From: Markus Stumptner Subject: Chariotlords (was RE: Multi-Man Publishing Expands Development License with Hasbro) On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Crowley, Steve wrote: > Could you give an opinion on Chariotlords ? I think it's great. The basic model is "Britannia in the Ancient Near East", but it avoids what I most disliked about Britannia, the "if I end up with nation X just here I have the best initial conditions for nation Y over there 200 years later" perfect strategy syndrome. Each player has control of multiple nations over time (several of which may be on the board at the same time), and the order of nations within a turn is decided by chitpull. You have nation-specific victory points usually revolving around holding key pieces of real estate or killing/conquering certain of your neighbors, all of these highly individual (except that almost everyone gets points for slaughtering Cimmerians), and for possession of territory in general. Nations involved include Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians (New and Old Kingdoms), Kassites, Chaldaeans, Canaanites, Luvians, Lydians, Sumerians, and many others. Special rules for great leaders, and some nations are Beloved of the Gods on certain turns which means they can move and score twice. The map reaches from the Hellespont to the Persian Gulf and from the Taurus to Nubia. Overall, it's a great game, great take on the subject, and not too complex. It's not the fastest of games though, you have to expect about five hours playing time (six with beginners). Caveat: I was one of the playtesters. We played this with our local ancient era miniatures group (they also play multiplayer boardgames fairly regularly) and had a blast. CoA has pictures of the finished product on their webpage (www.clashofarms.com). Unfortunately there was a problem with printing the maps (they were done in France) which meant that it took a long time to become available and according to what one has heard the number of games available may also be lower than intended due to transport damage. So you may have to fall back on the French or German editions if you wait too long. :-) Markus Last 3 games played: Eylau, Pacific War, Hunters from the Sky ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Bakayaro! Bakayaro!" ("Stupid Bastards! Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942 From: RGS48@aol.com Subject: Re: Chariotlords If I can add something to Markus's write up, I think he has it pretty much on the money. This is an interesting game that will keep players involved throughout. Lots of interesting decisions and variations. Be aware though. CoA fumbled the ball here in producing the game. Although the rules are not particularly long, they are not well organized. There is information scattered throughout the rule book and there is no convenient place to find information about your various factions. Coupled with Charley Vasey's writing style, this makes the game much harder to play than it should be. You would be advised that you will probably have to make up several of your own gazeteers and charts to keep everything straight. Because of this, this is not a game that you can play right out of the box (and it will ake you awhile to learn to play it well but that's the fun of it). Now I am NOT saying that the rules are incomplete, just badly organized. But it seems a little weird to mne that you have to spend several hours going over # a 6-8 page rulebook. I sat down to play this game with three other players who were well-acquainted with BRITANNIA and we came _this_ close to packing the game up before we even started. We decided to slog through it and were very glad that we did. It is worth the trouble (although that trouble could have been elininated in the first place). If you have any interest in the period or just like a good, four-player game, I think you will like CHARIOTLORDS.