Lords of Waterdeep

LoW is probably the most complicated "euro-style" game I've ever played, but it's also one of the most fun, and one of the most replayable. The setup of the game takes around 10 minutes alone. Play takes roughly an hour, give or take a little depending on the familiarity of the players. I won't go into how to play, as it's a fairly complicated game. Suffice to say that you have only a handful of actions per turn, but copious amounts of choices to make per turn. Do I try to acquire adventurers so I can complete quests? Do I play Intrigue cards to derail my opponents? Do I try to claim the First Player marker so that I go first next round? Do I build a building and hope to cash in on other players using it? Do I claim more quests? Lots and lots of choices, but limited resources to execute them. Strategy in the game revolves around doing quests. Your "Lord" (randomly chosen at the start of the game) determines which types of quests give you bonus points at the end of the game. However, because the quests available are randomly determined as the game progresses, it's often difficult to capitalize on this bonus. Since the quests vary greatly in the resources required to complete them, you end up spending your turns debating whether to acquire resources, play (or gather) Intrigue cards to either hinder your opponents or gain resources yourself, or set up plays for future turns. Generally, the more resources a quest requires, the bigger the payout. Though the big reward quests are tempting, it's often better to complete multiple smaller quests of your lord's speciality to acquire the bonus points. You also have to plan ahead to ensure that you're not found wanting a specific adventurerer type or gold in order to complete a quest. I still haven't completely identified a routinely successful strategy to playing the game, though playing at least one agent into Waterdeep Harbor seems to be effective, if you don't require much resources for quests. The Harbor allows you to not only play an Intrigue card, but also to redeploy your agent at the end of the round. With good planning, you can play your card AND get the resources that you need. Too many Intrigue cards end up wasting your time, however, as you won't gain as many resources from playing them as you will get from buildings on the board. I could go on for pages about various strategies, but ultimately you have to play the game for yourself to determine what works for that particular game. Production quality is very good for the game. All pieces are either ~2mm thick plastic-coated cardboard or wood. The Quest and Intrigue cards are plastic-coated as well, much like good playing cards. Most impressive to me is that the game box contains an insert which neatly stores all of the pieces in various wells dedicated to those pieces. This allows you to quickly distribute materials and set up the game without having to dig around the box and sort all of the little tokens. It also makes the box "tip-resistant", where flipping it upside-down won't cause all the pieces to go flying around the box. Granted, some will lose their places, but they're easily retrieved. My major complaint is with the victory-point tokens and the 1 gold piece markers. They take some doing to get them to fit in their assigned spots in the insert, but I don't really know how one would improve upon the design to ease the problem. Overall, this isn't a quick or simple game. It requires some time dedicated to setting up and playing it, and requires a fair amount of thinking and strategizing to play well. It is absolutely worth getting and playing though. The replay value of the game is tremendous and the quality of the product will keep it in good playing shape for many games to come.

Lords of Waterdeep is based in the Dungeons and Dragons world. More specifically, in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Unlike the other board games that have been released by Wizards of the Coast over the past few years that are also set in the D&D world (eg, Wrath of Ashardalon and Conquest of Norrath), this game is pure euro. For all intents and purposes, it is a worker-placement game with a pick-up and deliver mechanic (no, really, it's funner than that might sound!). The idea behind the game is the following: Each player takes on the role of a lord of Waterdeep - one of several actors who essentially controls the politics and economy of the City of Splendor (as Waterdeep is known). To increase their influence, they hire adventurers to complete quests on their behalf. For example, you might hire a few rogues to infiltrate one of the many guilds composing Waterdeep's market economy. The more quests you complete, the better you do in the game - the player who completes the most (and most valuable) quests, wins. Game play The game play blends the theme with the mechanics almost seamlessly. The game plays over eight rounds, and each round players take turns assigning their agents to different buildings. Each building procures the player something, but most commonly a collection of adventurers. Adventurers come in four flavors: clerics, rogues, fighters, and wizards (in other words, classic D&D archetypes). After assigning agents to a building and collecting its benefits, a player can complete one quest per turn. To complete a quest, you must return a certain type and amount of adventurers to the general stock. In return, you earn victory points - and sometimes gold and more adventurers, or even advantages that last throughout the duration of the game. That's basically how the game plays. There area a few extra things, however, worth noting. First, the game begins with several basic buildings that allow players to procure all necessary resources: the four types of adventurers, quest cards, money, and intrigue cards (more on this in a second). But players who visit the Builders' Hall can also build a new building for that turn. This creates more spaces and resources for players to use and collect, and also provides a benefit for whoever built that building: whenever another player assigns an agent to that building, the owner receives a reward, as well. Intrigue cards allow players to mess with each other more directly than simply blocking one another when assigning agents to buildings. Sometimes they allow you to steal adventurers from other players, while other times you can force them to complete a quest before moving on to their own, more lucrative quest cards. Perhaps most importantly, when you play a quest card, you do so by assigning an agent to Waterdeep Harbor. At the end of each round, everyone who assigned an agent here, that is, played an intrigue card, gets at least one more turn to assign agents to buildings. This mechanic forces players to be in each others' faces. Finally, at the start of the game, players receive a Lord of Waterdeep card that indicates their particular character. Each character is typically associated with a specific type (or types) of quest cards. For example, a lord may be associated with both Skullduggery and Piety (odd combination, but it happened to me with the character Nindil Jalbuck - an evil doppelganger of an otherwise honest and philanthropic halfling). For each quest of that type you complete, you earn bonus points at the end of the game. Why we love this game a. Lords of Waterdeep is easy to learn and pick up, and it goes quite fast. Our games clocked in at around 45-60 minutes. My current gaming group starts around 2200 and we usually poop out sooner rather than later. This means games that are quick to pick up and play, but strategically fun, are a boon. What's more, with the Lord of Waterdeep cards, each player starts out with a clear goal that helps shape their strategy. b. I like the theme, a lot. I've never played D&D as an RPG, but I've enjoyed the literature and the D&D Adventure Games (we own both Wrath of Ashardalon and The Legend of Drizzt). This game evokes the D&D world in a very unique way. Although I wish the adventurers were something other than classic euro-cubes for thematic reasons (I insist that everyone call the cubes wizards, clerics, fighters, and rogues, and not purple, white, orange, and black cubes!), it still works: you get the idea that you are hiring people to go do stuff for you. Fun, dungeony, high fantasy stuff. I dig it. It just does not feel like a cube-pusher to me. Along with the theme, there's actually quite a bit of flavor text (and incredible artwork) on the cards and in the rules book that make it even more fun (and yes, I read my flavor text, out loud, too, when completing a quest!). c. Although you keep track of victory points as you complete quests, you never quite know who wins until the end of the game, because it's only then that the Lord of Waterdeep cards are revealed. This means that the run-away front runner will not necessary win - and if they do, at least everyone else feels like they're still in the game and has a chance up until the bitter end! d. Finally, this is a good game for all numbers of players (2-5) for which we've played (2 and 4). Strategy changes slightly between player counts, but, in our experience, anyway, the core feel and tactics of the game remain constant between 2 and 4 players - a rather rare and well done feat, in my opinion. In short, Lords of Waterdeep is absolutely fun. I want to note, also, that within my gaming group, I am the only one with any D&D background or, shall we say, enduring and obsessive high fantasy/sci-fi interest. But that did not seem to matter: everyone loved the game and the theme, and this is one of the few games that got a call back from my gaming group.

The delivery was super quick and all the pieces completed

Lords of Waterdeep Als Regenten der namensgebenden Stadt rekrutieren 2 bis 5 Spieler mittels Aktionsfelder Abenteurer um mit diesen Quests zu erfüllen. Oder anders formuliert: Wir sammeln farbige Klötze und wandeln diese in Siegpunkte um. Von Ort zu Ort Der Spielplan zeigt verschiedene Orte der Stadt welche die Spieler in klassischer Weise (Einer nach dem Anderen) mit ihren Arbeitern besetzen um die zugehörigen Aktionen auszuführen. Als Lohn für unsere Mühen erhalten wir zumeist Abenteurer, die man zur Erfüllung verschiedenster Aufgabenkarten benötigt. Alternativ steht das Ändern der Spielerreihenfolge oder der Bau eines Gebäudes zur Verfügung. Ebenjene finden im weiteren Spielverlauf als zusätzliche Aktionsfelder Verwendung und vergrößern damit die Optionsvielfalt deutlich. Für zusätzliche Interaktion sorgt der Hafen, welcher das Spielen von Intrigenkarten erlaubt. Diese reichen vom Bestehlen der Mitspieler bis hin zu deren Belästigen mit wenig ertragreichen Pflichtaufgaben. Punkte Was ein klassisches (wenn auch verkleidetes) Euro-Game ist kommt natürlich nicht ohne Siegpunkte aus. Im Falle von Waterdeep stammen diese in erster Linie von den erfüllten Aufgaben die einen sofortigen Punkteschub liefern. Darüber hinaus bekommt jeder zu Spielbeginn eine geheime Lord-Karte zugeteilt. Bei Spielende liefern diese Bonuspunkte für bestimmte Auftragskarten. Ein Spezialisieren (etwa auf Kampf oder Arkanes) tut demnach ebenso Not, wie etwas Glück beim Nachziehen der Karten. Fazit Rein nüchtern betrachtet geht es bei Lords of Waterdeep nur um das Sammeln von Rohstoffen. Im Prinzip finden wir wenig Neues, tauschen wie gewohnt nur bunte Würfel in Punkte um. Im Prinzip. Denn das Thema wirkt bei Lords of Waterdeep angenehm unverbraucht, die Partien kommen ohne unnötige Schnörkel aus. Die einzelnen Elemente sind durchweg bekannt, die Abstimmung aufeinander macht aber Lust auf Mehr. Aufgrund des intuitiven Spielprinzips ist das Spiel auch für Spieler geeignet, die mit Euro-Games ansonsten nicht unbedingt etwas anfangen können. Nicht verheimlicht werden sollte dabei allerdings der durchaus spürbare Glücksanteil. Kommen lange die falschen Questkarten gehen schnell viele Punkte verloren, auch die Intrigenkarten variieren in ihrer Stärke deutlich. Hier kann sich auch einmal ein Spiel entscheiden. Trotzdem, Lords of Waterdeep wusste bislang bei allen Mitspielern und in jeder Gruppengröße zu gefallen. @Spielfreude.blogspot

Great game. However, insert does not support sleeved cards and the material for the box could be a little thicker

Dopo un mese dall'acquisto e con più di dieci partite all'attivo, posso senza dubbio affermare che questo gioco merita l acquisto a occhi chiusi. Si tratta di un gestione risorse in cui fino a 5 giocatori si contendono il dominio della città di waterdeep risolvendo quest, assoldando avventurieri (le risorse appunto) e usando carte intrigo, il tutto per accumulare punti vittoria necessari per prevalere sugli altri. Ad inizio partita ogni giocatore sceglie segretamente un Lord, che alla fine degli 8 round di cui é composta la partita darà punti vittoria extra in base ai tipi di avventure completate (ad esempio, ci sono lord che premiano per aver completato avventure Arcana e Commerce, altri premiano per le avventure piety e warfare, e cosi via). Fatto ciò, si passa alla fase centrale del gioco: piazzare agenti, accumulare risorse, risolvere avventure, giocare carte ecc ecc. La forza di questo gioco sta nei materiali ottimi, nel regolamento davvero semplice (é un gioco che possono giocare davvero tutti, anche i neofiti: credetemi, dopo un giro di tavolo, anche chi non è avvezzo ai boardgame non avrà più necessità di consultare il regolamento o di chiedere spiegazioni), scalabilità ottima (durata e intensità della partita restano uguali a prescindere dal numero di giocatori). Per quelli che si pongono il problema dell'inglese: é più che elementare, davvero, oltre al fatto che le carte sono anche illustrate...credetemi, la localizzazione in italiano é davvero inutile. Per cui se siete alla ricerca di un gioco dal regolamento semplice, dalle meccaniche intuitive, dai bei materiali e dalla durata non eccessiva, non pensateci 2 volte e acquistate LoW !

Juegazo, una pena que sea muy difícil de encontrar ya