- Introduction
- Setup
- Strategy
- Experiences
This article was written under Spirit Island Version 2.8.3 build 671 prod, which includes the completed Jagged Earth expansion.
I am happy to make any corrections if more accurate information is discovered. If you have any comments, you can either post here or e-mail me at: byzantinekitty@gmail.com
All of the screenshots in this post were taken by me.
1. INTRODUCTION
This is a guide for the Reshape the Earth Itself achievement: Win a game where the one remaining board was not there to begin with.
This achievement requires:
Playing Dream of the Untouched Land (from the Jagged Earth expansion) once to add an extra board.
Playing Cast Down Into the Briny Deep (from the Branch & Claw expansion) once for each spirit to remove all of the initial starting boards.
In this guide, I'll offer some tips on game setup, suggest strategies, and then share my own personal experiences unlocking this achievement.
2. SETUP
A. Number of Spirits
Most achievements are easier to accomplish with more spirits because you have more opportunities to draw the cards you are looking for and the greater diversity of abilities allows the different spirits to cover for each and synergize. In contrast, when you have just one or two spirits, you are largely reliant on RNG draws and you have fewer safety nets to help save you.
For Reshape the Earth Itself, having too few spirits means it will be harder to cycle through the power decks to get the key cards. Furthermore, you will need to spend more time dealing with all the invaders until you get your engine going.
However, each spirit you add to the game means you have to use Cast Into the Briny Deep one additional time. Since it's a 9 energy cost card, it becomes harder to play it so many times and it means you have to start using it earlier in the game.
As a result, I ended up going with 4 spirits (and not 6).
B. Spirit Selection
Since you're going to need to cycle through the 66 card major powers deck, you need at least 1 or 2 spirits that can handle drawing lots of major powers. Some of the best options include:
Shifting Memory of Ages: When gaining major powers, this spirit can discard powers from your hand instead of forgetting them. Good energy output. Element markers are helpful for itself or for other spirits.
Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island: Takes awhile to get going but by the end game has tons of energy and lots of card plays. Focusing on the water/plant innate power lets you cycle through the major power deck quickly. Also has good innate element synergy with Cast Down Into the Briny Deep.
Ocean's Hungry Grasp: Has good element synergy and lots of card plays. However, unless you consistently drown invaders or get a lot of energy support, Ocean's low energy income may be a problem. Furthermore, it may be tricky timing the presence of your spirit tokens.
River Surges in Sunlight: Can get lots of energy and lots of card plays. It takes awhile to get going though and while you're interested in the same elements as Cast Down Into the Briny Deep, River doesn't have any permanent element markers it can always count on every turn.
Vital Strength of the Earth: Has high energy output, can play a decent amount of cards, and can allow the repeating of low and medium cost powers. However, it doesn't have any innate elements that it gets each turn.
Starlight Seeks Its Form: Starlight is flexible because it can either get lots of powers itself or it can serve as excellent support and help other spirits. This spirit has a lot of complexity when deciding which growth choices you select. For this achievement, I would suggest focusing on the plant element (choosing plant when uncovering element spots on your growth board and choosing minor powers with the plant element).
Fractured Days Split the Sky: The "Days That Never Were" ability means you can more easily go through the major powers deck and can serve in a supporting role if needed. It's also the only spirit that wouldn't get completely screwed if you draw both Dream of the Untouched Land and Cast Down Into the Briny Deep at the same time - with any other spirit you could only take one of them and would have to cycle through the major powers deck again. However, Fractured Days isn't going to be able to get a lot of major powers just by itself without help.
Next, I would recommend some good supporting spirits:
A Spread of Rampant Green: IMHO this is the best supporting spirit in the whole game. Gift of Proliferation is the key card since it can significantly speed up any other spirit. Rampant Green also gets its spirit tokens out quickly and can stall against invaders by temporarily destroying its sacred sites to prevent builds or ravages.
As mentioned earlier, Starlight Seeks Its Form and Fractured Days Split the Sky can serve as support but can also do major power heavy lifting in a pinch. Starlight is great for drawing powers for itself and also other spirits. Fractured Days can let you reclaim key cards and when combined with A Spread of Rampant Green, you can really speed up an otherwise late-game spirit by letting them place an extra spirit token every turn.
Other viable support options include River Surges in Sunlight (energy), Sun-Bright Whirlwind (energy), Fathomless Mud of the Swamp (power cards), and Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds (power cards and energy).
I would also recommend at least one spirit that can handle invader threats early on. Examples include:
Lightning's Swift Strike: Also benefits from being able to make slow actions (like Cast Into the Briny Deep) fast.
Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves, Grinning Trickster Stirs Up Trouble, Many Minds Move as One, Eyes Watch from the Trees, Fathomless Mud of the Swamp, and Sun-Bright Whirlwind are other good options.
You ideally want this spirit to have a lot of card plays and lots of minor powers, so they can also provide additional support when the invader threat is under control.
C. Other Game Settings
I would recommend turning off events so you don't get randomly screwed by something unexpected. This way you can confidently predict whether you have enough defense against a ravage.
You can also play against no adversary to make the game easier so you can focus on the achievement.
If you really want to micromanage, you can even individually select optimal game boards for each spirit to figure out the best positioning at the start of the game.
Here is the starting setup I used:
3. STRATEGY
While searching for the key major powers, you want to keep the invader threat under control. You don't have to clear lands completely since invaders will get destroyed when you use Cast Down Into the Briny Deep. Pay attention to any corruption on the board since those do NOT get returned to the blight card. You may also want to try to migrate spirit tokens, dahan, and animal tokens so they aren't destroyed as well.
Much of the strategy for this achievement revolves around searching for the two required cards which are Cast Down Into the Briny Deep and Dream of the Untouched Land:
For Cast Down Into the Briny Deep, note the range and target land requirements. You need to have a sacred site within 1 range of the coastal land you want to target (barring powers that increase your range). That does mean that you have to think about your positioning before destroying each board.
For Dream of the Untouched Land, note that the option to skip a board only applies to build cards (not ravage or explore) and to "each board / each land" adversary actions (but not "each board / each land" from events).
But besides those two key cards there is also a lot of strategy in carefully selecting useful support cards along the way.
Among the minor powers, most of the gifts are extremely useful for your supporting spirits:
Gift of Constancy provides 2 energy and lets you recycle useful cards by reclaiming them. The spirit who played Gift of Constancy can choose to reclaim it as well and so the two spirits can keep playing the same two cards every turn.
Gift of Living Energy can provide up to 3 energy.
Gift of Power lets you draw more minor powers (some of which may be fodder to discard when gaining major powers).
Elemental Boon and Gift of Nature's Connection can provide the elements needed to reach the threshold for key powers. The latter can alternatively be used to provide 2 energy.
Gift of Twinned Days lets you duplicate important cards. Note that it only lets you repeat the lowest power card in play so you are unlikely to be repeating Cast Down Into the Briny Deep. Also keep in mind that you have to repay the cost of the repeated card. But it works well when repeating a 0-cost "gift" card from this list.
Spur on with Words of Fire gives 1 energy to another spirit and lets them play another card.
Sky Stretches to Shore allows a slow action to be played in the fast phase (which is really useful if you aren't using Lightning's Swift Strike or Fractured Days Split the Sky) plus it gives a lot of added range to the coastal land you will be targeting. Reaching Grasp and Scream Disease Into the Wind also provide range increases.
There are also some really helpful major powers if you are lucky enough to draw into them while searching the major power deck:
Powerstorm lets you gift 3 energy to another spirit and they can repeat 1-3 cards (depending on if the threshold is met). Unlike Gift of Twinned Days, you can repeat cards of any power cost as long as you can pay for them.
Entwined Power lets you and another spirit gain more power cards. With the elemental threshold, it generates energy for both spirits and you can gift cards in hand. If the wrong spirit ends up with Cast Down Into the Briny Deep, this is the one way to transfer it to another player. Note that the card needs to be in your hand to gift it and you cannot gift Entwined Power itself.
Unlock the Gates of Deepest Power is another engine to get more power cards. If you are energy rich, it is also an expensive way to generate all elements with a single card.
Indomitable Claim and Unrelenting Growth accelerate your growth by letting you place more spirit tokens.
Unleash a Torrent of the Self's Own Essence can generate a lot of energy. Each time you play it for the first effect you have a net energy gain of 2. You can also forget power cards for even more energy.
Please note that using Cast Down Into the Briny Deep on a joined land that is linked to an adjacent board through Weave Together the Fabric of Place will only remove one board and not two boards. However, you do get to choose which one of the two boards is destroyed.
You only need to play Dream of the Untouched Land once and it's okay if you play it near the end of the game. However, since you need to play Cast Down Into the Briny Deep multiple times, you need to get it earlier. On the off chance that you are unlucky enough to draw both at the same time, I would normally suggesting taking Cast Down Into the Briny Deep first and then hope to cycle through the deck again for the other card.
4. EXPERIENCES
During my efforts to unlock the Reshape the Earth Itself achievement, I went with 4 spirits:
Shifting Memory of Ages as my primary source of major powers.
Starlight Seeks Its Form as a backup source of major powers. I focused on the plant element to consistently use Starlight's power drawing innate ability.
A Spread of Rampant Green to repeatedly use Gift of Proliferation on Shifting Memory of Ages.
Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves to deal with immediate invader threats and to draw and use supporting minor powers.
Here is the game state before using Dream of the Untouched Land:
The new board starts with a few animals, wilds, badlands, and spirit tokens. It doesn't start with any dahan though.
The rest of my experience can be summed up as "The Great Migration." In preparing for a board to be cast down into the briny deep, I wanted to clean up any corruption because otherwise it would not be returning to the blight card. I also did my best to save spirit tokens, dahan, and animals from the doomed board. Over time, the emphasis was on trying to migrate as many of the spirit tokens, dahan, and animals to the new board which would be the last one standing at the end of the game.
Here is the game state before each time I used Cast Down Into the Briny Deep:
Here's a screenshot of Cast Down Into the Briny Deep in action:
Here is an example of how the 3 other spirits were assisting Shifting Memory of Ages each turn with support cards:
A Spread of Rampant Green was using Gift of Constancy each turn to give Shifting Memory 2 energy and to let them reclaim Cast Down Into the Briny Deep for use next turn (Rampant Green was reclaiming Gift of Constancy each turn as well). Rampant Green was then also using Gift of Living Energy for an additional 3 energy to help fuel the briny deep.
Starlight Seeks Its Form was using Gift of Twinned Days on A Spread of Rampant Green to repeat Gift of Constancy to use on Shifting Memory again. This provided an additional 2 energy and let Shifting Memory also reclaim Unlock the Gates of Deepest Power while Rampant Green was able to reclaim Gift of Living Energy as well.
Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves was using Sky Stretches to Shore each turn in order to make Cast Down Into the Briny Deep a fast action.
Here is the final board right at the end.
Look at all of the animals and dahan I managed to save as a result of the Great Migration! 🦁 🐯 🐼
And finally, here are the victory screens along with the unlocked achievement:
