I played a 4 player game. I think the game will play in roughly the same time with 2 or 4 players so it scales well.
About the fun factor. This is a measure of the minutes of fun in the game vs the amount of time it takes to play the game. For example, I feel that Munchkin has about 30 minutes of fun crammed into 120 minutes of play time. On the other hand, Vegas Showdown has 50 minutes of fun and takes an hour to play. Ricochet Robots is 1:1 since you play as long as you enjoy it, and then stop.
Fun Factor does not completely cover games which I play for the experience rather than for fun (like Arkham Horror and Titan). I enjoy them on some other level--- but I play them rarely.
Parts of the fun factor will drop (Novelty) and rise (Rules) over time. Some parts of the fun factor depend on the number of players. Fifteen minutes of downtime is a little painful... 45 minutes of downtime is longer than many games.
Fun Factor Factors
1) Theme : Strong or pasted?
2) New Ideas : New ideas make your brain happy.
3) How much downtime is there overall? : Are you spending most the game waiting?
4) How long is a particular downtime? : Are there 15 minute chunks of nothing?
5) How quickly can you start the game? : Are the rules long? Is setup long?
6) How much of the game is productive activity? : Are there stalemates?
7) Rules Time & Frustration? Are the rules well organized with good examples and whitespace?
1) Theme
The game has a strong theme. The game is a simulation of a siege against a castle. This is not another auction game with a pasted on theme. While the strong theme contributed to my enjoyment of the game, it also created some fiddly rules and no-op rules (explained in 6).
2) New Ideas
The concept that my actions gave the other player action points was not completely new to me but it is a fresh concept. I had seen a similar concept in Thebes with a slightly different implementation. Essentially, if you do something fast, the defender has little time to react. If you do a lot of time consuming activities, the defender has a lot more actions (represented by hourglasses) to prepare with. I liked this concept and did not see the strategy around it as quickly as my co-besieger.
3) How much downtime is there overall.
Overall, the downtime is balanced between the players and broken into discrete chunks which strongly limits analysis paralysis by either side. At most, you usually have three choices to make- often you have one choice.
4) How long is a particular downtime.
The particular downtime in this game is small. The designers broke each turn into 6 phases. In each phase, the besieger takes actions which give the defender action points. These actions have to be spent in the phase they were acquired. So if the besieger does nothing, the defender can do nothing.
While the game can be long, you generally get an action every 30 to 60 seconds. This is very engaging. You are generally spending the downtime you have thinking about your next action or reacting to the opponents last action.
5) How quickly can you start the game.
This is a major problem. The rules need a rewrite. And the rules might need to be trimmed (see 6). It took a knowledgeable teacher about 45 minutes to explain the rules to us (with several errors).
We were still on the 1st page after 10-15 minutes. It may be too much jargon, not enough white space around the text. I think they need a "trainer game" with 3 phases and then the real game, and then advanced (and fiddly) optional rules.
6) How much of the game is productive activity?
This was a major issue. Many of the actions the attacker takes, create the time needed to counter the action. This lead to many fiddly, "no-op" turns. I push the marker forward, you push the marker back. I move special troops up- that gives the time to kill them. I think the "no-op" actions should be reserved for the advanced rules and some might be better off trimmed entirely.
7) Rules Time and Frustration
Some games have short rules and are easy to pick up (Quirkle).
Other games have long rules (Star Fleet Battles)
Some games have well written rules (Stone Age, Thebes).
The rules for Stronghold could use improvement. The rules were muddy and cluttered. They could use a larger font, more editing, white space, and bulleted lists. I recall reading one section on the 1st page which was a list turned into one giant run-on paragraph. It would have been trivial to read as a bulleted list.
One of the defenders got very irritated with the rules during the game. It was a common comment by random people who had played the game.
Many players missed the special victory condition rules around breaching and felt the game was hopelessly slanted to the defenders as a result.
Conclusion and Rating
I think that the game will generally take about 90 minutes to play once you get the rules down. I felt the game had 45 to 60 minutes of fun which would give a fun factor of 66% which would equate to a 7 ranking. I'd enjoy playing the game again but it wouldn't be my first choice.
Last edited on 2009-11-23 11:44:09 CST (Total Number of Edits: 2)



















































