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Join Date: 16th May, 2005 Posts: 3,605

Alice's Army (card game) [March 2011 IotM] ETA: Here's a tl;dr summary if you just want to get down with the gameplay. Thanks, Skully



You cant get everything you want in Alices Army. What you CAN get is a fun card game to play against a computer-controlled AI, or against your friends, enemies, and strangers who might become your friends and/or enemies.



Heres how it works.



1. Getting Cards



In order to start a game of Alices Army, youll need at least five different cards in your inventory and/or Hagnks storage. Cards in your closet, store, or Display Case dont count.



You will get five different cards each time you open a Pack of Alices Army cards. There are currently only 20 cards in the full set; the more cards you have, the more options youll have during a game.



You can summon up to one Pack of Alices Army Cards per day if you have used the Mr. Store item of the month for March 2011: the Sorcerers of the Shore Grimoire. As a nifty bonus, youll also get a snack voucher per summon! More on those later.



If youre not the sort of person who likes to summon things, or who has limited patience, you can also buy packs or cards in the mall. And if youre REALLY anxious to get a headstart on your collection, you can get a booster box of 30 Alices Army card packs from Mr. Store.



2. Starting a Game: The Wizards Shack Game Shoppe



Once you have enough cards on hand, head over to the Forest Village. Youll see the Wizards Shack Game Shoppe, which is your KoL home for collectible card gaming madness.



Inside the shop, there are four areas of note:



Lonelybot



If youre curious to try the game out in solo mode, safe from the prying eyes and mocking laughter of your peers, this is a good place to practice. Lonelybot can be played in Crazy, Smarter, or Genius mode, depending on how much of a challenge you want.



Lonelybot also keeps track of the last handful of games that youve played against it, and you can go back and watch a replay of any game later if youd like to relive older victories, or cry quietly over your crushing defeats.



Other Players



If playing against a soulless automaton isnt doing it for you, click here to start a game against a real live human. Note that games have to be started at least 10 minutes before rollover.



Under Create a Game, you can choose to start your own game. If you have six or more cards, you can choose to play for Ante  which means you and your opponent will each select a card at random, with the winner taking both cards  and if you have five or more cards, you can play for No Ante (a.k.a. funsies). Ante games are tracked on a leaderboard (see below). You can also issue an open challenge to the whole world, or challenge another player specifically. (Note that you cant challenge a player to a no-ante match unless they have at least five cards, and you cant challenge a player to an ante match unless they have at least six cards.)



If you have six foil cards in inventory, establishing yourself as a high-stakes sort of person, you can also choose to specifically play in a game where all cards (including antes) have to be foils. Oh, the high stakes! Oh, the drama! Oh, the thrill of victory and the agony of something or other!



Please note: To play in an Ante match, you need to have six or more different types of cards in the appropriate category. So if you only have three different foil cards and six different non-foil cards, you can't play in foil-ante matches, but you can play in a non-foil-ante match. And vice versa.



Finally, you can sweeten the pot with filthy, filthy capitalism. Regardless of whether you are playing for ante or not, you can choose to wager meat -- either 1000 or 10000 -- or not. Money makes everything better! Or at least potentially more expensive.



While waiting for an opponent to accept your game, feel free to go about your other KoL business. Youll get a chat notification when your opponent has accepted your match, along with a link to click thatll take you into the game itself.



On the Other Players screen, youll also see a list of Games to Join, each listing the opponent and the match conditions (ante or no-ante). If one of those games is to your liking, just click Join and that game will get started tout suite.



In either case, congratulations! Youre now playing your first game of Alices Army against a real, live person. And hey, did you notice that theres a ticking timer in the middle of your screen? How about that! You might want to skip ahead to section 3 really fast now. Should we have asked you to read that section first? Quite possibly! Well, this is probably a more exciting way for you to learn. Lets press on.



Leaderboards



Games are more fun when you can demonstrate your prowess against your peers. So weve added a leaderboard system that tracks your win/loss record against unique opponents since rollover, or over the last week. Do you have what it takes to be the king of the ring? The toppe of the shoppe? The, um, gizzard of the wizard? This is the sound of me not quitting my day job to write documentation.



You can click the [Replay] links to see how specific games played out. Study your opponents! Learn their strategies! Drive them before you and hear the lamentations of their women!



Cashier



Over time, you will build up lots of extra cards. Extra cards are no fun, so the Wizards Shoppe lets you turn them in for store credit. You get more credit for turning in cards that are rarer.



Store credit can be used to buy cool stuff! Stuff like: A foil version of a random Alices Army card!

An entire pack of foil Alices Army cards!

A card sleeve that allows you to hold an Alices Army card in your offhand, with unique enchantments per card!

A special foil tattoo!

Other items to be added later! Maybe! You never know!

The cashier will also accept your snack vouchers, which can be used to buy various foods, boozes, or potions. Please dont get cheez dust on the foil rares.



3. Alices Army Gameplay



Boy, took me long enough to get here, didnt it? Lets waste no more time with the foreplay. You want to play games, and I want to help you do it.



In Alices Army, you and your opponent will each place five different cards into five ranks on the board. Once youve both got an army of five cards, they will proceed to beat the snot out of each other. The winner is the first person to eliminate all of the opponents cards. If both armies are decimated at the same time, the game ends in a tie.



Phase 1: Game Setup



When the game launches, youll see a list of all the cards you have available to you for this match. If this is an ante match, the computer will pick an ante card from each player; that card will be taken out of that players library (and out of inventory!), and will be held by the computer for safekeeping until the match is complete.



Note that when ante is picked, the computer will pick randomly among each TYPE of card you own, ignoring card volume. So if you have 200 pages, and one ninja, the ninja and page will have equal chances of coming up as your ante. Plan accordingly by putting cards you dont want to risk in your closet or display case



Also note that foil cards should only be picked for ante if you're playing in a Ludicrous Foil League game.



If this is your first game, you will be granted access to the /wizards chat channel, where you can engage in thoughtful discussion and less thoughtful trash talk. Enjoy!



Phase 2: Drafting Your Army



Each player now looks at the list of cards remaining in his/her card library, and selects the card that will appear in Rank 1. Once both players have chosen a card, both Rank 1 cards are revealed to both players. Youll have a limited amount of time to make your selection; once that timer runs out, the computer will pick a card for you. At random. Which will suck. So dont be that slow guy.



On the other hand, be aware of lag. If you click a card and nothing happens right away, give the system a moment to catch up. Within each of us is a demon that wants us to click the card again, frantically and repeatedly, but do not give in to those urges! When the lag clears, you may find yourself having played a whole field of inexplicably horrible cards that will result in your losing that prized ante card of yours. Play careful, kid; the Game Shoppe isn't big on refunds or do-overs.



This process then repeats for ranks 2 through 5. You cannot use a card more than once in your army  if you place a Ninja in rank 1, you cant place another one in rank 2.

At the end of this process, you and your opponent will each have an army of five cards face up on the board. At this point, the violence begins! Yay, violence!



Phase 3: There Will Be Blood and/or Confetti



During each round of combat, the following things happen in order:

The two cards in Rank 1 will each do some amount of damage to each other, reducing the opposing cards hit points. If either card in Rank 1 has an ATTACK ability, that ability will fire. If any cards are reduced to zero HP, those cards are removed from the field. Cards from the back ranks will move up to replace the dead soldiers. Cards with SPECIAL or EVERY ROUND abilities will activate those abilities, regardless of whether they are in Rank 1 or not. The system checks for cards that have zero HP again, and cleans them out of the way.

The results of each action will be printed out on your screen in thrilling play-by-play-o-vision. If youd like to pause in the action to get a refreshing beverage, click the Pause button. If youd like to cut to the chase, click the Turbo button to watch the rest of the match in fast forward.



Phase 4: Afterglow



At the end of the match, won/lost/tied records will be updated, and if the match was for ante, the winner will receive both cards. If the winner is in ronin/HC, the cards will go into Hagnks storage.



Congratulations, or consolations! Your game is over, and you may return to the game shoppe for further frivolity.



4. Gameplay Example



Two friends -- let's call them "Devster10" and "Devster2" because I am not excited about editing a bunch of screenshots -- are playing a game for ante. They start the game and start picking cards.

On rank 1, Dev10 plays an Alchemist (1-5 attack, 5 HP), and Dev2 plays a Halberder (4 attack, 4 HP). On rank 2, Dev10 and Dev2 each play a page (1 attack, 4 HP, boosts damage done by the card in front of it by 1). On rank 3, Dev10 plays a Guardboy (1-2 attack, 6 HP) and Dev2 plays a Nurse (1 attack, 3 HP, heals 1 HP on adjacent friendly cards every round). On rank 4, Dev10 plays a Shieldmaiden (1 attack, 4 HP, reduces damage done to the card in front of it by 1 to a minimum of 1), and Dev2 plays a Wall Guy (1 attack, 8 HP). On rank 5, Dev10 plays an Archer (1 attack, 3 HP, attack ability does 3 damage to the card on rank 2) and Dev2 plays a Shieldmaiden.

The cards are placed, so the game starts. Here's how the table looks at the start of the game:



And heres how the game plays out:



Round 1

* Devster10's Alchemist does 2 to Devster2's Halberder!

* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Alchemist!

* Devster10's Alchemist dies.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa2.gif



Round 2

* Devster10's Page does 1 to Devster2's Halberder!

* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Page!

* Devster10's Page dies.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa3.gif



Round 3

* Devster10's Guardboy does 1 to Devster2's Halberder!

* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Guardboy! (reduced to 4)

* Devster2's Halberder dies.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa4.gif



Round 4

* Devster10's Guardboy does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Guardboy!

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa5.gif



Round 5

* Devster10's Guardboy does 2 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Guardboy!

* Devster10's Guardboy dies.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa6.gif



Round 6

* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa7.gif



Round 7

* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa8.gif



Round 8

* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa9.gif



Round 9

* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!

* Devster10's Shieldmaiden dies.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.

* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.



http://www.feesher.com/aa10.gif



Round 10

* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!

* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Nurse!!

* Devster2's Nurse! dies.



http://www.feesher.com/aa11.gif



Round 11

* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!

* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Wall Guy! (reduced to 2)



http://www.feesher.com/aa12.gif



Round 12

* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!

* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!

* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Wall Guy! (reduced to 2)

* Devster2's Page dies.



http://www.feesher.com/aa13.gif



Round 13

* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Wall Guy!

* Devster2's Wall Guy does 1 to Devster10's Archer!

* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Shieldmaiden!

* Devster10's Archer dies.

* Devster2 Won!



http://www.feesher.com/aa14.gif You cant get everything you want in Alices Army. What you CAN get is a fun card game to play against a computer-controlled AI, or against your friends, enemies, and strangers who might become your friends and/or enemies.Heres how it works.In order to start a game of Alices Army, youll need at least five different cards in your inventory and/or Hagnks storage. Cards in your closet, store, or Display Case dont count.You will get five different cards each time you open a Pack of Alices Army cards. There are currently only 20 cards in the full set; the more cards you have, the more options youll have during a game.You can summon up to one Pack of Alices Army Cards per day if you have used the Mr. Store item of the month for March 2011: the Sorcerers of the Shore Grimoire. As a nifty bonus, youll also get a snack voucher per summon! More on those later.If youre not the sort of person who likes to summon things, or who has limited patience, you can also buy packs or cards in the mall. And if youre REALLY anxious to get a headstart on your collection, you can get a booster box of 30 Alices Army card packs from Mr. Store.Once you have enough cards on hand, head over to the Forest Village. Youll see the Wizards Shack Game Shoppe, which is your KoL home for collectible card gaming madness.Inside the shop, there are four areas of note:If youre curious to try the game out in solo mode, safe from the prying eyes and mocking laughter of your peers, this is a good place to practice. Lonelybot can be played in Crazy, Smarter, or Genius mode, depending on how much of a challenge you want.Lonelybot also keeps track of the last handful of games that youve played against it, and you can go back and watch a replay of any game later if youd like to relive older victories, or cry quietly over your crushing defeats.If playing against a soulless automaton isnt doing it for you, click here to start a game against a real live human. Note that games have to be started at least 10 minutes before rollover.Under Create a Game, you can choose to start your own game. If you have six or more cards, you can choose to play for Ante  which means you and your opponent will each select a card at random, with the winner taking both cards  and if you have five or more cards, you can play for No Ante (a.k.a. funsies). Ante games are tracked on a leaderboard (see below). You can also issue an open challenge to the whole world, or challenge another player specifically. (Note that you cant challenge a player to a no-ante match unless they have at least five cards, and you cant challenge a player to an ante match unless they have at least six cards.)If you have six foil cards in inventory, establishing yourself as a high-stakes sort of person, you can also choose to specifically play in a game where all cards (including antes) have to be foils. Oh, the high stakes! Oh, the drama! Oh, the thrill of victory and the agony of something or other!Please note: To play in an Ante match, you need to have six or more different types of cards in the appropriate category. So if you only have three different foil cards and six different non-foil cards, you can't play in foil-ante matches, but you can play in a non-foil-ante match. And vice versa.Finally, you can sweeten the pot with filthy, filthy capitalism. Regardless of whether you are playing for ante or not, you can choose to wager meat -- either 1000 or 10000 -- or not. Money makes everything better! Or at least potentially more expensive.While waiting for an opponent to accept your game, feel free to go about your other KoL business. Youll get a chat notification when your opponent has accepted your match, along with a link to click thatll take you into the game itself.On the Other Players screen, youll also see a list of Games to Join, each listing the opponent and the match conditions (ante or no-ante). If one of those games is to your liking, just click Join and that game will get started tout suite.In either case, congratulations! Youre now playing your first game of Alices Army against a real, live person. And hey, did you notice that theres a ticking timer in the middle of your screen? How about that! You might want to skip ahead to section 3 really fast now. Should we have asked you to read that section first? Quite possibly! Well, this is probably a more exciting way for you to learn. Lets press on.Games are more fun when you can demonstrate your prowess against your peers. So weve added a leaderboard system that tracks your win/loss record against unique opponents since rollover, or over the last week. Do you have what it takes to be the king of the ring? The toppe of the shoppe? The, um, gizzard of the wizard? This is the sound of me not quitting my day job to write documentation.You can click the [Replay] links to see how specific games played out. Study your opponents! Learn their strategies! Drive them before you and hear the lamentations of their women!Over time, you will build up lots of extra cards. Extra cards are no fun, so the Wizards Shoppe lets you turn them in for store credit. You get more credit for turning in cards that are rarer.Store credit can be used to buy cool stuff! Stuff like:The cashier will also accept your snack vouchers, which can be used to buy various foods, boozes, or potions. Please dont get cheez dust on the foil rares.Boy, took me long enough to get here, didnt it? Lets waste no more time with the foreplay. You want to play games, and I want to help you do it.In Alices Army, you and your opponent will each place five different cards into five ranks on the board. Once youve both got an army of five cards, they will proceed to beat the snot out of each other. The winner is the first person to eliminate all of the opponents cards. If both armies are decimated at the same time, the game ends in a tie.When the game launches, youll see a list of all the cards you have available to you for this match. If this is an ante match, the computer will pick an ante card from each player; that card will be taken out of that players library (and out of inventory!), and will be held by the computer for safekeeping until the match is complete.Note that when ante is picked, the computer will pick randomly among each TYPE of card you own, ignoring card volume. So if you have 200 pages, and one ninja, the ninja and page will have equal chances of coming up as your ante. Plan accordingly by putting cards you dont want to risk in your closet or display caseAlso note that foil cards should only be picked for ante if you're playing in a Ludicrous Foil League game.If this is your first game, you will be granted access to the /wizards chat channel, where you can engage in thoughtful discussion and less thoughtful trash talk. Enjoy!Each player now looks at the list of cards remaining in his/her card library, and selects the card that will appear in Rank 1. Once both players have chosen a card, both Rank 1 cards are revealed to both players. Youll have a limited amount of time to make your selection; once that timer runs out, the computer will pick a card for you. At random. Which will suck. So dont be that slow guy.On the other hand, be aware of lag. If you click a card and nothing happens right away, give the system a moment to catch up. Within each of us is a demon that wants us to click the card again, frantically and repeatedly, but do not give in to those urges! When the lag clears, you may find yourself having played a whole field of inexplicably horrible cards that will result in your losing that prized ante card of yours. Play careful, kid; the Game Shoppe isn't big on refunds or do-overs.This process then repeats for ranks 2 through 5. You cannot use a card more than once in your army  if you place a Ninja in rank 1, you cant place another one in rank 2.At the end of this process, you and your opponent will each have an army of five cards face up on the board. At this point, the violence begins! Yay, violence!During each round of combat, the following things happen in order:The results of each action will be printed out on your screen in thrilling play-by-play-o-vision. If youd like to pause in the action to get a refreshing beverage, click the Pause button. If youd like to cut to the chase, click the Turbo button to watch the rest of the match in fast forward.At the end of the match, won/lost/tied records will be updated, and if the match was for ante, the winner will receive both cards. If the winner is in ronin/HC, the cards will go into Hagnks storage.Congratulations, or consolations! Your game is over, and you may return to the game shoppe for further frivolity.Two friends -- let's call them "Devster10" and "Devster2" because I am not excited about editing a bunch of screenshots -- are playing a game for ante. They start the game and start picking cards.The cards are placed, so the game starts. Here's how the table looks at the start of the game: http://www.feesher.com/aa1.gif And heres how the game plays out:Round 1* Devster10's Alchemist does 2 to Devster2's Halberder!* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Alchemist!* Devster10's Alchemist dies.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 2* Devster10's Page does 1 to Devster2's Halberder!* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Page!* Devster10's Page dies.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 3* Devster10's Guardboy does 1 to Devster2's Halberder!* Devster2's Halberder does 5 to Devster10's Guardboy! (reduced to 4)* Devster2's Halberder dies.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 4* Devster10's Guardboy does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Guardboy!* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 5* Devster10's Guardboy does 2 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Guardboy!* Devster10's Guardboy dies.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 6* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 7* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 8* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 9* Devster10's Shieldmaiden does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Shieldmaiden!* Devster10's Shieldmaiden dies.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Wall Guy for 1.* Devster2's Nurse! heals Devster2's Page for 1.Round 10* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Nurse!!* Devster2's Nurse! dies.Round 11* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Wall Guy! (reduced to 2)Round 12* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Page!* Devster2's Page does 1 to Devster10's Archer!* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Wall Guy! (reduced to 2)* Devster2's Page dies.Round 13* Devster10's Archer does 1 to Devster2's Wall Guy!* Devster2's Wall Guy does 1 to Devster10's Archer!* Devster10's Archer does 3 to Devster2's Shieldmaiden!* Devster10's Archer dies.* Devster2 Won!

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__________________ Last edited by Gemelli; Thu, Mar 3rd, 2011 at 04:55 AM .