Antihero

My body is ready.

Great, thanks! I just set the beta live.

In your Steam library, right-click Antihero and go to Properties > Betas. In the “Enter beta access code” field, enter ‘powderhouse1234’ (no quotes). Then in the dropdown menu above the field, choose “Powder House”. If you don’t see it, you need to restart Steam and do the process again (Steam caches game data, and game updates sometimes don’t get received if the client is open when the game is updated.)

When you play the Powder House beta, you’ll be on an empty beta server. (Also, you’ll need to create a new account on it - it’s a separate database, so anything you do in beta won’t affect your account in the release build.) I’ll jump into Casual automatches, or feel free to invite me to matches (I’m “Goatgoatgoat”). And of course feel free to automatch each other, play Live Matches, Hotseats, whatever. The AI doesn’t really know about the Powder House yet, so AI Skirmish won’t be of much use.

In this build, every multiplayer map is guaranteed to have one Powder House. I’m interested in whether Powder House Level 2 (which causes traps to steal 1 lantern, instead of 1 gold) feels OK, balance-wise. Maybe it’s not powerful enough, and needs to steal 1 lantern AND 1 gold (or have some other effect)?

Also, feel free to invite any other Antihero-playing friends into the beta. I’m hoping to release this patch next week, if possible, so the sooner I get feedback the better! Thanks again!

Good to go here, @Otthegreat and @geggis don’t have BETA accounts yet. :p

I’m all set up, but it can’t seem to find you @lordkosc. Unless you’re under a different name.

He added BETA after his name! I’ve a third game lined up in Automatch.

Ah that makes sense, thanks!

LordKoscBETA is 100% better at the game! ;)

LordKosc 2.0 online. Welcome to your new existence.

It’s nice being able to keep tabs on my normal game on my phone instead of having to switch the Steam version around! :-)

gg @belouski! That was the closest game I’ve had in a long time!

Oh wow, yeah, that’s super close!

It came down to the last action on my Thief stealing the final coin I needed to grab one of belouski’s churches out from under him.

And the estate was kind enough to spawn a jewel for you as well.

Great game.

Having played Antihero a lot, I think the estates are one of my favourite RNG aspects. Building positioning is perhaps my least favourite because you can really get a raw deal sometimes! Estates have a couple of layers to them though; the henchman at the door, the research required to grab the art/jewels, traps to watch out for, waiting for the estate to populate again… They’re great buildings for underhanded play.

I totally agree. You can often get better funding from an Estate than a Bank. Particularly, since Estates won’t draws as much aggro.

@geggis @lordkosc @Otthegreat - any thoughts on Powder House? My sense is that it’s definitely not overpowered; I’m just wondering if perhaps it’s underpowered? In my games with you guys, we’ve all been playing pretty conservatively, so I’m not sure.

When @Ottthegreat got a level 2 Powder House in our game, I got super worried and cleared it immediately but I’m not sure if I needed to be.

Well, I’ve been playing pretty badly! I would have been able to test the Powder House some more if you hadn’t rudely taken it off me.

The potential to soak up lanterns defensively is tantalising but I missed the coin steal when I got to level 2! I feel that that could turn the game into a Saboteur war of attrition though (2 coins for a Saboteur + 1 coin and lantern per successful trap = Saboteurs everywhere? (They’d effectively cost 1 coin at that stage.) Hmm.

I like the lantern steal though, it’s a nice twist. I think @lordkosc has the Powder House in our Agency game so will keep you posted.

I’ve enjoyed the lower priced Saboteur, but haven’t upgraded it yet to see the real benefit.

Also doesn’t help that people aren’t triggering my traps. :p

gg @geggis , my quest for a quick VP win, ended up with me being thug trapped at my HQ.

Yeah, I’m so sorry about that. I take no pleasure in thugging. Know that it was as painful for me as I’m sure it was you.

My games haven’t progressed far enough to really judge the Powder House yet. The price drop certainly is nice!