallow your enemies. Healing Sphere is a terrific card if you have it. You should also have a few attack cards just to wipe out enemy monster whenever they pop up. So basically, you need a balance.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby Bright » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:18 am

Is it possible to play this game on Vista? I remember this game crashing violently last time I played it.
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Re: Tips for Cartovore?

Postby SomeGuy1294 » Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:30 am

I know it's been a long time since anyone touched this thread but... any tips on how to beat Sandy Sailheart? I had a Blood Fane Deck that could kill just about everyone else in the game, but could NOT stop getting zerged by Girlyburps. I tried using AOE spells, but still couldn't whup her.
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