From: Mr Clark Subject: Re: Warrior Knights by GW? Robert Rossney wrote: > > On 24 Apr 1998 23:06:35 GMT, rescogitan@aol.com (ResCogitan) wrote: > > >What exactly is this game? Any info on what the game is, how it plays, and if it's worth buying > >would be appreciated! > > It's like an abstracted version of Kingmaker with political mechanisms > that are even more insanely abstruse than Kingmaker's Parliament. The > "concise and easy to understand rules" are neither. There might be a > really fun game in there, but I've never managed to get to it. > > Bob Rossney > rbr@well.com Brief description of the game, huh? Here goes: Bob's comments about it being an abstracted version of Kingmaker are on the mark, sort of, as Kingmaker was a major inspiration for the designer, Derek Carver. Incidently, although the rules are long, Derek said that he thought they were a 'model of rules writing.' They are to my mind less intimidating than Republic of Rome, a power politics game by Avolon Hill. The game is played on board of 36 squares (6 rows, 6 columns). Squares contain roads, cities and castles. The four corners of the board contain foreign cities which your noble can besiege later on if voted by the Assembly (i'll come back to this later). The edges of the board also contain the games trading routes. Money can be invested in these, but as in life it can be lost if the dice roll low. I won't go into every game component (this game contains lots of pieces including pawns to represent a players nobles, play money, event cards, city upgrade markers etc etc). The gameplay: The game is won by controlling more than half the cities on the board. However, a city can be 'razed', lowering the victory conditions (razing the city brings you an immediate cash bonus but doesn't help you in the long term). You play a Baron who controls four Nobles, represented by pawns. Every player begins the game with an equal amount of armies; more can be bought or levied later in the game. A play turn is divided into three rounds. The first two rounds are identical movement and combat rounds. The final round is the Assembly round. In a movement round, a player receives income from any cities he controls, pays any money he owes for his armies (they cost a certain amount to maintain each round), draws a fate card (fate cards can give you extra movement, cause epemics, kill your baron and other nice things), moves and then initiates combat. Movement is one square normally, three if you are on a road. Combat is divided into two types. Combat (game term) is when you attack another players forces direct or attack a city direct. Siege is when you attack a city or Barons STRONGHOLD at length. Both types of combat are resolved the same way: you compare the number of your forces with the number of your enemies, calculate the ratio (if you have double the forces of your opponent the ratio will be 2:1) and roll a D6. In siege combat you can't be killed, but in direct combat this just might happen. I mentioned STRONGHOLDS earlier. The reason for attacking these is that you gain a barons possessions. You need to do this in the later stages of the game to win. Defeating cities gives you extra forces in the form of city levies. It also provedes the neccessary income to buy new forces, invest in overseas trade etc. Money is extremely important in this game (the motto on the game box is Wealth is Power, Power is Wealth. Defeating another players forces brings a certain satisfaction and may eliminate his armies, Noble or both. The Assembly round. This is where you get to do the diry on other players. Each Baron who attends the assembly gets to vote (important: non attendance at an assembly means two things. 1) a baron can't vote 2) a baron can attack another players stronghold. A baron can only do this in the Assembly round. Voting power is measured by how much money and cities you have. Votes can be on offices (provide armies at no cost in upkeep), concessions (give regular income), and other game effects (like recinding another vote). Four items to be voted on are turned over, then the horse trading begins. One player will hold the Veto for this round. He can veto one vote that has been passed, so it is wise to keep friends with him. Tied votes are broken by the Chairman, who also gets to announce voting items. Okay, so that's a brief description of the game. How does it play? Warrior Knights can be a long game, but I've never been bored playing it. The game has luck, in the form of fate cards which can throw a spanner in the works. Last time I played (two weeks ago) an epemic card killed most of my nobles and a lot of my armies. I was effectively out of the game, but still able to influence events in a minor way. I said earlier that money was the key to the game. It is. With money, you can buy the troops you need to attack an opponent, gain votes and not worry about your troops disbanding. The politics can be fascinating. Here is an example. In our last game, a player was sent to besiege one of the cities at the corner of the board. He would be effectively out of the game for two turns. But at the end of it he would gain much needed money. So, at the next assembly while the player was away, we voted for the previous motion to be overturned. Result? He lost a game turn (actually two combat rounds and an assembly round) and did not gain his money. He was pleased. Thats a brief description of how the game plays. I think it is the best game Derek Carver has invented, much better that his follow up Blood Royale, which is a much mor open ended game but lacks something I can't quite place. Clark. Quote-Unquote