Lords of Waterdeep: A Review (Gameplay)

Tonight we played Lords of Waterdeep for the first time.  I have to admit that I did not expect to enjoy the game as much as I did.  By the third turn, the other two players in our three-man game were also commenting about how much they were enjoying the game.

The player actions are divided into turns and rounds.  In each round, each player gets to perform two actions: assign an agent to a particular place in Waterdeep and, if he has enough resources, perform a quest.  After all players have had an opportunity to assign an agent and do a quest, the round is over but not the turn.  If players still have agents in their pool, another round is played.  A turn is over when there are no agents available in any of the players' pool.  For example, in our three-man game, we started with three agents each.  That means we played three rounds per turn. The game ends after the eighth turn.

Being my first Euro-style game, a few things baffled me at first.  For example, before the first turn of the game, all players receive a certain amount of gold.  If on your first turn you go straight to the Builder's Hall to buy a building, that can leave you without a single gold piece.  I expected we'd all get additional gold at the beginning of each following turn.  Not so.  That's where the fun of managing resources in this game resides.

When your turn comes to send out an agent, there's a few things you have to consider.  Do you want to send your agent to the Cliffwatch Inn for a quest?  After all, completing quests will give you immediate victory points and resources, and may also give you an end game bonus if the quest is part of your Lord's secret end.  However, you need gold and adventurers to complete quests.  Maybe you need to send him somewhere else to start hiring the adventurers you will need and gathering the gold for the quest.  Sometimes your best bet for advancement is hindering your opponents.  With the right intrigue card, you can send your agent to the Waterdeep Harbor and find someone to kill one or two of your opponents' adventurers.

My randomly assigned Lord for this game was Durnan the Wanderer - A retired adventurer, Durnan owns the Yawning Portal, a tavern that stands above an entrance to Undermountain.  Since Durnan grants you 4 victory points at the end of the game for each commerce quest and warfare quest completed, my initial strategy was to start gathering those types of quests.  Unfortunately, Cliffwatch Inn was full of skullduggery quests.  Thus, I focused on playing intrigue cards in order to hinder the advancement of the other players.  In retrospect, that was not the best thing to do.  If I could do it all over again, I'd focus instead on gathering adventurers and gold for the turns when the commerce and warfare quests eventually hit the table.  Regardless, I finished in second place.

The game plays pretty fast as the rules are few and simple.  The lead also changed two or three times.  So did the player that would go first at the beginning of the turn.  In the end, I think we all enjoyed the game and would gladly play it again.  Personally, I found it a lot of fun and am looking forward to my next game.

Lords of Waterdeep: A Review (Preamble)

It seems like forever since I last wrote an article here.  Real life and work conspired against me.  My last post is pretty much the last time my D&D group got together to play.  However, things have quieted down for me a bit, so this Sunday we will continue our Rage Against Vaasa Campaign.

One of our players manages the local comics, collectible and everything-in-between store.  This means he can't join the group until about 8-8:30 p.m.  So, instead of hanging out aimlessly waiting for him to arrive, this Sunday we decided to get together at 7:00 p.m. and play WotC's latest board game Lords of Waterdeep.

Lords of Waterdeep is an Euro-style game.  Basically, Euro-style games have simple rules and short to medium playing times.  As a result, the rulebook for Lords of Waterdeep has a total of 8 pages of actual rules, which have as many explanatory pictures as they have words.  Sounds pretty simple, huh?  Reviews say a full game takes about an hour.  This is great if you are short on time and just want a quick game or two.  If you want to see the rules for yourself before buying the game, WotC made the rules freely available as a pdf file.

The board is big and really nice looking.  It shows the city of Waterdeep in all of its pre-Spellplague glory.  (I stole this pic from The Old Boardgamers' Blog.  I strongly recommend you visit that link.  His review of Lords of Waterdeep is quite in-depth and he has reviews for a bunch of other cool boardgames you probably have not even heard about.  After discovering The Old Boardgamers' Blog, I am now a frequent visitor and buying games based on the reviews there.) 

In Lords of Waterdeep, you play a Lord vying for control of the city.  The game lasts a total of 8 turns.  At the end of the eighth turn, the player with the most victory points wins the game.

As any good Lord knows, it is imperative that you keep your hands clean and can deny accountability for your actions.  Thus, you send agents out on your behalf.  Your agents can buy buildings for you, which give you a benefit whenever another player uses your building.  They can also hire adventurers to complete quests for you.  You get quests cards, which you try to complete by hiring adventurers, and intrigue cards, which you can use as barriers to slow down one of you opponents.  Sounds like fun already! 

Finally, each player randomly gets a Lords of Waterdeep card, representing the Lord they are playing. You do well to keep this card and identity hidden from your opponents.  Each Lord has a secret end.  At the end of the game, you get bonus points depending on how close you came to achieving your secret end, or even how many times you achieved it.  For example, Lord Kiriani Agrivar gives 4 extra victory points for each Arcane quest and each Piety quest you completed, while Lord Larissa Neathal will give you 6 victory points for each building you control.  After the eight round, the Lord identities are revealed and the victory points for achieving the Lord's secret end are tallied.  Achieving your Lord's secret end can really boost you from second or even third place to the winning position.

My only complaint so far is that, as you can see form the contents of the game to the right, the pieces are pretty much nondescript.  Clerics, fighters, rogues and wizards are portrayed by different colored cubes.  Personally, I would have loved to see a bunch of cool looking minis, maybe even make them compatible with 4E.  However, the emphasis of Lords of Waterdeep is on strategy and resource management so, hopefully, cubes instead of minis should not detract from the experience.

Editor's Note: for the actual play review of the game, check our entry Lords of Waterdeep: A Review (Gameplay).