Counter Powers

Finding direct “hard counters” with Volcanic Powers is nuanced, as much depends on board state, resources, and timing. However, we can identify powers that significantly mitigate, punish, or directly oppose the primary function of others.

Here’s a breakdown of powers and their potential counters:

Mobility Powers:

Agile Critters (Move 2x, or 1 critter to adjacent uncontrolled)
- Countered by:
  - Volcanic Winter: Directly stops all movement.
  - Pack Critters / Colossal Critter (yours): Occupying desirable uncontrolled biomes with strong units makes their second move less appealing or risky.
  - Landslide / Lava Flow: Can destroy pathing or target destinations if predictable.
  - Cooperative Critters (yours): If they move to share, you still get a presence. If they try to take over and you also have CC, it’s a share.
Flying Critters (Relocate to any uncontrolled biome)
- Countered by:
  - Volcanic Winter: Stops movement.
  - Strategic Occupation: Keeping key uncontrolled biomes occupied by your own critters (less a power, more a strategy).
  - Magma Bomb / Lateral Eruption: If they fly to a predictable “good spot” near an active volcano, you can punish the landing.
Sea Critters (Place/move in ocean & to adjacent land)
- Countered by:
  - Landslide / Converging Tectonic Plates: Can alter coastlines, removing their access points or trapping sea critters.
  - Strategic Occupation of Coastal Biomes.
  - Lava flowing into an ocean hex might clear it (rules aren’t explicit, but a plausible house rule/clarification).

Economic & Sacrifice Powers:

Bountiful Resources / Extra Bountiful Resources (Hold more resources)
- Countered by:
  - Aggressive Disruption (e.g., Magma Bomb, Erosion, Lateral Eruption): Force them to spend their larger hand on evacuation/repairs rather than their big plans.
  - Crafty Critters (yours): If you can expand just as fast or faster, their slightly larger hand size offers less relative advantage.
  - Not a direct power counter, but outpacing them economically or denying them things to buy.
Exalted Sacrifices (Sacrificed critters worth 2pts)
- Countered by:
  - No direct power counter. Best countered by strategies that limit their critter supply for sacrifice, or out-scoring them via other means (e.g., biome connections, active volcanoes).
  - Aggressively wiping out their critters on the board before they can be sacrificed.
Frugal Ritual (Cheaper resource-to-crater sacrifice)
- Countered by:
  - No direct power counter. Similar to Exalted Sacrifices, focus on limiting their resources or critter supply.

Aggression & Destruction Powers:

Colossal Critter (4pt, 2HP critter)
- Countered by:
  - Magma Bomb: One bomb takes 1HP. Two (or one plus lava) can destroy it.
  - Volcano Activation (base action): Directly removes it if it cannot migrate.
  - Cooperative Critters (opponent has it): If they move a regular critter onto your Colossal’s biome, Colossal loses 1HP (their critter dies). Favorable trade for them.
  - Pack Critters (large pack): Can overwhelm it.
Erosion (Remove 1 empty tile)
- Countered by:
  - Strategic Stacking & Occupation: Keep your important tiles occupied or stacked high so eroding the top one doesn’t remove your core presence.
  - Building on Volcanic Soil (which cannot be eroded, though adjacent land tiles can).
Landslide (Slide adjacent tile onto lower tile, crushing critters)
- Countered by:
  - Volcanic Migration: Critters on the tile being landed on can evacuate. Critters on the sliding tile survive automatically.
  - Flying Critters: Evacuate before the slide if anticipated, or redeploy if crushed.
  - Careful positioning to avoid vulnerable spots.
Lateral Eruption (Two volcano effects)
- Countered by:
  - Volcanic Migration: Helps critters survive the blasts.
  - Lava Diversion: Can potentially redirect one or both lava flows.
  - Spreading out critters to minimize impact.
Magma Bomb (Blob of magma, wipes out critters or 1HP from Colossal)
- Countered by:
  - Colossal Critter: Takes 1HP instead of being wiped out.
  - Spacing/Spread Formation: Minimize targets.
  - Volcanic Migration: If the bomb target location becomes the origin of a new lava flow (unlikely, bomb is usually direct damage), migration could apply to that flow. Usually, it’s direct damage counter.
Super Volcanic Eruption (Wipes out all adjacent critters, end game)
- Countered by:
  - Volcanic Migration: If the “eruption” counts as a volcano target for adjacent tiles, critters could migrate. (Needs GM clarification on how “adjacent” is treated for migration.)
  - Flying Critters / Agile Critters: Use final turns to move critters out of the vast blast radius.
  - Sacrifice (Game Action): Get points for doomed critters.

Defense & Resilience Powers:

Lava Diversion (d3 to redirect incoming lava)
- Countered by:
  - No direct power counter. It’s a dice roll. The best counter is strategic volcano placement where all potential diversion paths are still disadvantageous to them.
Volcanic Migration (Critters migrate from volcano/lava for 1 resource)
- Countered by:
  - Blocking Migration Paths: Use your tile placements (Splitting a Biome) or critter placements (Cooperative Critters, Pack Critters by occupying destination hexes) to remove valid, safe migration spots.
  - Erosion / Landslide: Destroy the tiles they would migrate to.
  - Resource Drain: If they are low on resources, they can’t pay for migration.

Board Control & Manipulation Powers:

Converging Tectonic Plates (Shift a whole island)
- Countered by:
  - Rift: Can re-split what they just joined or isolate a part of their moved landmass.
  - Another Converging Tectonic Plates: Shift it back or create a counter-move.
  - Targeting newly formed chokepoints or valuable areas with Lateral Eruption or Magma Bomb.
Cooperative Critters (Move onto opponent’s biome)
- Countered by:
  - Cooperative Critters (yours): Results in sharing, not a wipeout for you. (Mutual benefit/stalemate)
  - Colossal Critter (yours): If they move onto your Colossal’s biome, their critter dies, and your Colossal loses 1HP. Often a good trade for the Colossal owner.
  - Pack Critters / Herding Critters (yours, large group): Makes their single critter vulnerable if they try to share or attack.
Crafty Critters (Buy up to 3 tiles if first on volcanic soil)
- Countered by:
  - Erosion: Can remove a key tile in their rapid expansion.
  - Volcanoes / Landslide: Target their newly expanded, potentially overextended, areas.
  - Volcanic Winter: Halts their multi-build momentum.
  - Controlling access to Volcanic Soil tiles.
Pack Critters (Hunting packs, wipe out opponents)
- Countered by:
  - Pack Critters (yours, larger or equally sized): Pack vs. Pack combat.
  - Colossal Critter: Strong individual defender.
  - Herding Critters (large herd): Can be more resilient against smaller packs.
  - Volcanic Migration / Flying Critters: Escape the pack.
  - Volcanic Winter: Stops their movement.
Rift (Split an island in two)
- Countered by:
  - Converging Tectonic Plates: Can potentially rejoin the rifted pieces.
  - Sea Critters / Flying Critters: Can nullify the separation for movement/access.
  - Another Rift (yours): Further alter the board to your advantage.
Volcanic Winter (Stops placement, movement, sacrifices; spreads)
- Countered by:
  - Very difficult to counter with another power once active.
  - The best “counter” is to achieve your victory condition (e.g., depleted critters, specific point threshold if house-ruled) before Volcanic Winter fully locks down the board.
  - Powers that provide passive point generation (e.g., Exalted Sacrifices for already sacrificed critters, Herding Critters bonus points for existing herds) continue to score.
  - Triggering a Super Volcanic Eruption yourself if it leads to a faster win for you.

This list highlights the dynamic interplay. A good player will not only choose powers that suit their strategy but also consider what powers their opponents are taking and how to best counteract them.