I'd say in general I tend to be pretty good about figuring out the way to win at board games after a few plays. Maybe not the optimal line of play, and maybe not something that works every time... But I can find at least a path to victory. Dungeon Lords is a definite exception. I have no idea how to win. We played a game on the weekend and a couple turns from the end of the game I looked at my board and couldn't find a path from where I was to scoring a lot of points...
I was very well set up for killing off the incoming adventurers. Over the course of both invasions I lost a total of 2 tiles. So I did end up scoring 24 of the 28 invasion points. (Excluding paladins, anyway.) But I floundered around in terms of getting any of the other end game points.
I've played the game probably a dozen times now and it feels like it's always the same. I focus on the puzzle aspect of killing off the incoming adventurers to the exclusion of everything else. This is a pretty good way to get a reasonable score but it doesn't seem to be the way to get a winning score. If there was a website to bet on the outcome of board games in my apartment I think betting on me to get 2nd in Dungeon Lords is probably the safest bet right now! And I don't know what I could do to change that. Play more, I guess, and keep reading the end game scoring card each turn?
What's the end-game scoring card read as?
ReplyDeleteEach Adv: 2 pts
Each Pal: 5 points
Each unconquered room: 2 pts
Each conquered tile: -2 points
Unpaid tax: -3
Titles: (+3 exclusive/+2 shared)
Most Evil
Most Adventures captured?
Most Rooms
Most Tunnels
Most Imps
Most Monsters
Most stuff
Monster (not ghost) - 1
ReplyDeleteUnconquered room - 2
Adventurer - 2
Paladin - 5
Conquered tile - -2
Unpaid tax - -3
Pointscoring room - ?
Titles - 3/2
Most evil
Most rooms
Most tunnels
Most monsters (not ghosts)
Most imps (not trolls)
Most food, gold, traps
Fewest conquered tiles
So playing a near-perfect Battle games expects +12 points from Adv, +12 for tiles, +3 for the title, total 25 points. An 40 is a good score (giving everyone +16 for tiles)
ReplyDeletePoints not from battles - 18 from titles, ~6 from rooms, ~4 from monsters - 27 points.
I don't know - focusing on the battles doesn't seem unreasonable. Especially if at some point you can throw away a couple points on the battles to grab some low-hanging points elsewhere