Home Article published at a news group by Örjan Ohlson
I like the game. Reasonably easy, a lot of diplomacy (at least if there are four or
more players), but... I've found the game rather unbalanced in favour of the players
starting in Sweden (except in a 4-player game with 1 Norwegian, 1 Danish and 2 Swedish
players). The problem is threefold:
1. Travel is dangerous (add up the number of danger markers (dragon heads/sea serpents) in
the areas you travel through; when you reach the destination, roll 1D10 and pray you score
higher than this number - if not, lose that number of units). This danger is reduced by
building bases - trading stations or military forts - abroad. These bases can also be used
as starting points for further conquests/trading expeditions. However, you cannot build
any bases in sea areas (of course!). The North Sea/Atlantic sea areas are more dangerous
than the Baltic; even more so since a fleet can travel along a river, but canNOT move from
one coastal area to a neighbouring coastal area without travelling through the sea area
both border to. This makes travel in the west, where virtually all areas are coastal
rather than riverine, a lot more dangerous than in the east.
2. There are several states not controlled by any player. These are Bretland (Anglo-Saxon
Britain), the (Holy Roman) Empire, Byzantium, the East and West Caliphates and Khazaria -
ie, they cover Western Europe and the entire Mediteranean basin. These states tend to
disapprove of invasions, and may sometimes take violent action and destroy many or all
Viking camps within their borders. Two (non-homeland) areas lie outside these states: the
Atlantic isles (including Scotland and Ireland), and eastern Europe (basically the former
European Warsaw Pact countries, including Russia). Most of the time, the organised states
listed above are much stronger militarily than the unorganised areas as well.
3. Victory points are scored for conquering land areas, which is achived by building the
maximum number of trading posts and forts in the area (these numbers vary from area to
area).
This means that expansion to the east is easier than to the west - not only is the risk of
losing your fleets lower, but the conquests are easier and you won't risk being thrown out
by a resurgent local power. The Swedish are closest to the riches of Russia, whereas the
Norwegians are pretty much restricted to the (poor) islands in the Atlantic. The Danes
have good access to Europe, but the richest areas (England and the Empire) are rather
difficult targets compared to Russia.
A fix which seems to work reasonably well is to allow fleets to move along a coast without
sailing to the sea (eg, a fleet may move from Normandy to Bretagne without entering the
Channel). I haven't played enough to tell if this is sufficient, but at least the Swedish
players haven't won *every* game since we introduced it :-/
This site is created and maintained by: Carl-Gustaf Samuelsson