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Monthly Archives: May 2010

Dungeon Lords

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking how great it would be to build your own dungeon complete with special rooms, terrifying monsters (and ghosts), and insanely clever traps. Then you’d sit back and watch the clumsy, ill equipped party of heroes try to survive while searching for your carefully hidden treasures. I am right? Well then Dungeon Lords is the game for you. (And if Evil Mike would figure out why we can’t upload images any longer, there would be a nice graphic of the game box at the top of the post.) In the game each player is the lord of a dungeon. Through the clever use of you minions (administrators) and imp (imps) you construct a dungeon, create traps, and hire fearsome monsters (and ghosts). But don’t think that being a dungeon lord is all gold and lilies. You also have to pay those fearsome monsters (and ghosts) that fill your dungeon. If you don’t, they go rampaging around the countryside mumbling about your horrible administrative skills. Worse yet is the Ministry of Dungeons that requires taxes from all dungeon lords. So you see, you have your job cut out for you. There is also the matter of your reputation, if you get to be too evil, the paladin may come knocking on your door. And I know you don’t want that to happen, so you need to manage your evilness as well. One last note: the rules, although long, are extremely clever and filled with several training dungeons. The training dungeons are so you can get a feel for the nuances of killing heroes foolish enough to delve into your dungeon.

Now let’s talk about our game*. Our game* was a lot of fun. Never have I seen so much inept game* playing. Although all of us had occasions of not being able to afford something we selected during dungeon construction, Ben wins hands down for using awesome strategy to acquire a dragon and then was not able to pay for it. But by far the best (or worse) case was Mike and Ben not being able to pay their taxes to Ministry of Dungeons. You get -3 victory points for every gold you can’t pay. At the end of the game Mike had a -15 and Ben -21 from “fines”. As I mentioned, Ben was on a roll…straight down the tubes. At one point Owen commented, “His (Ben’s) cheating is coming thick and fast now. My head is swirling.” But Ben’s cheating mattered little in our game*. We were doomed, doomed I tell you. Mostly because of the plethora of rules Ben neglected to tell us or just had completely wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing any fingers at Ben. (Yes, I am.) The game* was all the more fun because of our outrageously inept playing and getting so many rules utterly wrong. Our ending scores (in no particular order): Ben -12, Steve +21, Owen +13, Mike -06, and Ben with -12. Ben came in last with -12. I won the game*. We liked the game* and plan on playing it (somewhat) correctly next week.

Chaos Steve, Dungeon Lord, Monster Lord, and Battle Lord (You get titles in this game* too.)

*The guys kept telling me that this game had so many *’s that I thought I should note that.

Galactic Emperor

Monday night found us each struggling to become the Galactic Emperor. Galactic Emperor resembles Twilight Imperium III in many ways. You’re building a galactic empire. Each round you chose roles which cause certain events to occur. You use star ships and wield political influence to expand your empire and the planets in your empire produce resources. It plays much differently though. For one thing, there is a greater emphasis on combat. I like this. Conquering plants with your fleet is fun–as is taking planets from other players. And as an added bonus, you get victory points for taking planets away from other players. Mike and I had actually played this game before at Gencon a couple of years ago. Neither of us remembered any details, so for all practical purposes it made little difference during the game.

Our game started well. All of us were expanding our empires. It seemed by the look of it that Mike and I were doing the best based up goods and technologies. That all changed once our empires grew within striking distance of each other. Evil Mike broke our truce and attacked me (and won) with his fleet. I retaliated AND I attacked Owen to the other side of me. Now I was stupidly fighting a two front war. Ben’s empire had dwindled some, so he took advantage of me attacking Mike, to attack Mike on the other side of his empire. Owen kicked my butt in the coming space battles and I eventually lost all of my ships. (Rolling four 1’s on four attack dice didn’t help either.) Mike actually told Ben what to do at one point during Ben’s turn. Amazingly Ben listened and had his best turn ever.

We were running out of time, so we ended about a round short of finishing the game. We thought Mike was going to easily have the most victory points. It turned out that he and Owen tied for first with 24 VPs. Ben came in last with 18 VPs. I floundered in the middle with 20.

I think we all liked this game. The one thing I learned was that if you buy a technology, have the presence of mind to use it! I forgot every single time and finally on the last round the guys let me use it just so I wouldn’t appear to be a complete idiot…even though it was too late for that.

Chaos Steve

Gloria Mundi & Kingdoms

After winning at Gloria Mundi last week, I was pretty sure that everyone would want a rematch this week. For some reason, my friends seem to have a hard time swallowing the fact that through cunning strategy and impeccable timing I am able to win once in a while. Luck might have a little to do with it too…LOTS of luck. So how did this week’s game go? Well…

We first decided to randomly choose our positions at the gaming table. I know that might seem rather odd, but changing our table positions can change the dynamic of the game a bit. The game started off just like the last game, but soon one fact became very clear to Mike and I. We were not going to win. And we were only about half way through the game. Both Owen and Ben had been able to develop several buildings that gave them movement points, which is how you win the game. I, on the other hand, was inexplicably using Ben’s strategy from the previous game. (I think Ben came in last in that game.) I could generate vast amounts a certain resources, but no movement. Mike was struggling to get both resources and moment points. So as Mike and I watched, Ben and Owen got further and further ahead of us.

In the final moves of the game, Ben took a big risk and called for a Farm turn that gave both Ben and Owen vast amounts of moment points. It moved Ben within two moves of winning, but propelled Owen to within one move of winning. Now, Owen only needed a gold resource behind his screen; because if he did, he could use it to move and win the game. Alas Ben’s risky move paid off. Owen did not have the gold he needed, so Ben won the game. Mike came in last.

We still had some time so we played Kingdoms. Kingdoms is played over three rounds in which you score points on a grid where you have castles in the rows and columns. After the first round we were all in the same point neighborhood. Mike was in the lead, but was catchable. That all changed after the second round. Mike jump 100 points ahead of the rest of us. And the rest of us were all within 10 points of each other. So the final round turned into not so much trying to stop Mike as it was to try not to be last! After much backstabbing by the rest of us, Mike won with 289 points. Owen did a good job of catching up (much to his surprise) with 229 points. I had 219 points and Ben brought up the rear with 198 points.

Next week we’re playing Galactic Emperor.

Chaos Steve

Gloria Mundi

We played an interesting game Monday night called Gloria Mundi. This is a game where you play a Roman statesman during the fall of the Roman Empire. The goal is to get as far from Rome as you can with the winner being the first to reach Africa. While the players are fleeing Rome, the Goths are rampaging towards Rome pillaging as they go. On a player’s turn, he decides what kind of a round it’s going to be: Farm, City, or Peace. The type of round he chooses determines what type of resources he gets. Unfortunately whatever a player chooses could help all the other players as well. After collecting resources, the player can build a building, if he can afford one. A player is able to move further from Rome by building buildings or by spending resources on a building’s ability. During the final phase of a player’s turn, he must decide if they are going to bribe the Goths or let them rampage, possibly destroying one or more of his holdings.

So how did our game go? Fantastic! In the beginning we all wondered just what the best strategy should be. We learned quickly just how devastating the Goth rampage can be. It wasn’t long though before a few players were using the Goth rampage to their advantage. I believe Owen was the first to cause someone else (me) to lose a resource card, while he scooped up the resource from the board.

Throughout the game I got very lucky in that I was able to purchase relatively cheap buildings that helped me move further and further from Rome. Soon I was in the lead and was managing to stay there. It looked liked Owen was going to give me a run for my money near the end of the game, but some unlucky resource losses kept him from getting too close. In the end I was able to win. (I told you the game went fantastic.) Owen was second, followed by Ben and then Mike.

I think we’re all anxious to play this again. Me, because it was fun. Everyone else, because they want to see if my win was pure luck or brilliant strategy. I think we all know which it was.

Chaos Steve