Fighting the Pesky Do-Gooders

One of the games showing up regularly in my group of late is Dungeon Lords. Up to four players each take on role of an evil overlord, wrangling imps, hiring monsters, deploying traps, and so forth, in an effort to fight off a band of adventurers that comes storming in twice during the game to plunder your dungeon.

This is the latest from designer Vlaada Chvátil, following Space Alert and Galaxy Trucker. I'd call it the most conventionally "Euro game-like" of his games (that I've played), in that you're doing a lot of resource management and planning. But it still has that defining characteristic of his other games, that the game is pitted against you, more than capable of crushing you, and it's not really about "winning" as much as it is "surviving to the best of your ability."

I like this game quite a lot, actually. The main element of interaction with the other players is a really interesting "puzzle" to try to solve. There are eight actions players can take in a turn, and they take three each turn. You must plan all three in advance, before you see what any of your opponents have chosen. Two of the three you took last turn are taken out of contention -- so for each of your opponents, you know he can take only six possible actions.

Each of the eight possible actions has room for only three players to take it, and most of them have different levels of efficiency that tend to improve over time. In short, if you're going to take the same action in a round that one or more of your opponents is choosing, you probably want to be last. But then, if you wait too long, the limited number of slots may fill up, and then you don't get to do anything at all. I find this mechanism a very satisfying combination of asking players to "look ahead," while leaving just enough chaos to make it a challenge.

But after several plays, what is still eluding me how best to work the scoring system. At the end of the game, there's a short list of characteristics about each player and his dungeon (or rather, what's left of his dungeon after the adventurers have trashed it). You score points for each characteristic, some where just "bigger is better" (say, points for each adventurer you've captured), but others in direct competition with your opponents (who has hired the most monsters, for example).

What I've found is that you can try to "play it safe," and craft a smallish, careful dungeon with just the basic things you need to fend off adventurers and not suffer too many penalties from the game. The problem is, if you don't stick your neck out at least a little, then you don't measure up well when it's time to do all that scoring at the end of the game. I've had games where I've weathered the adventurers coming into my dungeon better than every other player, but I've still lost in the scoring.

I don't mean to imply that I feel the scoring is wholly disconnected from the goal of doing well against adventurers. There is overlap... but not complete overlap. To me, this also makes the game interesting to play, because I don't feel it's easily "solved." I'm still searching for the sweet spot between point scoring and adventurer-fighting, and I suspect that even if I find it in one game, getting back to it in a subsequent game won't be easily done.

I'd say this is definitely the best of Vlaada Chvátil's games, and one I'd be willing to play most any time.