My gaming collection is comprised of two main types of game – multiplayer games that I play on occasion with friends or fellow geeks,
and two player games that I mainly play with my wife Nicole (I have a geek list of my top games to play with one’s own part time gamer
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/27881).

Dynasties was purchased as a potential new game for my wife and I to play on a semi-regular basis.
We have played the game about 8-10 times so far since purchasing the game, and we have not yet found the need to
play the advanced rules (which introduces some extra attack cards and a set of special cards of which each player can
choose one each game).

In essence, the game centres around territorial control of five Chinese provinces.

A player controls a province when s/he has at least one of his or her armies present in the province.

The game is played over nine turns, with scoring occurring at the end of turns 3, 6 and 9.

Whomever controls each province at these times scores a predetermined number of points for each province
(scoring tiles are allocated randomly each game and there are more tokens than provinces so each game is different.
Most scoring tokens have a high value in one turn and two lower values in the others, or a mix of medium values across all three –
this means that you need to think carefully about what to control at each scoring opportunity, and you may in fact withdraw from
some areas if they are not worth much in subsequent turns.

Each turn, a player allocates a card to each province secretly by placing it next to the board, and then these are revealed to see who
the winner is.

A player has six cards which are numbered 1-6. These are always available to a player (although the 6 card can only be played once
in a province in the basic game) and these equate to the number of armies you commit to the area in a turn. You then compare players
scores, and whoever has the higher number, either adds that number of armies into the province if it is empty or already occupied by
the player with the higher number, or else you subtract the number from the armies of the existing player in the territory.

Thus, if Player 1 plays a 3 card and Player 2 plays a 6 card, Player 2 wins by three armies. Player 1 had two armies in the province,
so player two removes those armies and adds one of his/her own, to make up the total of three.

There are also “+1” cards, “-1” cards and “Plague” cards, as well as cards with the values 7,8,9 and 10. These are special cards,
which once played cannot be re-used. A player starts with four of these and then gets one more each turn (NB – if a player plays a
1 card, s/he gets two special cards at the end of that turn). The numbered cards operate as per the basic 1-6 cards, the +1 and -1 card
s mean a player scores one more or one less than their opponents card, and the plague cards overrules all other cards and the number
of armies in the province is reduced by half rounded down.

When scoring, one adds up the scores for all the provinces one controls, as does the other player. The scoring marker is then moved
towards the player with the highest score by the differential between the players scores. For example if Player 1 scored 8 and Player 2
scored 7, the scoring marker would move one space towards Player 1. Whoever the scoring marker is closest to after the third round of
scoring wins, and if anyone moves the marker as close to them as possible (i.e. maximum points), that player wins instantly.

Thus far we have had mixed success with this one. This has mainly been because Nicole has found it hard to look ahead in terms of
strategy and when is the right time to play ones cards. In fact I won most of our first encounters, but recently the tide has started to
turn in Nicole’s favour, most recently she won the game at the end of turn 6, as I waited too long to make my move on the higher value
land areas.

At this stage, I am reluctant to put this one in the list of good games for 2 players where one is part time. It just hasn’t had the
resonance of games like Lost Cities, Jambo or Mr Jack, but having said that it doesn’t miss by too much.

If pressed, I think the reason for this is that the game is more war-like in context and lacks personality as far as my wife is concerned.
In Lost Cities you are journeying to far away lands, in Jambo you are trading interesting items and encountering interesting animals
and people, likewise in Mr Jack you are in the middle of a personality filled “whodunit?”- in Dynasties you are just moving armies
around provinces, which appeals to me, but lacks something for my opponent.

Perhaps if we started to use the special cards this might add a touch of personality, but I suspect this one won’t quite ascend to the
levels of the games previously mentioned because of this ‘personality gap’.