Northgard: Uncharted Lands Board Game Review

Northguard the video game came out a few years ago to much acclaim. It uses the concepts of ’90s real-time strategy classics such as Age of Empires and The Settlers, alongside a slick modern sandbox approach. 카지노사이트 Players control viking warbands to construct villages and accomplish great tasks. They are incentivized to pursue bigger and mightier feats to amass fame, such as slaying beasts and crushing opposing players. Now, this RTS/adventure game hybrid has received a passionate and evocative board game adaptation titled Northgard: Uncharted Lands (see it on Amazon).

Very much to its credit, this tabletop game stands comfortably alongside its digital predecessor, as well as independently on its own merit. Fans of the video game will detect the inspiration lovingly spread throughout its various cards, miniatures, and tiles.

Designer Adrian Dinu has crafted a standout board game that combines well-established systems with a fresh vision. One needs no familiarity with the original Northgard to enjoy this adventure, as its primary connection is in abstracting the core themes of exploration and scarcity.

As you control one of the asymmetric clans, you’ll focus on both exploring the new continent and developing its lands. Tiles reveal the vast countryside randomly in a process that mimics the procedural generation of its peer. You will bump into other players and discover wild fauna, encounters often leading to outright conflict. It’s a violent and surprisingly thoughtful experience that feels right at home on the tabletop.

Uncharted Lands draws primary design influence from the tile-laying classic board game Carcassonne. You pull tiles from a stack and orient them around the growing board to connect and define expanding geographic borders. It’s my favorite mechanism of Northgard, in that the region boundaries are unpredictable and full of odd shapes. This is in sharp contrast to most area control games, which possess a very rigid, carefully designed map to promote balance and incentivize conflict. Northgard is simply sublime in its freedom. It encourages aggressive exploration to close off territory by rewarding you with a bevy of points for doing so. 바카라사이트

The second big influence is the central deck-building action mechanism. Much like board game mega-hit Dominion, your deck begins a modest and reliable engine to accomplish the necessary core components of play. Each turn you play a card from your hand, allowing you to move across territory, recruit units, or build structures. Over the arc of seven rounds your deck evolves and diverges from your competitors.

What’s most significantly brilliant about this aspect of play is that the cards you add to your deck are free. Most games have you scrounging resources and weighing your purchase options, often stalling progress. In Northgard, you acquire a card from the face-up market immediately upon passing for the round. This helps give the game a fast pace, as it incentives players to pass early.

You do have another option, though. Instead of drafting from the row of cards available to all, you can spend an action mid-round to cull a card from your hand and replace it with a clan-specific option. This creates a small yet meaningful touch of asymmetry that supplements your clan’s ongoing ability.온라인카지노