You can decide to move Conan to help with your armies and intrigue – and lose tokens; or you can let Conan free to pursue his adventures – and gain tokens. You can decide to keep tokens to score in the end game, or you can decide to use them as immediate rewards to aid your kingdom. Such choices are very important in the game and they can have a dramatic impact especially in the end game – when you can try to crown Conan as ruler of your kingdom. This brings us to the other big design challenge: how to deal with the rise of Conan to kingship. Of course this event was to be as significant in game terms as it is in the stories, and we considered various possibilities, from a mid-game event where one player would end up playing “Conan vs. everybody else” in the last part of the game, to an event which was only a bonus to a player, to the current version.
The ‘sudden death’ end of the game when a player tries to crown Conan was possibly the last significant development in the game design. The idea that a player can win or lose the game by this event made the choices involving adventure tokens during the game very significant. At the same time, you can still devise a strategy where you just ignore this possibility and focus on developing your kingdom.
Many times, the player who successfully crowns Conan wins the game – but this is no way guaranteed, as the attempt itself may bring great reward or the loss of the game.
Played a complete game with the kids yesterday for Father's Day. It was interesting.
Perry (playing Turan) played a money strategy (it was a strategy he could easily grasp, I guess). He didn't conquer anything, but used emissaries and other means to get as much gold as possible. He got bonus Empire Points at the end for being the richest (by far) kingdom on the board. He lost the game, but then again he is only nine. He also controlled Conan most of the time throughout the game because if he did a court action he always took Strategy cards (he had a hard time understanding the mechanics of the Kingdom cards), so he always had high bid number cards.
'Kayla (playing Hyperborea) also had an emissary strategy, but also focused a lot on defense and Objectives. She had a fair number of Empire points because she kept hitting the objectives. She had a huge pile of Sorcery and was able to re-roll her way to success. She ultimately lost the game because she tried to crown Conan the King of Hyperborea, but failed - and Conan killed her.
Victor (playing Stygia) almost won the game. He played a purely military strategy. He never improved his forts - but had forts all over the place. He gathered quite a few "Crom, Count the Dead" tokens, which also gave him a bonus at the end. In military might, he was the strongest at the end.
I (playing Aquilonia) won the game, but narrowly. I managed to get control of Conan after 'Kayla was removed from the game and crowned him as King of Aquilonia. I was playing an Adventure Track strategy, and was racking up huge amounts of Adventure tokens. Because I crowned Conan, only I could get Empire Points for having lots of Adventure Tokens, and that gave me +15 Empire points at the end, bumping me over Victor and Perry. If I hadn't managed to get control of Conan and crown him King, Victor would have won the game, with Perry coming in second.
It was neat seeing different strategies at work throughout the game. Now I need to play a complete game with adults who can really work the strategies. However, three ages = an all day game, at least three or four hours unless everyone is just hovering over the board (we got interrupted a lot during our game, playing from 1 until 5).
Yes, four hours is nothing for a good war game. I enjoyed it. The plan is to play on the 4th of July here at my house, I guess. Craig and I are down and Chris is a probably.
Just finished a three person game with Victor and Perry. I was playing Stygia, Victor played Aquilonia, and Perry played Turan.
Victor was playing an adventure path strategy - he wanted to crown Conan king. I played a military conquest strategy. Victor and I were both playing heavy and hard to hit the objectives for additional Emprie points. Perry didn't have a cohesive plan, but he had enough Adventure tokens to keep me from even attempting to crown Conan as King of Stygia.
Victor succeeded in crowning Conan as king, but he did it prematurely and, after all the points were counted, even with the bonus for having Conan as King, Victor lost by four Empire Points - Stygia wins!
Neat to see that crowning Conan doesn't guarantee the victory.
Linear Mode
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