Powder Eater/Gooba Medals

[ButchNapkins]

I just got the powder eater medal tonight in Dunnan against aldha - he almost never invades. I got a PE down as quick as possible and spread it, but concentrated more on levelling it. I had Wind shields and gaseous forms. I pretty much cleared the board bit by bit by bankrupting Aldha and using the money to level the lands and spread. Lots of def items, card drawing and movement spells.

I now have 43 of the 50 medals, but I'm at a loss as to how to get the Gooba one. It seems like getting ONLY goobas on the board will be....very difficult to say the least. Any tips on this?

[Culd Fusion]

You need to have empty spaces for the Goobas to occupy, but the Queen has a two green land restriction. Something I found was very helpful when I got the Gooba medal was to use creatures with ability effects that would destroy themselves when used. Gold Totem is ideal. You can use them to occupy the lands and then set down the Gooba Queen. Then the Totems can be junked for extra G. Towards the end of the game you need to have at least one Gooba in your hand so that you can swap it at the last moment with the Gooba Queen that's on the board. One way to have that Gooba available is to swap one of your Goobas on the board with a Gold Totem (or any other creature that can kill itself). Then use its ability to destroy itself, and use the Queen to fill in the gap. Now you have a Gooba in your hand.

As was already mentioned, Goobas can't use weapons, armor, or scrolls, so you'll want to stock your book with defensive tool items such as Holy Grail, Gaseous Form, Petrify Stone, and Counter Amulet. Dynamite is a perfect attack item for a Gooba since it will give you at least 60 attack power (more if you have adjacent allies) and you can can easily replace the valiant Gooba after it blows itself to bits.

Other recommended cards:
Replace - allows you to swap any of your creatures from anywhere on the board. Can be very handy at the end of the match when you need to replace your Queen with the Gooba in your hand.
Senility - if an opponent's creature has more than 70 total HP or neutralizes your Goobas' attacks, it may become impossible to kill. A good way around that problem is to get a Gooba next to them, cast Senility on the offending creature and move the nearby Gooba in to attack.
Wild Growth - you want to get your Gooba Queen out as soon as you can, since you're going to have to remove any creatures the opponent puts down before you can get there. Since the Queen needs two green lands, this could help you along.
Peace - you won't have to worry about your Gooba getting killed if it can't be attacked.

One last piece of advice: set the victory conditions HIGH. Higher than you think you'll need. I'd recommend at least 15,000. Diaspora even went as high as 50,000! I probably got away with far less because I didn't level up very many of my lands until I was close to accomplishing the goal. I relied on my defense items to keep my Goobas alive. The problem is that when you have all of those Gooba bouncing around, you're going to get a huge lap bonus every time. If you're getting near the victory level, but still need more time to get the Goobas out, you may even want to change the colors of your lands to break your own chains, and of course it'll cost you quite a bit to change the color of a higher leveled land. Pretty much do anything you can to decrease your holdings.

[ButchNapkins]

Great, thanks a lot for the advice! I'll give it a go and let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.

[pistachiosrule]

Regarding the Gooba medal:

I tried for this medal four separate times playing on Dunnan against Zagol. I had read that you didn't need to completely fill the board with Goobas to obtain the medal -- so the first time I filled every space except one with Goobas -- no medal.
The second and third times I accidentally reached the goal before filling the board.

The fourth time however was a bit odd. The match had been dragging on forever and Zagol just kept picking of my Goobas one by one. It didn't help that I couldn't seem to draw ANY of my defensive items. So I decided to just throw in the towel and shoot for the goal as fast as possible. I started leveling up my Goobas to level 5 as fast as possible. By the time I reached the goal and got to the castle, there were 5 spaces that were either empty or occupied by a non-Gooba creature.

And I got the medal.

So here's a theory: Maybe you need to obtain a certain percentage of the theoretical maximum land value for the board -- using Goobas naturally. When I got the medal, almost every Gooba was at level 5 AND on a green space -- so each of these lands was valued at around 2900 G. Therefore I would have been right around two-thirds of the potential maximum for Dunnan. I have no guarantee that this is what will get you the medal, but you might try setting the goal REALLY high and just levelling the crap out of those Goobas. By setting the goal at like 60,000 or more you shouldn't have to worry about acidentally reaching the goal (when I got the medal, I had set the goal to 40,000).

Gosh, I didn't think of using Exile -- that would have made this task a LOT easier. At least Land Transfer recycles to the book.

[chaim79]

I recently got the gooba medal against aldha on the cratos 2 map. I heard the discussion on whether or not you need to fill the map, I played it safe and did so. I had to do quite a bit of maneuvering to make sure I didn't end the game before I got the medal, I had set the limit to 40,000 and I thought that would be enough. By the time I finally got the medal I was at 99,999 with about 20,000 in change. The main reason I had such difficulty was that I hadn’t put Exile in the deck cuz I was trying to use the Granite Idol (supposed to be no (lightning symbol) spells can be used by cepter, didn’t work). I had to wait around for almost all my book at the end in order to get the gold totem out. (swap for a gooba, use territory effect, use gooba queen to place new gooba, trade out gooba queen for gooba in hand).

I noticed that the medal has a counter for the number of placed goobas. Maybe there is a thresh-hold for how many you need out there?

I’m thinking about setting up and exporting a deck for getting this medal and playing it with new chars and seeing how it goes, anyone else willing to experiment as well?

Erik of Ekedahl

[dbqjp]

Okay, here is my first and only dumb question.LOL

How do you move the PE's around without giving up the land they are presently on??? If you use Chariot to move them, does one stay on the space already occupied. I have tried to get this but I keep having to wait for the deck to cylce through......and I have 4 PE's in the deck? They don't have the creature ability to reproduce so I guess I'm at a loss on how to do that.

Thanks.

[ButchNapkins]

I'm not sure I fully understand your question. When you move a Powder Eater it copies itself so that it occupies both the space it was originally on and the space you moved it to. As for Chariot, if I remember correctly a PE does NOT copy itself if moved with a Chariot or a Telekinesis. PEs DO have the creature ability to reproduce. That is what makes them fun. There's nothing like seeing the whole map covered those little pink fluffs all hopping up and down....

Upon reading your post again, I may understand: The PE ability to copy itself is something that just happens when you move it. It is not a Territory Ability. Hope that helps.

[WhoseYerLilith]

Just had to say the Gooba and Powder Eater medals were/are definitely 100% easier than they sound.

I just got the Powder Eater on my first try, took about 20 minutes:

1- Dunnan Stage with Mullyn opponent
2- All yellow deck with the following-
Creatures: 2 Powder Eater, 2 Wind Imp, 2 Brass Idols
Items: Gaseous Forms, Wind Shields, Counter Amulets, Water Shields
Spells: 4 Fire Explosions, Manna, Evil Blasts, Senility, Regeneration, Exile, Bind, Wing, Binding Mist, Disease, Replace, Find, Foresight, Chariot.

General Strategy- Unfortunately, I only have 2 Powder Eaters, but I got sick of fighting over and over again waiting for more so I decided to go for it. Couldn't have been easier. Basic strategy is to get the Powder Eater up and out as soon as I could (That's where Foresight, Find and the Brass idol come into play). I always kept 1 or 2 defensive items in my hand at all times as Mullyn will (99% of the time) not attack unless she is assured of a victory. Used the move ability as often as possible-using chariot to get around placed creatures, the fort or the castle. Now sometime in round 20-25, the fun began. I had about 7 Powder Eaters out and nowhere else to move them because of Mullyn's creatures, none of them were on levelled up lands and Mullyn was well in the lead with levelled up blue territories. I had been holding on to all my Fire Explosions and had 3 in my hand, the next time she passed the castle, I let 3 explosions off, one right after the other. killing all blue creatures. I also used Incineration for fun to gain the manna after that. Then I moved my Powder Eaters onto the level 3 and 4 territories. No matter where Mullyn went, she had to pay a toll and one out of every three rolls was on a level 3 territory, so she was constantly being magic depleted while I quickly filled the remainder of the boards with the move ability and Revelation. I kept an exile and a status changing ability in my hand in case she got lucky enough to land on one of the rapidly shrinking available land spaces- I didn't even need that. 4 magic depletions later, I made more than enough to win the match set (12K) and got my 43rd medal.

Woot Woot- I'm tempted to try the symbol medal again but after my last abhorrently frustrating attempt, I think I'd rather go pay 20 tolls.

[SeaDragon]

I Just acquired my first Gooba Queen last night, but I found one card to be helpful in getting the powder eater medal - [glow=red,2,300]Clockwork Owl[/glow]. That little guy can save you from accidentally passing the castle if you're close to victory, and he can also help you to backtrack over the powders to send them on their merry way.

[shintorg]

I got both medals on Cratos 2 against Mullyn. I first set up Old Willows on each side of the Castle and had the lands at Level 4. The Powder Eater Deck only had 2 Powder Eater Cards in it and the Gooba deck had only 1 Gooba Queen. Used Mutation to poison my already placed cards and Exile to get them off the board. As long as you keep a Gaseous Form in hand Mullyn won't attack. Each match took over 200 turns. More an issue of patience than anything else.

[thesideburns]

one card that hasn't yet been mentioned in this thread: Raise Dead. this can be a real lifesaver, particularly for the Gooba medal. getting a gooba into your hand is sometimes a hassle with exile, but when one of 'em dies (and goobas love to die), you can just Raise Dead and voila - fresh new gooba. Also, Raise Dead is some nice insurance in case mullyn somehow decides to flip out and kill your gooba queen.

[WhoseYerLilith]

You know- I tried Raise Dead the first time and thought it would be invaluable and far easier than Exile, but I was wrong. Mullyn is the worlds most cautious attacker and simply wouldn't attack this pathetic 0 10 creature if I had one item in my hand. Not one Gooba died on the two attempts I had to get the medal, and the 3 Raise Deads were just discarded, it sounds like it would be easier, but I think it depends on the cepter you go up against- anyone other than Mullyn, and it probably would have.

[thesideburns]

that's true. against mullyn, it's not likely to come in handy. however, she has attacked me when i had a gaseous form in hand, which freaked me out, so i kept one raise dead in there just for insurance. anyway, i managed to get the medal this afternoon against mullyn. the gold totems worked great for me, i put 4 in my deck, and got em all down. i didn't self-destruct 'em until i had every other land surrounded by goobas (which was by round 40). by round 59, i had all goobas with the queen on the board. and mullyn had status-exile'd one of my goobas for me (after i leveled up to lvl3) so i had the all-gooba requirement met by round 64. I had the score limit set to 30,000, but 20,000 would have been fine for my timeline. getting 30,000 is a bit of a pain on Dunnan, as you need I think 10 lands at level 5 and a few more at level 3. anyway, i'll post my exact deck if anyone wants me to. just say so.

(by the way, i went on to get the death gaze medal after getting this, and i'm at 45 now! all i have left is 3v1, bundlegears, 100 wins, and i'm missing 3 blue creatures and 2 item cards.)

[WhoseYerLilith]

You should have been here months ago when the boards were still active and medals were still mysterious, people would have been a lot more interested in exact decks- Nowadays most people have all if not most of them and it's just a chore to get those last few and since the game is so self-contained (470 cards), most of the strategies have been chewed and discussed over and over again. That and for some reason, the moderators have been completely silent for a long time.

Still, I never thought of using the Goldem Totem, that's awesome- I stuck with Wind Imps for the Powder Eater and Exile for the Gooba's- congrats on the medal winnings.

And I encountered the same problem you did with the Gooba medal, I played Mullyn in Dunnan, but set the victory conditions to 25000, I had all the lands with bouncing, chipper Goobas and looked to see I had just gotten to 11800G, so I basically had to spend a half hour of sweating through Mullyn's turns, hoping against hope that nothing would go wrong. It got to be that every land in Dunnan was a LV5 forest- no medals for that. :-P

[thesideburns]

haha.. yeah, i found a link to this place from the gamefaqs board.. which is COMPLETELY dead. there's at least one or two people posting around here. it seems the last culdscience lecture thread was a while ago i was playing culdcept like crazy about a year ago... i got the game during the winter holiday and played all spring semester, then stopped when some other game distracted me. i just picked it up again in december and i'm goin all the way with the medals now. it also helps that the only friend who actually plays with me is only home during winter break. (we're all college students)