SantoriniPowerSelene

Introduction

As the female goddess of the moon, Selene’s female worker can do a few interesting things. Using the night as her power, Selene can build domes and trap workers like Atlas. But does that mean she is as good as her counterpart due to her flexibility? Probably not...

God Power

Instead of your normal build, your female worker can build a dome at any level regardless of which worker moved.

Category

Player build

Explanation

This happens at your build. No matter which worker moves, she may build a dome instead of a block. If so, that dome must be built with the female worker. If a block is built, it must be built with the moved worker.

Game Strategies

Early Game

You should start by noticing that with this power, your female and male workers cannot be treated equally. The female worker is more important in the sense that she is the one who effectively has the power (although you could say that the male worker has the power of being able not to build). For that reason, many players like to start with the female worker in the center, having more control of the whole board.

Your opponent might try to attack far away from Selene’s female worker so that it is harder for Selene to defend. Even if Selene’s male worker is there, it might not be easy for her to defend without being able to build domes. This is another reason why Selene should keep her female worker close to the center.

Just like with Atlas, you should in general avoid building domes in the inner corners (B2, B4, D2 and D4). This makes it harder for Selene to move around the board and makes it easier for your opponent to hide behind those domes and create winning threats. In general, domes outside of the perimeter have this disadvantage.

Mid Game

The strategies Selene can hope for are related to trapping something with domes. We have at least these three possibilities:

• Trap the opponent: if the opponent goes to the perimeter while Selene is standing nearby, there might be good chances of that worker getting trapped. However, this trap comes with a cost. You probably need to “waste” three or four turns to trap that worker and in that time, the “free” worker might have enough time to create an unstoppable winning threat. Consider the following example of how Selene can trap the opponent:

Since the opponent has a worker on E2, Selene will trap him easily but at a cost of 3 turns (it would be 4 if E2 was a ground level or E1 was a level 1). Therefore, the B3-worker was able to get a good position (with only one block around). Luckily for Selene, this particular case would be easy to defend if the opponent is a mortal, but don’t forget that the opponent has a power too usually.

• Trap the male worker: one good thing about Selene with comparison to Atlas, is that it is easier to trap workers in general. One strategy Selene can come up with is to trap her own male worker, leaving two squares so that we can win without the opponent being able to prevent it (Asteria smiles). This strategy usually works well (but it is not easy to deploy) since the female worker is left to defend two of the opponent’s workers, but she can do it quite well due to the possibility of placing domes whenever she likes. Consider another example of how Selene can do this:

By moving her male worker to E5 and doming on D3, Selene's male worker is trapped, which Atlas cannot do. Now Selene can win in 5 turns, she just need to defend all threats. Since Selene wasn’t naive to the point of building a dome in the corner, Selene-F will block everything, and there’s just no way for the opponent to win faster. However, if the female worker is in C4, opponent can counter by moving to B3 and build on B2.

• Trap the female worker: this last case usually happens when the game is already at a late stage and Selene knows that the win will be guaranteed. A nice example is already when Selene is on top of two adjacent level 2s. Consider the following scenario:

Selene’s female worker can trap itself in E3 and E4 and when there is no way for the opponent to defend, she can build a level 3 and win in 4 turns, which is unstoppable.

Late Game

When Selene reaches the late game, she can definitely start thinking of how to trap the opponent. Besides probably being her best chance to win, it can be very hard for the opponent to prevent this from happening when there are not many squares on the board.

Specific Matchup

Aphrodite

Selene is definitely a good pick against Aphrodite. Building domes with your unmoved worker is great and can aid you in getting rid of Aphrodite.

Ares

Selene is good against Ares. Because she can build domes at any level, she can prevent Ares from using his power in a specific square for the rest of the game. Thus, Selene can slowly weaken Ares until his power is worthless.

Asteria

Although Selene can prevent Asteria from using her power for several turns, Asteria will eventually be able to use her power and that will be destructive. Asteria should be better here, but this is still a balanced game.

Atlas

If you haven’t played this matchup, you have probably thought about it. Both powers are similar so this matchup should be balanced. The question is, who is stronger. In general, I find that Atlas’ power is better than Selene, but there are a few situations where Atlas would wish to be Selene. You can try to see the differences between each god and try to understand them better.

Bia

Selene must be careful not to lose her female worker, but this won’t generally be a problem as it will be easy for her to dodge Bia.

Eros

Selene can use the domes to divide the board in half, so that Eros has no ability. This is not as easy to do as with Atlas, but the domes will definitely be very good against Eros.

Europa & Talus

Europa & Talus is almost like a domer, but she can move the dome around. Here I’m afraid that Selene won’t be able to cope with all of Europa’s threats.

Graeae

Graeae’s three workers will be enough to defeat Selene. Although Selene could use domes to prevent Graeae from defending a specific area, Graeae can create a deadly attack first.

Harpies

Selene is good against Harpies (a domer is good against Harpies), but you have to play well with Selene and against Harpies.

Hermes

Hermes is good against Selene since moving both workers or not moving at all is a very strong weapon against opposition. Selene could maybe win this game, but Hermes will be much easier to play with.

Hypnus

It is an interesting matchup because although Selene’s female worker might not be able to move, she can still build domes and this can be useful to defend.

Medusa

Tricky matchup where Selene must be careful not to lose her female worker. This matchup is not the same as with Bia, it will be much harder. Selene still needs to be careful not to be caught in a situation where she is on top of an isolated level 1. This means that when that worker moves, it will probably be lower than one of Medusa’s workers.

Nemesis

Don’t make the mistake of trapping one of Nemesis’ workers as this will make it easier for her to swap workers and when she does it, you will be left with your female worker stuck and hence you will lose the game.

Pan

In a game with Atlas vs Pan, you would normally prefer Atlas since it is easy to prevent Pan from moving up to a level 2. But the same is not so trivial with Selene. This matchup is a great example of Atlas actually performing better than Selene. Selene can defend for a while, but it will be hard to prevent Pan from moving to a level 2.

Persephone

A balanced matchup where Persephone will usually try to “force” your female worker to the corners. Selene, on the other hand, will try to create winning threats in the corner if she is drawn there.

Proteus

Proteus does not get trapped by Selene, but still it is not easy to play with him against Selene. The domes can become great barriers and sometimes even prevent some moves for Proteus due to the fact of him not being able to finish a legal turn.

Urania & Triton

Selene can try to use her ability to dome the perimeter and consequently weaken both these gods. This strategy is easier to do with Atlas and this is probably why Selene won’t be able to do it before one of these gods wins.

Zeus

This is a very balanced game. Although Zeus is slightly better, Selene can defend well and this will be an interesting fight.

Conclusion

Getting your power from a single worker is most of the time a drawback. Selene is not one of the strongest powers but you still have to be careful against her as a single mistake can get your worker trapped.

Tier ranking: C