shaowebb
Member
Have you ever been playing Monopoly and wanted to punch someone in the face and take their damned hotel from them? Well you can in Culdcept! It’s a video game with over a 10 year history that replaces buying property and putting hotels on land with the idea of buying land and summoning Magic the Gathering style card creatures to the land to defend it. If you hit that spot you can either pay the toll or kick its ass and take the land from the player.
In fact, Ken Levine lists it as one of his favorite PS2 games of all time!
There was even a manga whose main character made it into the series as a hidden character.
In honor of this series and the fact that ITS GETTING A NEW GAME FOR 3DS I wanted to do a long overdue official thread for the series. Why do an official thread for the whole series and combine it with a thread for the new 3DS title?
Because the new 3DS title combines elements from ALL the previous games!
That’s right. The game is coming out june 28th in Japan, is published by Nintendo this time around, and European plans are officially confirmed this time around! Given its Nintendo and European plans are being confirmed for it so there is a strong chance we might get this stateside as well so hype train is go for all who are fans of it. The game itself is a remastering of Culdcept for the PS2 with new artwork for the old cast and crew, boards from EVERY previous Culdcept game, and a mix of cards from every previous game along with new cards as well.
Here are some trailers for Culdcept 3DS with commentary by its creator.
Culdcept 3DS Trailer
So what the hell is a Culdcept? I’m glad you asked you see it’s a CHRISTWHATTHEFUCKISTHATTHING!
That thing is Goligan. He is a living cane sent by Culdra the supreme Goddess of everything ever. He serves as the tutorial character that acts as the mouthpiece for you in cut scenes as you are a silent protagonist in every game in the series save Culdcept Saga. Basically her power is sent out into the world in the form of Cards. Powerful people called “Cepters” can use those cards thus the term Culdcept. Cepters compete with each other and it is said that whoever can become the strongest Cepter on a world will be given the power to create their own world where the cycle will begin again.
In every game you get to create your own “Cepter” from scratch and name them as well as customize their decks. Down below are some of the template characters from Culdcept for the PS2. In Culdcept Saga on the 360 you actually get to edit their looks and outfits to a degree and by fulfilling achievements during the game by pulling off certain shenanigans in matches or online you can earn NEW outfits or even book designs for your decks to show off. No word yet on this being added to the Culdcept 3DS title which is a remastering of the PS2 game. If so…Swag.
For the record the guy being selected below is who I used. I named him “Blind Bob” and eventually went on to name all my Cepters that in every game in the series. He is my bro for life and together we will win and create more worlds known as “Blind Bobia” AHAHAHA!
You can make edit your deck and make multiple decks to choose from before a match and at the start of the game you get either a blue/yellow or a red/green deck. These starter decks are random and at the end of every game you get new cards regardless of whether you win or lose (though winning earns you more cards). You can trade cards with friends or even play “capture card” matches that let you win their cards.
So far there have been several games
- Culdcept-saturn/PSX
- Culdcept-DC/PS2
- Culdcept Saga-360
- Culdcept DS –DS(Japan only anniversary remake of the original)
Now we’re getting into why this game is so incredible that anyone who has played it has become an obsessive lover of the title.
Basically you are on a board with different colored land. Like in Monopoly you get money every time you lap . In order to lap you have to touch one of each “Fort” on the board and you get a cash bonus for each one you pass. Also like Monopoly you buy up land. However, unlike monopoly land has set values for each type of land and what you place creatures on them. Also cards that have the same color as the land they are placed on will receive bonus health from that land that increases for each level the land is worth. In addition to that if you get a bunch of land of the same color in an area they get even MORE bonuses to their toll and card stats during combat. This means that getting a bunch of land of one color with matching colored cards defending it is a BIG way to threaten someone on the board as these lands will be expensive to pay tolls on and REALLY hard to kill in combat.
In the history of the series there have been several types of land.
- Colored land (Red,Green,Blue, or Yellow)
- Neutral Land (gray)
- Metamorphic Land (Changes to the color of the card placed on it)
Like any card based game there are phases to play. They go in the following order.
- Draw phase- During the start of your turn you automatically will draw a card from your deck to put into your hand. Your maximum hand size is 7 and anything over this you will have to choose a card to discard during this phase
- Spell phase-After you’ve drawn a card you can choose to cast a spell. Like in Magic the Gathering this lets you attack cards directly or place enchantments on cards without actually entering into a combat phase. This is VERY useful and lets you do everything from kill off creatures easily that would have been more difficult to take on in an actual combat phase due to bonuses they may have or armors/scrolls/weapons that the player may have used to boost them during such combat. Spell phases are a good time to try to increase your control over the cards on the board. You usually only get one spell per spell phase, but if you cast a spell card that says “Doublecast” that means you get an EXTRA spell to play before this phase ends. There is no limit to how many times you can do this, but remember that the goal is based on reaching a cash amount first and all cards cost gold.
- Roll Phase- This is where you move around the board. You do this by rolling dice. There are multiple cards with abilities to rig your dice rolls and multiple spells you can cast to give you higher rolls or even more than one die to cast during your roll phase. Be wary though…the game is known for trying to force players onto each others lands. Always plan your strategy around the worst possible die roll and never over spend before reaching the goal if you think rolling a bunch of ones could leave you broke in a few rounds.
- Territory action-After you’ve drawn, chose to cast/not cast a spell, and rolled your dice you move and once you stop any creature that you passed that you owned will be a creature you will get the option to perform one of several actions with them.
- Level your land-You do this by paying costs that increase for each level. The higher the level of the land the bigger the toll on it and the bigger the bonuses your creature gets during combat from the land (such as health). Know that if your card is killed though that this land is still FULLY LEVELED for your opponents card and that card will receive all of these bonuses to enjoy all at your expense. If a card is killed outside of card battle by a spell or something the land is vacant but is still fully leveled. That means if someone lands on this vacant land all they have to do is pay the summoning cost of a creature to get a hugely valuable territory with massive tolls and bonuses. Defend your land well.
- Creature AbilitySome cards will cast a spell as a natural ability for a small cost. If you passed by a creature you owned with such an ability you can cast it. Some spells will effect die rolls, some will cast “land protection” making cards immune to spells, some will cast spells that attack, etc. etc. etc.
- Exchange Creature- Sometimes you buy up land you need with cards you don’t really want to use on it. Other times you have a card that has been defending land that is just plain injured from taking on a lot of spells or combat phases. If you pass a creature you own and want to swap it for a creature in your hand you can do so by selecting it and paying the cost of another creature. Any card returned to your hand loses all spell effects on it and is returned to its basic unaltered stats for you to use later. A neat trick is that if a card requires you to own a colored land in addition to its cost in order to play you can exchange it with the very card holding that land since technically at the time of its summoning there was a card on the colored land required. This is good to remember so you don’t go around thinking you got to own one blue land in addition to the card you are trying to place so long as you exchange them.
- Move Creature- Sometimes you just can’t land on the damned spot you wanted, but you can get really close. Other times you notice your opponent has a land nearby that a creature you own near it could wipeout. This is when you want to use this option. Creatures can be moved one space with this ability unless they have an ability that states otherwise. If you move a card onto occupied land those cards will fight even if its onto a partners land in team battle! That’s useful to know if you want to use a spell to force two opponents on a team to fight amongst themselves (lol). Remember though that some cards (like walls) cant move and that cards cannot be moved onto land you cannot purchase in normal play. For example, you can’t move a creature onto a teleporter that puts you somewhere else on the board or onto a bridge or something that is just there for your character to move around on.
- Level your land-You do this by paying costs that increase for each level. The higher the level of the land the bigger the toll on it and the bigger the bonuses your creature gets during combat from the land (such as health). Know that if your card is killed though that this land is still FULLY LEVELED for your opponents card and that card will receive all of these bonuses to enjoy all at your expense. If a card is killed outside of card battle by a spell or something the land is vacant but is still fully leveled. That means if someone lands on this vacant land all they have to do is pay the summoning cost of a creature to get a hugely valuable territory with massive tolls and bonuses. Defend your land well.
…
Jesus Christ you are horrifying Goligan.
Anyhow! Now we can talk about the best part of the game. CARDS.
As you’d expect this game has a LOT of cards. There are hundreds of them and you generally get repeats amidst the cards you win. This is fine though because unlike Magic the Gathering where you may or may not live long enough to use your deck’s strategy in Culdcept you ALWAYS live long enough to try out your tactics in every match and see how they fare in the long haul. That means getting repeats is awesome since you can have 4 of any card in your deck at all times and given you don’t need “mana” or some crap to play them like in other card games every card in your deck gets to be chosen for its stats and not for fuel or something.
Plus as I’ve mentioned before when a match ends, win or lose, you get cards!
Decks consist of 50 cards and there are several card types.
You can actually view and play with building decks RIGHT NOW thanks to the wonderful people over at “Culdcept Central”. Here is their Deck builder for the PS2 versopm that lets you select any card known in the game so far to view its art and stats and get started brainstorming decks! They have one of these listed and setup for each game in the series. Since Culdcept 3DS doesn’t have a complete card list there isn’t one setup for it yet. Culdcept Central is an active site that has ladders to compete in for the games in this series so if you want to find folks to play with, talk to and enjoy the game with head on over!
Anyhow there are several kinds of cards in Culdcept.
- Creatures-
Boil em’. Mash em’. Stick em’ in a stew. Use them to hold land. Use them to attack land. Use them as fuel for cards with the “support” ability and gobble their stats to use as bonuses for said other creatures. Would you wear a suit of armor made out of potato? I would.
- Equipable Item Cards-
Now these come is several types. Cards that can be used for armor to increase your base health during combat. Cards that can be used as a weapon to increase your base attack power during combat. Items that effect the rules of combat when equipped. Or scrolls that attack the base health of enemies and IGNORE all land bonuses to health they are receiving (fucking deadly way around leveled land!). Each type of equip-able item card has a symbol that denotes its types and many cards list what types they can and cannot use by showing these symbols. You can only equip one equip-able item card during combat whether you are attacking or defending.
- Spell Cards-
These are the cards you use outside of combat phases. They let you do things like mess with your die rolls, steal money from enemies, cast stat altering buffs/nerfs onto creatures across the board and any number of shenanigans. There are even some creatures called “Idols” that when placed on the board cast permanent spell effects that change gameplay so long as they are alive. Spells are massively impactful to gameplay. Idols are completely troll ways to make certain you always have a spell in play (like draw phase yielding 2 cards instead of 1 or the idol that casts a spell effect to ignore all effects during combat so that you are forced to fight based on your base stats alone!)
Oh and for the record if you induce a status effect on someone an icon appears over that creature's head on the board. You can only have one status ailment at a time so a good way to get rid of a status ailment is to replace it with one you can deal with. Some are beneficial! Some can even make you immune to almost all spell/territory effects. Keep this in mind because if someone leaves you alive after a battle phase that you enjoyed a nice status effect during and their attack replaced said status effect with a new one life can be pretty painful afterwards. Many is the land protected wall that was immune to spells that I invaded and paralyzed with a spider to take shots at later on with magic bolts.
In addition to types of cards are the card colors for any creature cards you have. They are as follows.
- Fire (Red)- Red creatures are generally pretty strong attackers and great for stealing land through combat. Some even get combat bonuses or cast attack spells across the board.
- Water (Blue)- Blue creatures are generally really healthy and great for holding land. These cards are based around trying to gain you tolls through simply being too healthy to deal with. One especially useful card named “Kelpie” will make it so if they are placed on a blue land that everyone who passes it has to stop on it and either pay a toll or fight. This can be a big deal if they level it first, and then equip it with armor or any item that neutralizes attacks once people start having to go near it.
- Earth (Green)- Green cards tend to have the “support” ability or some other ability to boost their stats or gain them an edge. Support cards can use any other card in their hand to boost their attack and health during combat.
- Air (Yellow)-Yellow cards tend to get first attack and believe the best defense is a strong offense. They are used for both holding and taking land by being very manipulative during combat. These cards are all about screwing up your attack phase by either attacking before you do, inflicting a status ailment with their attacks that messes with your own ability to attack (card called “Nike”, or messing with your equipped cards (gremlin is a creature that shatters equipped cards and eliminates them!)
- Neutral-Neutral cards are unique in that they cannot receive any land bonuses even if they are placed on neutral colored land. This means they are generally not good for holding land, but these cards tend to get some of the highest stats in the game which is why they are kind of expensive. If you build your deck right you can come up with some pretty powerful neutral card tactics to take peoples land. There is even a wall called “Wonder Wall” that negates all colored attacks against itself that has to be killed with other neutral cards or scrolls. Neutral cards…deadly in the right hands. Just watch out for the spell banishing ray
- Multicolored- A few of these were added in Culdcept Saga and they were generally cards with a high cost, and requirements that you already possessed one land of each color of the card. However, these cards were extremely powerful and inspired some equipment cards based around the same theme of using stats based off of two lands to generate a bonus. Not certain if they are returning for Culdcept 3DS, but they were a blast in Saga. Especially Storm armor and Magma Armor that gave you more attack/health for every land you controlled of the corresponding colors of the card.
The boards come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some are long. Some are small. Some have pretty big goals and some have small goals. Each board has its own amount of cards listed as the reward for winning. On these boards in addition to basic land are a few other things to look out for. Forts, goals, fountains, temples, and shrines.
- Forts-Forts need hit to be allowed to reach the goal and lap. When stopped at a fort you can enter into a territory phase on any territory you owned regardless of whether or not you passed on that roll (this is HUGE).
- Goals-Goals when hit heal your injured creatures some and give you bigger and bigger cash bonuses based on the amount of land you have. Again when stopped at goal you can enter into a territory phase on any territory you owned regardless of whether or not you passed on that roll (this is HUGE).
- Fountains-Fountains let you mulligan your whole hand if you want when you stop at one.
- Temples- Temples let you buy symbols. Like stock symbols go up or down in value based on how well the symbol color you bought is doing. You can invest in red, green, blue, or yellow symbols in any area of the board and if the correspondingly colored land goes up in value or gets more creatures on it in those territories regardless of whether or not you own them your symbols go up in value. These can be cashed in at temples or if you run out of money for a toll. On a long board with lots of paths to take to avoid tolls it is VERY useful to invest in symbols as a way to insure you keep making money even if folks play super defensive.
- Shrines-These are a crapshoot. You land on a shrine and one of the Gods will appear and randomly cast a spell . These are the kinds of spells that almost always DO NOT come in card form. They may be something small like increasing symbol values for an area, or they may be big like dealing damage to every creature of a certain color. The thing is you never know if its going to be good or bad. I like hitting them personally. I can’t really remember them ever costing me a game and the useful ones are often quite useful. Even the bad ones don’t do major damage, but generally just inconvenience you. Of course who knows…maybe I’m just lucky.
And that’s pretty much it. You can find opponents over on Culdcept Central or play with friends locally. The demo is still up to the best of my knowledge for Culdcept Saga on Xbox Live, and each game is both unique in its card lists and dominant strategies. Feel free to post favorite cards you find from any of the following:
Culdcept Saga Complete Deck List
Culdcept DS Complete Deck List
Culdcept PS2 Complete Deck List
Culdcept for Saturn Complete Deck List
Culcept 3DS deck list (new cards being added as they are found)
…and feel free to post deck and strategies! Nothing cooler than showing up and posting some tactics you’ve come up with. I’ve seen some crazy ones using idols that eliminate stat perks to make neutral cards better and even some designed around using an no creatures and all spells!
Those of us that play will gladly help those starting in the series with tips and those playing either Saga or DS can use this thread for trading or whatever. Talk about your experiences with the AI which is really competitive in these games at times. Talk about unlocking hidden Cepters to take on like the really aggressive Zenith who was in the original and who was hidden in both the PS2, and Saga games with a really scary deck to face off against. Talk about trying to unlock all the medals awarded to you if you can manage to pull off the kinds of insane tactics they require to unlock ( Defeat a dragon with a 1/1 powder eater).Talk, play, enjoy.
Its time for some Culdcept.
Thanks to Andyman over on Culdcept Central for help obtaining most of these images.