From the few reports at Boardgamegeek, I wonder: are there key differences with CONAN and those games, making them worth buying them (all)?

Now that the rules are available, I see more differences, but there are some similarities at the core nevertheless it seems...

I'm guessing it's more like the MMO that isn't doing so well?

Omnicrazzy said:

a little OT: MMO's first chapter/section is great and you really get your hopes high. after that, it's all downhill; I was totally bored, so I've sold my account and never looked back.

back on-topic: hopefully, the board version won't be like that.

silenceindigo said:

Its been a while since I played War Of The Ring (I have the main game plus the expansion), I've only ever played Star Wars RISK, and Conan is fresher in my mind because we only played it last week, after I bought it.

For me, CONAN is a simplified version of War Of The Ring. Both use an Action Dice mechanic (whereas RISK uses fixed phases) but there are fewer actions involved. There are only two unit types in CONAN - emissaries and troops, and they act independently (they perform different, mutually exclusive tasks).

CONAN has only a single special character (Conan himself), whereas War of the Ring has several, and Conan's influence on the game is perhaps somewhat less than that of the Fellowship or Companions.

Those are the most immediate differences.

InfinityDoctor said:

So saying Age Of Conan is WotR-lite with better 4 player support wouldn't be too far fetched?

MGBM said:

That was my initial thought, however, in the designer notes, Francesco Nepitello had this to say:

Action Dice - now Fate Dice
Once this basic structure was defined, we started to create the mechanics, using the backbone of the WotR game: the action dice system. Now, this was actually the second time that we adapted the action dice system to another game, as we already designed the two “operational level” games of Rohan and Gondor included in the Battles of the Third Age expansion for WotR. These two battles are quite close to the original game, but in the end I think they really stand as independent entities, both in terms of mechanics and gameplay. In Conan, a much greater differentiation would emerge through the design and development stages, differences so significant that in the end I think that Age of Conan and War of the Ring can be considered just remote relatives, possibly more distant, for example, than the card-driven Hannibal and We the People.

The main reason behind this separation is due to the fact that we aimed to make AoC a true multiplayer game. The option of multiple players rolling their own iconic dice sets to generate their available actions (as in WotR) would need so many dice to make the game an expensive choice even for opulent Turanians... So, we started to explore a common set of dice, rolled to form a pool of results accessible in turn by all players. We realized that such an approach would bring additional benefits: the system, modified and polished in different iterations, proved to be a very smooth engine, able to offer players variable limited options to create tension, but also suggesting a gaming mood very suited to the source material, with players fighting over the available actions, and sometimes invited to use a die result only to prevent another player to profit from it, as a treacherous ruler must rightly do to hinder his adversaries.

I've not had a chance to play it. I get my copy today. Take it for what you will. WotR is one of my favorite games. Hopefully, AoC will provide equal amounts of enjoyment.

I, obviously, have played it.

Its perhaps disingenuous to call it "War Of The Ring Lite", but the mechanics in CONAN are much simpler. There is some degree of tension (perhaps frustration) in using the common dice pool - especially when its down to a couple of actions and the other player nicks the one you wanted...