I don't know what to write about today. I've been playing lots of board games lately, so I am going to write about one of those. Lords of Waterdeep has become a favorite. It's a simple enough game. The players are cast in the roles of the secret Lords of this fantasy city known as Waterdeep. In the lore of the setting it is named for it's large natural harbor. Each player is given a number of agents to do their bidding throughout the city. So each round the players will send these agents to different parts of the city to recruit warriors, rogues, clerics, and wizard units to help complete quests for the Lords. The quests all have a setting specific flavor, like Domesticate Owlbears or Donating to the Priests of Oghma. Each one would require different combinations of the units to complete. The Domesticate Owlbears quest for example would require a warrior and some wizards; since Owlbears are dangerous magical creatures. Whereas Donating to the Priests of Oghma would require some clerics instead. Each quest has a Victory point total and some times additional other rewards. As your Lord completes quests you score these Victory points. Whoever has the most victory points after 7 or 8 rounds wins.
But, there is so much more. The different parts of the city you send your agents to recruit at are represented by famous locations in Waterdeep. Rogues are recruited two at a time from the Grinning Lion Tavern, while Wizards only come one at a time from the Blackstaff Tower. Once an agent has claimed one of these buildings, other Lords are unable to claim them without some special ability. In addition to these unit recruitment buildings there are several other special buildings as well. Waterdeep Castle for example can be claimed by one of your agents to claim the rights to place your Agent first on the following turn, and claim an Intrigue card.
Intrigue cards are special cards you can play when your Agents claim one of the three spots at Waterdeep Harbor. The cards themselves often have special abilities that let you interact with the other players. Stealing their accumulated units before they can score a quest with them. The fun Bidding War card lets you draw four Quests and pick one and pass them remainder around the table until everyone gets one. The last guy getting the one no one else wanted of course. As if playing Intrigue cards weren't awesome enough Agents assigned to Waterdeep Harbor get to be reassigned at the end of the round to any other unclaimed building. This is always a calculated risk, as the building you want to claim could have been snatched up while you played your Intrigue card, but before you can reassign the Agent.
Additionally, there is the ability to build additional buildings. A Builder's Hall building can be claimed by an Agent. The Builder's Hall always contains three buildings to choose from. Each will have a gold piece cost, and the player must be able to afford the Building that the choose. (There are other buildings for gaining gold as well) Once purchased a Building is placed on the board with the purchasing Lord's marker to indicate that Lord is the owner. Each of these buildings has a resource listed that will be gained when an Agent is used to claim it during a turn like any other building. They also have a separate resource that the owner of the building gets if an opponent's Agent claims the building.
It is getting late, so I am going to wrap this up now. If you haven't played this game you should, it is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.
