SpiritWars® Survival Tips for New Members

by Brian Donnelly
 (aka Jazz)

The members’ version of SpiritWars differs greatly from the WON version and there are a few pieces of information that you should know about if you want to survive and prosper. One big difference between the Won version and the "pay to play" version is that here everyone starts with a unique kingdom of 200 spirits and you will win and lose spirits as you play games. A second big difference is that you can trade spirits to other players, each side offering up two spirits a side to swap. Below I will list the dangers that arise from these two great features and how you can avoid letting them harm your kingdom.

You have 200 spirits, divided randomly among the six homelands. Your initial reaction is going to be shock and surprise, especially when trying to build your first dungeon. What should you do and how do you get started? I recommend determining the two or three strongest colors and start with those. Build a dungeon out of two of these and use the other three colors to trade in order to get a better dungeon. For example, if white, brown, and green look good, make a white/green dungeon, saving brown as a color you’ll build over time. Then proceed to use the best of your black, yellow, and blue spirits for trading with other members in order to improve your primary dungeon in white/green (or adding to your back-up color, brown, if the opportunity presents itself).

In the Kellogg Creek version of SpiritWars, the loser of a game will lose one or two spirits from their active dungeon. (Players with a rating above 120 lose two and everyone else loses one.) The winner gets a Victory Migration that is always one spirit more than the number of fatalities suffered by the loser. Accordingly, you will receive either one or two new spirits when you win a game.

Since you are always risking losing spirits when you play, you should be cautious when picking opponents when you are first starting. Recklessly jumping into games with the top rated players could result in loses that could cost you one of your few powerful spirits.

Everyone starts with a rating of 100, and this rating goes up or down each time you play. (There is a detailed explanation of the mechanics of the rating system elsewhere at the web site.). I recommend new people choose opponents whose rank is lower than 110. Playing higher ranked players significantly increases your chances of losing while you are getting started. If you continue to lose, don’t play people above 100, whereas if you are winning a fair amount play people with ratings up to 120 or more (these numbers are just guidelines). The key here is, if you are concerned about losing a game and a good spirit or two, make sure you play people who are ranked close to your rating. Having said all this, don’t worry too much about losing, because every few games you will get an Activity Migration of five random spirits added to your kingdom. These migrations are also a balancing factor in the game, so lower ranked players generally get much better spirits in the migrations than higher rated players. And they get them more often!

I believe if you follow these tips for your first 10-20 games or so, you should do well and have a fairly strong kingdom from which to build your dungeon. After this learning period, well then anything goes!

Hopefully these tips help you. Have fun and good luck!