blighted

Scotland Six kicked our butts! Tim picked the adversary for our game of Spirit Island last night. He likes a challenge, so he picked one of the tougher adversaries (in this case, Scotland — the adversaries are named for 19th-century countries or dynasties) and he dialed it all the way up to the most difficult setting (1 being the easiest, 6 being the most punishing). The game board is an island divided into six smaller boards, one for each spirit, and each spirit’s board is subdivided into lands named for their most prominent characteristic (mountains, jungle, wetlands). Spirits protect the island from encroaching invaders using magical powers which strengthen and multiply as the game progresses, but invaders can get a jump on the spirits by giving them the advantages of a particular adversary. The adversary Tim chose last night, for instance, can build lots and lots of towns under certain conditions. And build they did, all over one of the boards I was supposed to protect, while my spirit was still young and not very powerful. In other words, I got swamped early on and never recovered, even though other spirits tried to help me. In the final battle, all our spirits were overwhelmed by the blight which invaders bring to the island. We went down fighting, though.