The Core Loop

Every turn of Spirit Island is the same loop. Master the loop and the rest of the game — 42 spirits, 8 adversaries, 14 scenarios — become variations on the same underlying pattern.

This chapter is your map of that pattern.

The six phases (round structure)

1. Spirit Phase — Growth. Every spirit grows once per turn, picking from 2–4 options. This is where presence goes onto the board, cards get gained, and energy gets collected.
2. Fast Powers — Each spirit chooses cards + innate powers with the “fast” symbol to play before the invaders move. This is your pre-emptive defense / offense window.
3. Invader Phase — Explorers → Towns → Cities. Each card in the Invader Deck triggers:
   • Ravage in one terrain — invaders damage dahan + land.
   • Build in another — towns/cities spawn.
   • Explore in a third — new explorers arrive (from the ocean or from another land with invaders).
4. Slow Powers — Cards + innates with the “slow” symbol. This is your post-invader cleanup / damage application window.
5. Time Passes — Damage clears from still-alive invaders, blight cascades are resolved if triggered, fear cards are drawn + resolved.
6. End of Round — Refresh / discard hand as appropriate, check win/loss conditions.

Every card is either fast or slow. The distinction determines what you can actually do with it.

The three currencies

Decision depth comes from the interaction of three currencies you spend every turn:

1. Energy

You spend energy to play cards. Unspent energy rolls over.

• Starts at 0–2 depending on spirit.
• Grows along the presence track.
• You usually want to run lean on energy — banking too much means you underspent your card plays.

2. Card Plays (CP)

The number of cards you can play from hand each turn.

• Starts at 1–2.
• Grows along the presence track.
• CP is the bottleneck currency for most spirits past round 3.

3. Cards in Hand

Cards come from your spirit’s starting 4, plus Minors/Majors you gain during growth. Reclaim pulls your played + discarded cards back.

• Hand size constraints vary by spirit.
• Acquiring cards trades presence-track progress or energy for card-pool depth.
• Forgetting (permanently removing) a card is a real, often necessary move.

The spirit’s growth track(s)

Every spirit has 1–3 presence tracks with unlockable slots. Growth spends a growth option to:

• Place presence on the board (from a specific slot).
• Gain energy.
• Gain card play.
• Gain a card (minor or major).
• Reclaim (return discards to hand).
• Gain an element (for innate power thresholds).

The single most important strategic question on most turns is: which growth option did I pick, and why?

Presence on the board

Presence tokens are physical markers on the board. They serve three simultaneous purposes:

1. Targeting — most spirit powers require presence in or near the target land.
2. Sacred Sites — 2+ presence tokens in the same land form a sacred site, which enables certain powers and innates.
3. Absorbing damage — when a ravage destroys your presence, it usually generates blight but saves the dahan.

Presence is simultaneously your tempo investment, your board control, and your damage sink. Trade-offs between those three roles are where spirit skill lives.

The four invader pressures

Each adversary plus the standard invader deck puts pressure on you in four dimensions:

1. Time — how many rounds before you lose to blight cascade, territory overrun, or a Stage III escalation?
2. Board — how many lands have invaders; how densely?
3. Fear — are you generating fear fast enough to hit Terror 2/3 before the clock runs out?
4. Dahan — are the island’s native people being preserved, killed, or deployed?

Different adversaries weight these dimensions differently. England pressures board + time with Stage III coastal invasions; Russia pressures dahan with settler mechanics; Sweden pressures fear early with its own fear penalties.

Win conditions

1. Fear → Terror 3 — generate enough fear to flip all three terror cards; then the win condition becomes “destroy all cities and towns” (Terror 2 drops the “and towns” requirement for simpler wins, and Terror 3 drops everything to just “no invaders in any land”).
2. Scenario-specific — e.g., Blitz requires defeating invaders within N rounds.
3. Adversary-specific — the adversary’s Stage III often adds a strict victory condition alongside the base.

Loss conditions

1. Blight exhausts — island blight pool runs out, cascade triggers, and you lose.
2. Destroyed-presence loss — some spirits or scenarios impose “if spirit has 0 presence, lose.”
3. Terror-track exhaustion — some scenarios add this.
4. Round cap — rare, scenario-specific.

Reading the board

In order of priority:

1. Where is the next Ravage going to hit? — look at the Invader Deck’s top card.
2. Where’s the next Build? — next card up.
3. Where are invaders explored into? — rotating through the Explore slot.
4. Blight budget — how close are we to cascade?
5. Fear track position — how many fear cards until next Terror flip?
6. Dahan density — in the Ravage target: are there enough dahan to counterattack?

The turn-planning pyramid

Every turn, plan in this order:

1. Growth choice — because growth happens first and shapes everything after.
2. The Ravage you must prevent or absorb — the hard constraint.
3. The Build you want to kill or delay — optional but high-value.
4. Element accumulation — are you on track for innate thresholds?
5. Fear generation — how much fear do you leave on the table this turn?
6. Card discards for next turn — will you reclaim this turn, or do you need cards in hand for next turn?

Beginners plan in reverse order (cards first, growth last) and it produces chaotic turns. Always start from growth.

Summary — the loop in one paragraph

Each round: grow, play fast cards, suffer the invader phase, play slow cards, process time-passes (fear + blight), check win/loss. Your currencies are energy, card plays, and cards in hand; you trade them for presence, elements, and cards via growth. The game ends when fear hits Terror 3 (or a scenario win fires), or when blight cascades (or a scenario loss fires). Everything else in this book is texture on top.

Last revised: 2026-04-19