Lord of the Rings: The Duel Mini Review

A game that sat on my shelf for a long time before finally getting to the table is Lord of the Rings: The Duel.

In Lord of the Rings: The Duel, players relive the duel between Gandalf and the Balrog.  And, since they don't want to be dueling forever, they agree to only duel four times, and whoever has done the best will be declared the winner.  In the first three duels, you draw nine cards and play six of them (putting the rest towards the final duel - in the final duel you actually use all nine cards that you've set aside).  Each card that is played is used both for offense and defense, and this is determined by the gems showing on the sides of the card.  There are four slots for gems, and each one that is filled in counts as an attack against the opponent's adjacent card.  Thus, when playing a card, the left-side of the card attacks your opponent's last played card (attacking the right-side of their card).  In each of the four slots that one player has a gem and the other doesn't, the player without the gem loses a health (because they just got energy punched in the stomach).  Each duel continues until one player has run out of energy or until both players have played all of their cards.  Then, the winning player scores points (moves up on the bridge) based on how badly they defeated their opponent.  After one player goes to the top of the bridge (scores five points) or the players have completed four duels, whoever has the most points (is highest on the bridge) wins the game.

My initial pro for The Duel was that I thought it was interesting and unique how the cards are played.  Each card serving a dual purpose of both attacking and defending is neat, and it is executed in a unique, yet intuitive, way.  I liked how easy it was to determine who was dealt damage, and how much.  However, after I played it for a little while, I realized that it doesn't matter terribly much where the gems are located.  If I play a card with three gems against your card that has one gem, I'm going to have an overall gain of two energy points against you.  This may be that I lose one energy and you lose three, or that you lose two and I don't lose any.  But, ultimately, the difference in number of gems is vastly more important than their location.  The only time that their actual location matters is when one player is very close to running out of energy, and dealing each player damage will push them over (or at least precariously close to) the edge.  But, for the most part, the number of gems is much more relevant than the placement of them.

Line up the gems to see what damage is dealt

The next pro for Lord of the Rings: The Duel is that it is kid friendly.  I think that you could play the game with anyone that can read, and they would understand the game.  (Some of the cards have special abilities, and if your child is old enough to read, they're probably also old enough to understand how those abilities work.)  And, as long as your wee one is at least fairly strategic, I think that they will have a decent chance for victory and that they will probably enjoy it.

And, honestly, I think that it is important that The Duel is kid friendly, because I view it more as an activity than a game.  There aren't tough strategic decisions that pull me in and want me to play it repeatedly and explore what the game has to offer.  I'm sure that there are some strategic elements to the game that I've missed (like when you should try to obliterate your opponent, and when you're better off keeping stronger cards for the final duel), but, honestly, I did not find the game engaging enough to come back and try it out more.  The game is so well balanced (as it needs to be) that it just seems a bit dull, in my opinion.  There are a few special cards, but mostly, the players have the same cards - so if I get a one attack/three defense card now, you will probably get a comparable card later. So, we're probably going to lose roughly the same amount of energy - the strategy is simply determining when to deal this damage (which quite possibly will be dictated by when you draw various cards).

Overall, I give Lord of the Rings: The Duel a 6.0/10.  The game works; I just didn't find it exciting enough to keep coming back to it.

If you're looking for light two-player games, you might check out Jaipur, Mr. Jack, and Atlanteon.

Village Review

One game that I've been hearing about for a while now is Village.

In Village you're doing..... something... in order to gain the most victory points.  Specifically, you are trying to make your family rich and famous and whatnot.  In order to do this, each round will consist of various resources (cubes) being placed on the board.  Then, players alternate taking turns by selecting a cube from the board and following the corresponding action.  The actions can include collecting food, traveling, joining the monastery, getting married, becoming a village politician, selling at market, or performing a trade.  Some of these activities take a while to master - and this is indicated through each player's "time" track.  And, whenever a player makes a full loop around their time track, one of their oldest family members passes away and is either honored in the book of elders, or is buried in an unmarked grave (because there is only so much ink in this village - so once they write a couple of names down, they have to be very selective).  Each round is completed whenever all of the cubes have been taken - at which point a Mass is performed, and the player with the most monks in the monastery gains some victory points.  Then, the board is re-seeded with cubes and a new round begins.  Play continues in this manner until either the book of ancestors is completely filled, or until all of the unmarked graves are filled.  At that point, there is one final Mass, and then players check to see who has had the most successful family (by comparing what really matters to the people of Ye Olde Village - victory points).

Those who have gone before - the book of ancestors

So, starting with the pros, the thing that I find most interesting about Village is that your people can die.  This is a fascinating new addition to me.  I have played a lot of worker placement games, and in many of them you can gain extra workers as you play.  However, I've never played one where you actually lose workers as well.  And, what I like even more about this is that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to lose workers.  In fact, having five of your workers in the book of ancestors at the end of the game is worth quite a few victory points (12 to be exact).  But, it is also good if you keep your people alive.  Workers in the church and in the council chamber are worth victory points at the end of the game - up to six points per worker!  So, there are interesting strategic decisions that you have to make about which worker you want to place, which are expendable, and when is it better to try to keep them alive (as much as possible).

The next pro that I have for Village is that I like the distribution of the resource cubes on the board.  These resources are not evenly spread - some actions will have drastically more cubes than others (the Market action only gets one cube per round).  And, the round doesn't end until all of the cubes are gone.  This provides a nice dynamic which forces you to either take advantage of a lot of different actions, or have an opportunity cost of taking a cube without performing an associated.  It also forces you to prioritize your actions as some of them may not be available later in the round.  So, the best players in the game will learn to gain at least a few points from actions that don't necessarily fit well within their overall strategy - or at the very least, they will take advantage of these extraneous actions to position some of their workers in different areas of the board in order to kill them and have them added to the corresponding section of the book of elders.

Along the same lines as the previous pro, I also appreciate that the distribution of "resource" cubes doesn't only contain resources - it also has plagues.  So, sometimes you have to make the decision between performing the action that you want, while advancing twice on your time track, or performing a different action and gaining a resource.  Where this becomes even more interesting is through an action that I didn't mention before - you can always trade in three matching resources in order to perform any action.  Which means that when there is a plague as the only resource available for an action you want, you can decide to spend three of your resources to avoid that cube.  Or, in another situation, if there are only plague cubes remaining, you can also decide it is worth your resources to circumvent the plagues (and even select an action that doesn't have a cube associated with it).

Sending meeples to Mass

Now with some solid pros listed, I have two specific cons that I will address.  The first con is that I feel like the first move of the game is too prescribed.  Specifically, I do not see a reason why anyone would ever choose not to perform a marriage action as their first action of the game.  When your workers die, you always have to lose the lowest numbered workers first.  Performing a marriage action first allows you to unlock a worker with a "2" on him - one that will die after all of your starting workers.  This worker, then, is able to be placed in a region of the board where you will want a worker to live a long time - possibly even all game.  I can see reasons why you may or may not want to perform a marriage action every round, but if you don't do it in the first round, then (in my opinion) you are handicapping yourself for the rest of the game - and if you don't perform it as your first action, then there is a good chance that it will not be available to you later in the round.  Now, I am admittedly writing this con out of my limited number of plays - feel free to share your experience with this and if you think that I am correct in this, or if you think that I'm off base.

The second con is this - the theme.  Or, perhaps I should say, "Theme?  What theme?"  I honestly had to look up what the theme of the game was before starting to write this review (after having played the game multiple times).  And, after looking in the rules, I'm still not sure what it is.  I think it is just that there are people in a village doing stuff, and they want to do it well.  The last sentence of the "Game Idea" section is, "Those that worked hard during their lifetime may find themselves immortalized in the village chronicle and thus increase their families' fame."  Yeah; so I guess you're trying to become a famous family.  Anyway, this didn't bother me especially much, as I enjoy a strong theme, but it's not a requirement for me to enjoy a game.  However, I can see where this would be a drawback to a lot of other people.

Overall, I give Village an 8.5/10.  I enjoyed my plays of it, and will probably keep playing it on an occasional basis - which, when you consider the number of new games I keep learning, is a pretty good feat!

If Village sounds interesting, you might also check out Kingdom of Solomon, In the Year of the Dragon, and Lords of Waterdeep.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Village.

Quarto Review

A little while back, I ranked my top ten abstract games. After I made that post, you all (my readers) suggested a few more that I should try. Notably, Quarto and Arimaa. Well, I listened and traded for a copy of each of them. And, though Arimaa is yet to hit my table, it is time to give Quarto a review.

Quarto is a simple game (read: "this review will be short") of piece placement.  The game is played on a 4x4 grid, and there are 16 total pieces.  Each piece has four different attributes - color, height, shape (square or round), and hollow or filled-in.  On each turn, one player selects a piece and hands it to his opponent.  That player then places the piece on the board.  When placing a piece, if you successfully create a line of four pieces in a row that all share an attribute (and realize it), then you win the game!  If you didn't notice it, but your opponent does, then he can claim it and win.  Play continues until either all of the pieces have been played and there are nobody noticed a four-in-a-row's (you tie), or until one person has won.

The most brilliant pro about Quarto is that you select which piece your opponent plays.  If each person got to pick their own piece, there would be half as much strategy (maybe even less) and the game simply would not be fun.  However, since you get to pick your opponent's piece, you can give him pieces to try to force him into setting you up for a victory on your turn.  You also have to be much more aware of how your opponent is trying to win - if you give him the piece he needs, then you will inadvertently give him the victory! I was very impressed with the strategic depth that this presented.  I found myself thinking about which pieces would win the game, how I could setup more pieces to be "winning" pieces, and how to stage it so that I could give my opponent the last possible non-winning piece.  (And yet, with all this thinking, I still lost!)

There are only so many things to take pictures of in Quarto.

The next pro that I have for Quarto is that the game is easily visible.  In many of these "get a bunch of things in a row" games, there is something that either makes it hard to visualize what is going to happen, or makes it hard to actually physically see what is going on (Quadrago is a good example of this).  However, in Quarto, you can easily see all of the pieces, and each attribute is distinct enough that, though you may miss what your opponent is trying to do, it won't be because your vision was blocked.

My third pro for Quarto is that it is a great combination of fast and replayable.  Since the game can only take up to 16 turns (and each turn only consists of placing a single piece), it goes fairly quickly.  However, when you win the game (especially if you lose), you will find yourself wanting to play a rematch.  This makes Quarto a really good game to play when are looking to fill an indeterminate amount of time (when you're waiting on someone to show up, for example).  I also see Quarto being a great game to play while simply hanging out with friends to socialize - a coffee shop type of game.

The only real con that I have with Quarto is that each game seems to have a bit of a ramping up element early on.  What I mean by this is that the first few piece selections and placements probably will not have very much strategy.  After all, when there's nothing on the board, there's nothing that you really have to watch out for.  So, at least when I have played, the first few turns are somewhat like, "here, take this one - throw it on the board somewhere; then, randomly pick another piece, and I'll do the same."  I'm sure that people who have played Quarto a lot more than I have will find much deeper strategies, and will start executing them from the beginning of the game.  But, I still think that the first few turns (though necessary to make the game work) don't really matter very much strategically.

Overall, I give Quarto an 8.5/10.  I really like the game, and I will continue playing it.  However, I will play it as a time-filler or as a game to play when I'm wanting to chat while playing, not a game that I will get together with a friend specifically to play.

If you like abstract games, you should also check out Quoridor, Brandubh, and Dvonn.

In the Year of the Dragon Review

A great game that I got to learn at a friend's house is In the Year Of The Dragon (or "the game where all of your people die, but you might win anyway.")

In the Year of the Dragon is played over a series of 12 rounds (months).  In each round, you get to perform an action, recruit a new person, and then an event occurs.  There are seven different actions, and most of these actions correspond with a person/role.  You are allowed to perform any of the actions, and if you have corresponding people in your empire, then you get a bonus for that action.  But, the actions are placed in groups - and if you select an action in a group that has already been selected, you have to pay a penalty.  Some of the actions include building more buildings, collecting taxes, harvesting rice, creating fireworks, and collecting victory points.  After everyone performs an action, each player selects a card from their "people deck", and gains the corresponding person into his empire.  Each "people deck" consists of one copy of each of the different types of people, along with two wild cards, and you will use each of these cards at some point during the game.  Finally, an event occurs (this is where the death happens).  Events can include having to pay a tribute, fight off Monguls, deal with a drought, or deal with the plague.  After the event, everyone scores victory points for the round - with points being gained by court ladies, buildings, and dragon scrolls.  At the end of the game, players also score points for the number of (living) people they have, and a few other things.  And, whoever has the most points wins!

Jockeying for position

One of the first things that I like about In the Year of the Dragon is the "people track."  The people track (or whatever it is officially called) determines player order.  Each time you recruit a person into your empire, you move a specified number of points up on the people track.  Most of the different roles have two different people that you can select - a younger person and an older person.  The younger person is worth more points for the people track, but the older person gives you a much greater bonus.  Plus, the different kinds of people have different values for the people track.  Finally, one of the actions can also move you along the people track.  I really like this element to the game, and I especially like that it doesn't directly translate into victory points.  However, the earlier you go in the turn, the better your odds of getting to select the action that you want without having to pay a penalty.  And so, one of the important strategic elements of this game is manipulating the people track - not necessarily to make sure you stay first, but to stay close enough that you will get a better selection of actions.

The next thing that I like about In the Year of the Dragon is that you really feel like you need to do everything, but you simply can't.  The events really help with this feeling.  You need rice to feed your people.  But you also need money to pay the tribute.  And you need doctors.  Should you spend money on performing the rice action that someone has already selected, when you might need that money later on for paying tribute?  Which person should you select?  If you select the farmer, then you can get the rice you need more quickly, but if you don't select the older healer right now, there might not be any left by the next time you get to recruit a new person - which means that you're going to lose people to the plague.  And, what if the plague events are not anywhere near each other.  Are you going to hang onto the young healer when you lose someone to the drought, or are you going to keep him so that you don't lose anyone in the next plague?  The game creates a fabulous balance of needing to do a lot of different things at the same time.  Yet, everyone else is in the same quandary, which is what keeps the game exciting.

Death is coming...

The next pro for In the Year of the Dragon is that I like that the events are randomly set up each turn.  Specifically, there are two "nothing happens" events that are always on the first two turns of the game, but all of the other events are random.  It's amazing how much this minor change affects strategy.  I started covering some of these questions in the last paragraph, but the setup forces you to adjust your game significantly.  For example, if the plagues are next to each other, then you can wait a little while before getting healers, as long as you get them before their events occur; and after the two plagues, you're able to discard the healers without any further ramifications.  Yet, if they are spread far apart, then you have to decide whether you hold onto them in between.  The same is true of the droughts, and the Mongol invasions.  Even the placement of the fireworks displays (another event) affects the game quite a bit.  If they are stacked at the end of the game, then the players will have to run a gambit of horrible events, thus causing more deaths, whereas if they are early in the game, they might serve as more "nothing happens" events.

The final pro that I will mention for In the Year of the Dragon is that I really like the "people deck."  (Again, just making up names here, folks.  I'm not creative with these things, which is why I don't write short stories.)  I like that each player is forced to recruit every role, but also has the freedom to recruit some roles several times, using the wild card.  This element makes you decide how to best fit each role into your strategy, while still giving you flexibility to implement the strategy of your choice.  After all, some of the roles might serve the single purpose of moving you further along the people track, and then being immediately killed in a plague.  But, I enjoy making these meaningful decisions.

I really enjoy In the Year of the Dragon, and am struggling a bit to come up with legitimate cons for the game.  However, the one thing that I will mention is that dragon scrolls, when purchased early in the game, may be a bit too powerful.  One of the actions allows you to purchase dragon scrolls.  There are two sizes - large and small (again with the creativity).  Large dragon scrolls give you two points, whereas small dragons scrolls give you one point.  But, you get these points at the end of every turn!  So, if you purchase a large dragon scroll on your first turn (which you have enough money to do), then you just earned 24 points.  *Poof!*  Sure, this will cost you all of your money and on your first few turns you will be a bit crippled, but it's still 24 points in a game where one hundred points is a gigantic score.

Overall, I give In the Year of the Dragon a 9.0/10.  I really enjoy this game, and I intend to keep it in my game closet for years to come.

If In the Year of the Dragon sounds interesting, you might also check out Caylus, Princes of Florence, and Stone Age.