I haven't had a chance to play the game yet, but in reading the rules, I have a couple of questions. In reading the rules for diplomacy, it says you spend influence to draw cards and then if any of the cards you draw have the correct symbol on it, you successfully ally with those neutrals. This seems that it would be just as easy to ally with a dragon as it would be a beastman. Am I just missing something?

Also, is there any reason why you would want to try to fight the neutrals rather than try to ally with them? It doesn't seem like there is any kind of reward system or upgrade path for combat against neutrals so it seems like it would always be the right thing to do to try to ally with them, which seems even easier to do anyways.

Bataar said:

I've played 7 times so far. Yes it s as easy to recruit one thing as 8 things; regardless of what it is. There are reasons not to ally though, for one I ve stolen giants from other players with tactic cards, for another some evil objectives say "kill all that dragons" also some good objectives say make friends with all the triangle neutrals. Additionally the chances of recruiting neutrals is a little over ten percent as only 4 in 30 cards have the gold symbol, so your chances of recruiting isn't the best, though if you spend at least 3 influence on it, there's a good chance that the neutrals will at least flee

Bataar said:

Even without playing, the OP already has the correct mindset regarding objectives;-)

There are a handful more reasons.

Infleunce is this game's currency. Most importantly, it is used in winter influence bids to gain dragon runes. A big army will not win you the game, dragon runes will. The game is short enough (year wise) and you get few enough attacks, you are not likely to control 6 DR's simply by seizing territory. Don 't get me wrong, armies are an important part of the game, but not the whole game.

Also, how were you planning on diplomicising? To do diplomacy, you have to activate the territory to get the diplomatic force in there. If the diplomacy fails, you have to fight or retreat. If you did not bring a big enough army to lay the smack down, you can't try that hex again until next year (you can't activate a hex with one of your activation tokens already in it). If you are going in to diplomacize as the second half of a mobilize, and you already fought a battle, then you don't have the fight option for supremacy bonus activation from mobilize.

Diplomacy can be a powerful tool, but it is far from the strategy I would use on all stacks of nuetrals. I'll try for diplomacy sometimes to snag a giant a dragon, or a stack of 4+ neutrals though :+)

Valid points Asylur. I disagree on the armies thing to some extent, as though you are right that armies wont get you the majority of the runes you need, they ll often get you the last one you need. Of the games I've played, more than half ended after a battle was one over a hex with a rune. So much so that I think the game might be better if the victory conditions were seven runes, or have 6 runes revealed for one year, as victories seem very sudden to me. More sudden than I would like.

Taki said:

I agree, in my limmited experiance (2 games), victory did seem sudden. I see armies as mostly staking out initial territory, defending your runes, and potentially trying to snag a border rune or two. I am just saying it's not a straight up military game where the size of your army or territory solely determines your standing in the game.

I have also considered going to 7 or 8 runes as well. It also seems like some objectives are much easier than others. Getting 6 tactics cards is so much easier than allying with 2 dragons (to my eye there are only 3 dragons possible on a board). I have also debated letting people see their objective cards before determining starting locations. It stinks to have to kill all the giants after you placed your realm on teh other side of the world!

A little off topic but still cool: I'm in the middle of my first game right now. Because of several previously failed diplomacies in which neutrals have retreated, there's a territory on the board that contains seven neutrals including: 2 beastmen, 2 razor wings, 2 sorcerers, 1 dragon.

I just sent in one reanimate. Apparently, despite his corpose-like appearance, his charisma was high enough. I drew three fate cards one had the magic golden "ally" symbol.

And my opponents runes are just two clicks away . . . . .

Pilgrim said:

NICE! Just don't let an elf archer get a special symbol and choose your reaminate!

(Only played twice)

It seems to me that Armies help defend the Dragon Runes you acquire more than they necesarrily go take others. You get more DRs from Quests, Tactic and Objective cards etc than you can via military conquest.

You win with 6 runes. At most you can only keep 3 in your home realm. That means you are gonna have some nearby controlled territory. You are gonna have to have a good defense force.

For Taki, read the "Epic Game Variant" on page 37 :-)

As far as diplomacizing (is that even a word?) a stack of neutrals with one reanimate, sure the elf could come in and snipe the reanimate, but that's assuming he can do so before either spring hits (timing is everything) or the happy owner can strategize an extra unit in there for insurance.

I prefer the epic variant personally. It extends the game and creates more battle events to narrate.