This is by design. Losing strangefellows will reduce your gang’s hearts by 1 if they’re above the max (if they’re at 6 hearts). I’m open to changing it if it would make for more interesting outcomes, but the issue is, what happens if your gang is at 1 heart?
(Edit: also, I play a lot of Hearthstone, and this behavior is consistent with the way that game handles bonus health. If you have a minion whose max health is boosted, and they lose that ability due to Silence effects or whatever, their new health drops only until it is <= their new max health. This is to say: there’s precedent for this sort of behavior in other games - which doesn’t mean it can’t be changed for Antihero, but just that expectations could go either way.)
Maybe it should just be: lose strangefellows => lose a heart on all gangs whose health is > 1. I do like the idea that a successful attack on your opponent’s strangefellows gives you an immediate benefit.
Gang’s base health is 2
Leveled Strangefellows bonus health +1 (so 3 now)
Evict Strangefellows urchin(s) -1
Gang’s health is 3 still?
Thug’s base health is 1
Leveled Strangefellows bonus health +1 (so 2 now)
Evict Strangefellows urchin(s) -1
Thug’s health is back to 1?
Are there two rules at work here?
Yeah, I mean, knocking out a leveled Strangefellows shouldn’t kill gangs with one heart, but I feel there should be some benefit, like there is when you evict a third urchin from other buildings. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fully boosted gang with a Strangefellows bonus heart on top in my 70+ hours played so the likelihood of seeing that bonus heart and then chipping it away by eviction seems very slim to me.
For what it’s worth too, I thought the effect was already immediate but I must have only noticed against thugs!
The rules are based on the unit’s max health. A gang’s max health is 5, unless there’s a Strangefellows in play, in which case it’s 6. A Thug’s max health is 1, and is increased by both Strangefellows AND Thug health upgrades. So in this case:
Gang’s max health is 5; cur health is 2
Leveled S.F. → Gang max health is 6; cur health is 3
Evict S.F. → Gang max health is 5; cur health = 3, because 3 is <= maxHealth
If that Thug had the Brewing upgrade, his health would’ve stayed at 2 as well.
This is certainly confusing, especially since Gang’s max health isn’t really exposed in the UI: you just have to know that it’s 5 (or 6 with S.F. infiltration).
ANYWAY: you’ve convinced me to change this rule :)
Well, g frickin’ g @lordkosc. Holy crap was that close. You gained so much ground after that early trapped trading house you stumbled into (something like turn 4?) and I was starting to putter out towards the end. You muscled me out of every building and corner of the city with your Strangefellow gangs and thugs. Ooof.
Ah this was the game where I went with gang eviction upgrades at the beginning but there’s not really much longevity with that strategy because your gang gets wiped after the first mass eviction.
I was also fishing with my hard stuff thugs, hoping you’d spend your lanterns on poison dagger instead of assassin to bag one of the final contracts. Another plus with this strategy was that it kept your max damage gang locked into helping your thief break loose!
I should have put more lanterns into daggers to keep your thugs back and gangs in check. I didn’t do that so I was left with my gangs getting whacked with no coin or routes to any buildings.
Also: you cut me off at the estates too so that didn’t help! I nearly trapped them a few times as well…
Oh I never watch anything after the last VP! ;-) Ain’t nobody got time for Just… One… More… Burglary…
Yeah, there was a mistake I made in the middle of the game that would have allowed me to get the jewellery upgrade. When I needed the cash I didn’t have the lanterns! I snagged three portraits early on but at the cost of lantern generator which scuppered me towards the end. I’m trying to mix my strategies up to see what works.
On the Palace map I totally overlooked the sheer amount of coin you had to brute force the tower. I was in a really good position too but one mistake and… no VPs!
Hey @lordkosc, sorry for being so lame and letting our matches expire. I no longer have a nose: it’s been rubbed off my face by this grindstone I’ve been pressing it into while getting an almost-final build off to QA.
That said, there will be some new goodies coming to itch players soon, in what will likely be the final patch before the game launches early next month. Some balance changes, but also House Rules and Leaderboards.
Yeah, I tried to hem you into the same area to keep you away from the estates and deplete your coin reserves. You needed coin to buy urchins for the boat and church VPs, and you almost had enough lanterns to get a bribe so I had to force you into upgrading your dagger. Also, I think this is the first game where I’ve not unlocked the saboteur, hence the thugs to stop you.
