I feel like Evil tonight. Let's play Dungeon Lords!

You PEOPLE are so picky

OK, adventurers at C1, using one trap and my vampire.

Deploying ze Witch.

Combat 1, Round 1

The combat card is revealed!

Graffiti (Slow) - Your minion is busy. Place a minion on the first Orders Card space. Any order placed there in winter 2 will not be executed. [2 Fatigue]

As a Slow spell, it will be cast after the Monster step. Incidentally, I think this is the nastiest year 1 combat card.


Traps

Aerdan uses Kamikaze Imp! Aerdan loses 1 Imp. Lv1 Fighter takes 3 damage. Lv1 Fighter is knocked out! Lv1 Priest takes 1 damage. Lv1 Wizard takes 1 damage.

Kjara uses Cursed Ring! Kjara loses 1 Gold. Lv3 Thief takes 1 damage. The adventurers are busy fighting over the ring!

Gerad uses Fire Wall! Lv3 Warrior takes 1 damage. Lv1 Wizard takes 1 damage. Lv4 Wizard takes 2 damage.


Monsters

Aerdan attacks with Troll! Lv1 Priest takes 3 damage. Lv1 Priest is knocked out!

Cait attacks with Witch! What do you do?

Kjara attacks with Vampire! What do you do?

Gerad attacks with Vampire! What do you do?


Cait, Kjara, Gerad: Choose your attack.

Aerdan: I assumed you didn't want to burn a food for no effect.

You assumed correctly. Thanks.

Vampire hits L1 thief for 2 damage (knocking him down to 1).

Vampire hits L4 wizard for 2, knocking him out.

Witch eats the Thief whole.

Round 1 Resolution

Spellcastin' time! Aerdan, Cait, and Gerad will be employing a minion to wipe nasty words off the dungeon walls in winter 2.

Healing step

Only Cait has a priest, and her adventurers are at full health.


Fatigue/conquering step

Aerdan's Lv3 Wizard, Cait's Lv4 Priest, and Gerad's Lv3 Warrior each take two damage. The adventurers capture C1 in Aerdan's, Cait's, and Gerad's dungeons.

Kjara's adventurers finish fighting over the cursed ring. (The more powerful thief ends up pocketing it.)



Second verse, same as the first

If your C1 is captured, that means you can deploy to B1, D1, or C2. Go to, dungeon lords!

Deploying 0 traps and 1 Troll to C1.

(and I should be down a gold )

No traps and a slime at C2.

Just puttin' my troll at C2.

Aerdan: I think you have already used your troll this year?

Mogri: I think Aerdan should be down 1 imp as well from his trap?

Kjara is right about everything. I apologize in advance if this comes off as sarcastic

Uh, well, uh. Can I deploy an Imp, then? :x

You're actually in a very good position. One point of fatigue will kill off the wizard, and he isn't powerful enough to cast any more spells.

Ghost and trap to B1.

I forgot one more thing -- people who got conquered last round lose 1 Evil. Happy day!

Combat 1, Round 2

The combat card is revealed!

Detect Treasure (Slow) - You lose 1 gold. If you have no gold, you lose 1 food instead. If you have no gold or food, you lose 1 trap. If you don't even have a trap, you're just a loser. [1 Fatigue]

As a Slow spell, it will be cast after the Monster step. I don't know what's better - this card or Fist of Justice.


Traps

Cait uses Rolling Boulder! Lv4 Priest takes 3 damage. Lv4 Priest is knocked out!


Monsters

Cait attacks with Ghost! But the Ghost can't attack... There's only one adventurer left and ghosts can't attack the lead adventurer. Unfortunately, with the level 4 Priest present, the Ghost was a futile endeavor either way.

Kjara attacks with Troll! What do you do?

Gerad attacks with Slime! Lv3 Warrior takes 1 damage. Lv3 Warrior is knocked out! Lv1 Wizard takes 1 damage.


Magic spell

Cait loses 1 Gold.


Healing step

No Priests remain.


Fatigue/conquering step

Aerdan: Lv3 Wizard takes 1 damage. Lv3 Wizard is knocked out! Battle complete!

Cait: Lv2 Wizard takes 1 damage. The adventurer conquers C2.

Kjara: Lv4 Warrior takes 1 damage. Adventurers conquer C1.

Gerad: Lv1 Wizard takes 1 damage. Lv1 Wizard is knocked out! Battle complete!


Kjara: Conventional wisdom says "don't feed the troll," but the decision is yours. You are also the only one who can do anything anymore, so go ahead and declare your next round.

Cait: There's nothing you can do short of hoping fatigue takes out the Wizard for you. I still need locations for the next one or two battles, though.

Aerdan and Gerad: Sit back and enjoy the show. You keep your left over traps and your monsters refresh for year 2. Make sure your minion wipes that graffiti clean...

Reminder: You can't mine gold in a conquered tunnel.

Provided that there is at exactly 1 point of fatigue damage next round, feeding the troll saves me a tunnel, so I will feed the troll (4 damage from troll + 1 from fatigue kills the warrior this round).

Next round, vampire does 3 damage to Level 3 thief at C2 (knocking him out). If there is at least 1 point of fatigue damage (hopefully no invis) then the level 1 thief dies before conquering. If invis does show up, then I lose C2 and fatigue is guaranteed to kill the level 1 thief before conquering the following round.

Combat 1 Resolution

Sadly, it is indeed Invisibility for next round, followed by Fist of Justice. For reference:

Invisibility (Fast) - Wizards move to the end of the line and cannot be harmed this round. [0 Fatigue]

Fist of Justice (Slow) - Lose 1 imp. [1 Fatigue]

Neither spell gets cast, but the fatigue (or rather, lack of fatigue) screws over Cait and Kjara. Cait's Lv2 Wizard gets away with 1 HP.

Cait: Choose D2 or C3 to lose.

What could Cait have done differently? Well, as it happens, not a whole lot. With full knowledge of the combat cards, here's Cait's optimal strategy. Remember that Cait had the following:

Lv2 Wizard (3, **), Lv4 Priest (4, **), Lv2 Thief (3, **)

Witch, Ghost, Rolling Boulder

The ideal solution was to use Witch and Ghost jointly on round 1 to attack the Priest (using Witch's two Any 1 attacks on the Priest), then use Rolling Boulder on round 3. Fatigue kills the Thief after two rounds. The Wizard still gets to cast Graffiti and Detect Treasure, but dies in one hit from Rolling Boulder.

But it's not very intuitive to blow all of your monsters on the Priest while the Thief still lives, is it?

Once Cait selects a tunnel, we'll get to year 2.

Boo, darned 11% chance of failure. Wish I would have had a chance to see the first card, could have swapped things around.

Edit: Well, really 5.5% chance of failure. Had invis been round 2 rather than 3, it would at least have hurt everyone else too .

Edit2: I'm down a food as well from the troll usage.

Edit3: If we are discussing optimal strategies, a slightly better myopic (but combat card aware) strategy would have been for Cait to grab the goblin rather than the ghost at the end of autumn, then to play the same way, but with the goblin in place of the ghost (killing the wizard at the end of round 2).

A better combat card aware strategy for me would have been:

Round 1 and 2: Vampire hits L3 Thief for 4 total (warrior takes 3),
Round 3: Combat in room, vampire hits L1 thief for 3, troll hits warrior for 3. Would have saved a food, a gold, and a trap.

or

Swap my rounds 1 and 2.

Intermission

Let's hear it for Year Two! The adventurers are bigger, the monsters are badder, and the players are just generally screweder. But there's good news, too! Read on for a sneak preview.


Traps

The pool of traps is the same in year 2. Some traps have extra effects in the second year, though, as indicated by the trap card.

Additionally, remember that anyone who takes the Traps action draws one extra card and chooses which one to discard.


Monsters

There are three new monsters in year 2. They're uniformly powerful and fun to use. Let's meet them!

The Golem will set you back 1 Trap and 1 Gold. In exchange, it will attack the lead adventurer for 4 damage. "But wait!" you say. "That's not very good!" Well, what if I told you that it comes back each round? Yep, you can use the Golem forever (barring a nasty combat card, but we'll get to that).

The Dragon eats 2 Food and 2 Evil. In exchange, it deals two damage to each adventurer and prevents the healing step (the priests' robes are on fire). Fwoom!

The Demon eats one monster and 1 Evil. Yes, that's right: you need to feed the big guy one of your little guys in order to get him on your team (but not a Ghost -- they're just not very filling). Then you need to do it again for payday. What do you get for all of this? A whopping seven damage to any adventurer -- enough to kill anything short of the Lv8 Fighter and the Y2 Paladin, who sit at 8 HP -- plus he prevents conquering and fatigue. The Demon is the easiest way to grab those five juicy points from the Paladin... if you dare. But why is the Demon less evil than the Dragon? We may never know.

Two of each monster will appear throughout year 2. The mathematically inclined among you will note that this only adds up to six monsters: the remaining six are comprised of the year 1 monsters: one each of Slime, Goblin, Troll, Witch, Vampire, and Ghost. Tricksy players might grab one of these to feed the Demon or to stick in one of our special combat rooms.


Rooms

Oh yes, that reminds me. There are two broad categories of room in year 2: combat rooms and scoring rooms. Each confers an advantage based on the composition of your dungeon.

First, the combat rooms. The Dark Room is just a very dark room. Adventurers have a harder time seeing in this room, but Vampires and Witches have their attack damage increased by 1 here. That's per attack, so Witches using their alternate attack get Any 2 + Any 2. The Training Room is the same thing, but for Trolls and Goblins.

Meanwhile, the Labyrinth is an odd room that lets you deploy two traps (without paying gold as you normally would in a room) but only one monster (instead of two as you normally would in a room). A great buy for trap-happy dungeon lords, but you'll want to get rid of pesky thieves first.

Finally, the Antimagic Room prevents Wizards from casting their magic spells. Remember that to get the effects of a combat room, combat has to occur in that room -- a risky endeavor, since a conquered room no longer gives you 2 points at the end of the game.

Onto scoring rooms, starting with the Cafeteria. An unconquered Cafeteria gives you 1 point for each Slime, Troll, Goblin, and Witch at the end of the game. These are the monsters that eat food. (The Dragon also eats food, but inasmuch as Dragons love causing food fights, you don't get extra points for them.) The Chapel gives you 2 points for each Ghost and Vampire, and Pandemonium gives you 2 points for each Golem, Dragon, and Demon -- the year 2 monsters.

The final scoring room is the Hall of Fame. For each exclusive title you earn, you gain an extra 2 points. (See the first post for a list of titles.) If you share the title with another player, the Hall of Fame gives you no bonus.

In addition to their bonus points, unconquered scoring rooms also give you the standard 2 points per room. Remember that a conquered scoring room is no good to you!

Also under the subject of rooms, remember that you can use production rooms twice per season, as long as you have enough imps. (Ex: With six imps, Kjara or Gerad could produce 2 Gold.)


Adventurers

The weakest year 2 adventurer is as strong as the strongest year 1 adventurer. Click here for the full roster. Our year 2 Paladin has 8 HP and two of each symbol.

Meanwhile, the combat cards are much, much nastier, but they're also more tiring, ranging from 1 to 3 Fatigue instead of 0 to 2. You can find the full list here.

Quick clarification on traps. If I'm reading the rules right you don't have to discard one of ones you just drew, it can be one that you already had.

Kjara, you cad. You know as well as I do that the rules say "Your discard can be one of those that you just drew, or it can be one that you drew earlier." There's no need to pussyfoot around calling me on my screwups.

I swear I know how to play this game, you guys. It's just -- it's been awhile.

I worded it the way I did because one could interpret what you wrote the correct way, it just wouldn't pass Occam's razor.

Graffiti sure is nasty. I tried for a while to figure out how to stop the wizard brigade from casting it, but couldn't do it.

You're in good company, at least.

It's officially Pester Cait Time again.

Has anyone seen/talked to Cait recently?

Unfortunately, I thought the warnings of my more knowledgeable coworkers about Tax Season were hyperbole instead of the horrible truth. I've been preoccupied with working and sleeping the last few days, but I do apologize for my absence. I'm probably going to be stuck like this until the end of April though, so if an alternate is availabe to take my seat...