Thoughts on… Lords of Waterdeep
“Tell me, what news of our agents?”
“Forgive me, sire, but the situation is grim. We suspect Lord Cassalanter is amassing wizards to Infiltrate Halaster’s Circle, Lord Mirt has forged an alliance with House Thann and Lady Scheiron has played a required quest on us…”
“She what!? Damn her! The Owlbears were almost trained! But I commanded we build, did I not?”
“Well, yes sire, we built the most magnificient tower in all of Waterdeep, but…”
“But what!?”
“But we spent all our remaining coin to do so and none of the enemy agents are using it. And we can’t get to the moneylender because Lady Neathal sent an agent there first…”
Welcome to the city of Waterdeep! Those of you who visited the City of Splendours as Dungeons & Dragons adventurers will know well the places and characters featured in this game, but no longer will you be risking life and limb in search of glory. In Lords of Waterdeep, you play as the shadowy figures vying for control over the city, the men and women who once upon a time may have hired you to “Defend the Tower of Luck” or “Loot the Crypt of Chauntea”.
But for those who have never played, nor have ever wished to be associated with the breed of human known as “the roleplayer”, rest assured that this game is safe! Indeed the game is such that you can almost entirely forget the nerdy baggage that comes along with it. There is no roleplaying here.
You will send agents to the Field of Glory to hire warriors, the Plinth to hire clerics, and the Blackstaff Tower to hire wizards. Or in non-nerd, place your agent token to get orange resources, white resources and purple resources. Then send these disposable heroes (resources) on quests to earn you victory points and other rewards to bring you that much closer to control of the city (winning the game). Of course, as a Lord of this fine city, you may also use your influence to make life a little harder for your opponents, or a little easier for yourself. In which case, send your agents down to Waterdeep Harbour where the dirtiest deals go down (i.e. play your “Intrigue Cards”).
Or perhaps you’d prefer to go into property? Build a building (for a price) and you gain resources every time another Lord sends their agent there for the benefit your building offers. Perhaps you’ll build the “House of Heroes”, the place all aspiring warriors dream of, or the “Dragon Tower” where wizards and intrigue are mixed into a cocktail of magical surprise. By building, you further increase the number of options on the board, useful when more agents become available and competition for resources becomes even fiercer!
Because this is what’s known in board game land as a ‘worker placement’ game, and each action has only space for one or two agents. Once one of your opponents has taken the space, you can’t go there till next turn. You must always be asking yourself, what is your number one priority. What can you not cope without this turn? Or perhaps more interestingly, what does someone else need desperately…?
Which means always keep in mind your goal of… well, completing arbitrary quests and earning victory points! Yay!? While all the quests are wonderfully evocative of the fantasy world of D&D, there is no particular sense of progress in the quests you complete. Despite playing one of the shadowy Lords of the game’s title, there is no grand plan through the completing of these quests, merely the accumulation of victory points, and the knowledge that the more you have, the better.
And failing to complete quests holds no threat. Though you may be trying to slay some terrible monster, it is not like the monster will attack the city if you leave it alone. Indeed, one can discard all the available quests as an action. It’s a great way of preventing your opponents from getting a high scoring quest they want, but there is no risk involved. Wouldn’t it be great if no-one bothers to “Bolster the city guard”, and so parts of the city get damaged in an attack? It would add a great sense of tension and importance to the quests, and open up some interesting dirty tactics by intentionally failing quests. Sadly, the game comes down to collecting coloured cubes where you can and then trading them in for victory points. Even the Intrigue Cards really amount to different ways of getting cubes or a means to make life a little harder for your opponents.
Lords of Waterdeep is a good game. It is a nice set of mechanics full of interesting decisions, and a good deal of tension. And it is fun! But don’t expect the theme to shine through those mechanics. It is also not an especially tight worker-placement game. There is almost always something useful you can do on a given turn. And this gives Lord’s of Waterdeep an important selling point: it’s a great introduction to the world of worker-placement games.
If you only look at the mechanisms, this is a nice entry level game. It’s simple to understand the idea of collecting a set of coloured cubes, yet you can really master the games systems and rack up the points when you know what you’re doing. However, the Dungeons & Dragons theme will put off a fair number of people. If you can get them past it, maybe by focusing on how the game plays rather than what the theme is, there is a very nice, tense game there.
You get a real sense of progress as you complete quests. And an initially slow start ramps up as the availability of resources increases. So. Do I recommend Lords of Waterdeep? If you’ve never played a worker placement game, this is a great place to start, indeed it is one of the best for first timers. Just don’t worry about the theme. If you are well versed in worker placement games, this might be a bit simplistic, but I always enjoy playing this game.
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