Greg Jackson
Canada
Calgary
Alberta
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Dungeon Lords Review
Overview:
Dungeon Lords is a resource management game about building and equipping a dungeon, for 2-4 players. Players take on the role of a Dungeonlord who is building a dungeon, hiring monsters, buying traps and trying to stop the do-gooding heroes from destroying everything at the end of each year. The winner is the player who has the most points at the end, with points scored for a variety of aspects of your dungeon, as well as for capturing heroes during the combat rounds. It is a medium to complex game lasting around 2-3 hours.
Components:
The components of the game are excellent, with a variety of tokens representing heroes, monsters, gold, food, imps, minions, tunnels, rooms, etc, and cards which are used by each player for deciding their actions, and for the spells used in each combat. There is a main board where all the actions are decided and enacted, and a separate board for the progress through the year, telling each player what stage is coming up. There is also a ‘distant lands’ board where the hero and monster tokens are kept and the discard piles are, and each player has their own player board for keeping their dungeon, monsters, traps, etc on. The artwork on the boards, cards and tokens is fantastic and the general quality is great throughout.
Rules:
As with most Vlaada Chvatil games the rulebook is injected with a lot of humour. It is fun to read and really gets you in the mood for playing the game. The rulebook actually starts with a demonstration on how the combat works at the end of each of the two years and then goes on to explain the rules and general gameplay. This is useful as it is important to know how combat works in order to plan properly throughout the year. I haven’t had many issues finding specific rules in the rulebook afterwards, although there are a lot of rules and various exceptions, so it’s not the easiest game to learn and play correctly first time. It took until my third or fourth play before I got the rules down completely.
Gameplay:
The game is played over two years, with a combat at the end of each year, and then final scoring at the end of the second year. Each year is split into the four seasons, with players performing actions each season, and with heroes arriving at each player’s dungeon during three of the four seasons, meaning each player is up against three heroes (and possibly a paladin) in the combat at the end of the year. There are also events during the year which need to be planned for. There is also an evilometer which tracks the status of each player’s level of evil, and this affects which heroes will go to which player’s dungeon.
During the action phase, all players simultaneously choose which three actions they will be taking this turn and place the cards for them face down in the three slots on their player board. Each player will always have two of the possible eight actions unavailable to them and these two cards are face up so that every player can see which actions are unavailable to each other player. Everyone reveals their cards, and then the start player places one of their minions on the first free space of the action they chose in the first slot. Then the next player (clockwise) puts a minion on the first free space of the action they chose in the first slot, and so on, until all players have placed their minions onto the board for all three actions. Then the eight different actions get enacted in the following order:
1) Acquiring food
2) Propaganda
3) Digging tunnels
4) Mining gold
5) Getting new imps
6) Buying traps
7) Recruiting monsters
8) Building rooms
Each action has three spaces which resolve slightly differently. The first player to choose an action puts their minion in the first free space and so on. If a player chooses an action that has no free spaces then they put the minion on the action card on their player board and it means that they can definitely choose that action again next round if they want.
Most of the actions above are fairly self-evident, with the exception of propaganda. This action reduces a player on the evilometer, potentially meaning they get a slightly easier hero coming to their dungeon. It also gives the possibility of looking at one of the spell cards that will come up in combat, giving an edge when it comes to planning. The digging tunnels and mining gold actions are done by using imps and placing them onto the players’ dungeons, so the amount of tunnels built, or gold mined is limited by the number of imps available. Monsters are hired by paying them a fee, ranging from food, to gold, to gaining evil, to feeding another monster to them. Rooms are built on top of a tunnel, replacing it.
After the actions are done, the second and third action cards played by each player are the ones that will be unavailable to them next turn, unless they didn’t complete the action due to there being no free space left or because they chose (or were forced) not to pay the cost of the action.
At the end of three of the seasons a hero comes to the dungeon and lines up at the entrance ready to try to conquer the dungeon at year end. Also, all imps return to their lair and the board is prepared for the next round.
At the end of the year is the combat phase. Each player will have three heroes lined up outside their dungeon. They may also have a paladin if they got high enough on the evilometer. Combat plays out over a potential four rounds. Each round the players decide what tunnel or room the heroes are trying to conquer, starting at the entrance to the dungeon and then always trying to conquer one of the closest spaces to the entrance. The player then plans what traps and monsters they are playing in the space. Next the spell is revealed, which will potentially have an effect on combat if there is a wizard to cast it. The traps resolve and monsters fight, causing damage to the heroes, but if any heroes are left alive at the end of the combat round it means they have conquered that space and the tunnel or room is flipped over to show it’s white, conquered, side. Conquered tiles will count negative points at the end and cannot be mined for gold. Then the next round of combat begins with the player choosing another space as the target and then planning their traps and monsters accordingly. Any heroes that are defeated are put in prison and will score positive points at game end. If all heroes are defeated or four combat rounds have taken place then any remaining heroes go home for the winter.
Play then returns to the action phase as for the first year and the second year plays out almost exactly as the first. Except that the heroes are bigger and badder in the second year!!
After the combat round in the second year there is a final scoring round, where players score for various aspects, such as each monster in their employ, each hero they have defeated, each room in their dungeon, as well as negative points for conquered tiles, unpaid taxes (one of the events), etc. There are also titles given out to the players for things such as being the most evil, having the most imps or tunnels, etc. The player with the highest score is the winner.
2 or 3 player: With less than four players there are essentially dummy players that block some of the available action spaces so that there is still competition for the actions and a player could still end up blocked out of taking an action. These dummy players are partially controlled by the players in the two player game, so that it is not completely random and there is still some decision making involved. In the three player game the dummy player is all random but it still makes life difficult for the other players and doesn't detract from the game at all.
Review of game play:
Despite the somewhat complex rules, the choosing and enacting of the different actions is actually pretty straightforward and flows quite quickly. As with most resource management games you will feel short of most resources most of the time. The fact that two actions are unavailable each round is frustrating in a good way, as it encourages good planning ahead, as well as keeping an eye on the other players in order to try to figure what they will be doing. Someone needs to be on top of the book-keeping to make sure everything is set out properly for the next round and to make sure the heroes are dished out correctly etc. Overall this portion of the game passes by fairly quickly, although there are occasional moments where agonising decisions need to be made.
The part of the game that often seems to take the longest is the combat at the end of each year. Planning which monsters and traps to use in conjunction with each other to try to defeat the monsters as quickly and painlessly as possible is a little mental puzzle that players need to work through in their head. The spells can sometimes screw things up too, meaning more thought is then needed in the next combat round as things didn’t work out as you had planned. Each player can start to plan at the same time but the combats are resolved one at a time and so this can mean that it takes a while to sort out. Once the combats are resolved the second year is played out just as the first, and then the final scoring doesn’t take too long and is fairly easy to figure out.
Overall:
This game is quite an unusual beast. I like games with a fun theme but they often tend to be not very deep or challenging. I like games that are deep and challenging but they often have very little theme to speak of. This game combines both things that I like, in that the theme is a lot of fun (who doesn’t like building a dungeon to kick some wimpy hero’s butt?) and that that game actually has a lot to think about and some interesting decisions to make. The time seems to fly when I play it, and it definitely doesn’t seem long at 2-3 hours. The rulebook is amusing to read and the game is enjoyable to play, even if it is quite tough to do well! Like many other Vlaada Chvatil games I really enjoy playing the game and the scoring is almost inconsequential.
A couple of minor issues that I would point out though: If someone is competitive and bothered about winning then the spells can cause fairly major disruption and swing the game one way or another. Normally in a long game that kind of imbalance would annoy me, but in this game I get my enjoyment from playing and trying to deal with the disasters that come along. Some people may feel differently however. Also, the monsters and rooms in the game are all used in every game, meaning there is no variation in what comes out. When they come out changes but you know for a fact that they will all appear at some point. Some different monsters and rooms would have been nice, but this may be something that is dealt with in a possible future expansion and it’s not a major issue as far as I’m concerned.
Also, the fact that the game is essentially for exactly four players could be seen as a drawback. With less than four the dummy players are used to make it back up to four and some people may not like that. I think the game still works well though, as there isn’t very much player interaction anyway.
Overall I really enjoy playing this game. It’s a fun experience as well as offering a meaty strategy game at the same time. Definitely one of my current favourites.
Scores:
Components: 9/10
Rules: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Fun: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
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John Di Ponio
United States
Warren
Michigan
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Excellent review Greg! Yyou covered most of what I like with this game. The fact that it is basically set for a 4 player game but does a good job at making it a 2 or 3 player game with the dummy variant is pretty good. My first experience was a 2 player game and it was very enjoyable!
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Peter Marchlewitz
Canada
Unspecified
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Nice review...and nice avatar, you rebel scum. : )
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Michael Edwards
United States
Everett
Washington
YA RL'YAH
Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn! With cheeze!
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Nice review!
One minor quibble:
greglios wrote: 2 or 3 player: With less than four players there are essentially dummy players that block some of the available action spaces so that there is still competition for the actions and a player could still end up blocked out of taking an action. These dummy players are partially controlled by the players, so that it is not completely random and there is still some decision making involved.
This is true for the 2 player version, but there is no decision making for the dummy player in the 3 player version - it's all determined randomly. Still works well, however!
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Greg Jackson
Canada
Calgary
Alberta
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Chanfan wrote: Nice review! One minor quibble: greglios wrote: 2 or 3 player: With less than four players there are essentially dummy players that block some of the available action spaces so that there is still competition for the actions and a player could still end up blocked out of taking an action. These dummy players are partially controlled by the players, so that it is not completely random and there is still some decision making involved. This is true for the 2 player version, but there is no decision making for the dummy player in the 3 player version - it's all determined randomly. Still works well, however!
Very true, I'll edit that bit to make it a bit clearer. Thanks for the comments guys!
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Matt Smith
United States
Orion
Michigan
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After reading all the early posts about DL being only good for 4 players, I too found it very enjoyable with 2 and 3 players. I actually think it's best learned as a 3-player game, because the action selection and evilometer are slightly more predictable than with 4 players, without having the extra action programming required with 2 players.
Also, I don't think you mentioned the events cards that make up the third event each year in the full game. I finally got to play a full game last week and the event cards were very cool, in a tough sort of way. We had Title Envy in summer of the first year. In a 2-player game, this really bumped up both players on the Evilometer. I ended up one space away from the Paladin, which really forced my actions in the fall, as I didn't feel I could take on the Paladin with a troll, a goblin and one trap. That event card was a very cool twist. The second year was Extra Tax, which put a crimp on my opponent's gold situation, as he had 3 rooms to pay for in addition to his regular taxes. He didn't plan well, and got hit with 3 dead letters. Good stuff.
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Posted Wed Mar 3, 2010 6:44 pm
