Druids

24 Sep 2019

This review is for the Kickstarter Special edition, prior to the general release of the game.

Druids is a strategy game for two players, the board is customizable with moveable terrain tiles and powers called stones that allow for a lot of variation.

The KS version is a nice laser cut of the game with etching also done by laser, the box itself is a laser cut and puts together without need for glue. Really nice presentation.

The Summary

Components

1. A board with terrain spaces, with symbols being a reflection of the opposing players side. There are spaces with terrain symbols on them (I will refer to these are terrain spaces). The most significant symbol is the temple, which ties into the victory condition.
2. Terrain Tiles, with terrain symbols on them, these will be the moveable terrain pieces (I will refer to these as terrain tiles), the symbols will match what is available on the board itself.
3. Stones, small cylindrical pieces with an animal depiction on one side of them.
4. Druids, isosceles triangles of two colors with a small hole that can fit the stones in them.

Setup

1. Players setup the game by taking alternating turns placing the moveable terrain tile respecting the rules where they cannot place terrain onto spaces with terrain or in the same row as a temple.
2. Then the players then proceed to place their druids on the back row pointed at themselves.
3. Finally the players will select four animal based powers in the game.
   • 3 of the associated stones will be face down on spaces marked with stars and 1 will be off to the side of the board.
   • The stone next to the board is still in the game and when a druid picks a stone, the player will have a choice between the stone they moved onto and the stone next to the board to decide which one they take. This adds an element of fog of war and reduce the randomness of stones.

The Turn

Players then take turns alternating doing one of three actions:

1. Move a druid in any orthogonal direction, except in the direction you moved last.
   • Moving onto an opposing druid captures the druid. You cannot move into a space containing your druid.
   • Moving onto a stone allows the druid to pick up the stone.
   • Players must respect effects of the terrain whether they be symbols printed on the board or the terrain tiles.
     • When moving onto a square with a terrain symbol, not the tile, the player will then move a terrain tile piece of that type.
       • Respecting the rules in the setup with an additional rule where terrain (except the forest) cannot be placed under a druid.
2. Use a stone held by a druid.
   1. Reveal the stone and place it facedown next to the stone off the board.
   2. Resolve the effect of the stone.
   3. Place one of the stones off the board onto an empty space with a star depiction.
      • Moving onto the temple by stone movement consumes the stone, thus one is not able to win by moving onto a temple using stone movement.
3. Meditate, to change the druid’s facing.
   1. Reveal the stone held by one of your druids.
   2. Change the facing.

The game ends when either:

• A player’s druids are all captured.
• A player moves a druid with a stone into the opposing temple.

Symbols

• Mountain: Impassable.
• River: Moves the druid an additional space in the direction moved or, in the case of diagonal movement, in the direction of the temple the druid is facing.
• Forest: Druids within a forest cannot be captured. Can be placed underneath a druid.
• Cloud: When a druid moves onto a cloud, move the druid onto a space
• Star: The placement of stones after resolution.

The Puzzle

Knowing when to reveal information about your stone, using the stone, and what victory conditions to go for given game state.

Tips

• Revealing your stone seems like an counter-intuitive play, but it is one that will influence your opponents plays, wasting their precious moves to accommodate newly revealed information.
• Don’t focus on one victory condition until you have confidence to secure it.

Criticism

The precedent for stone powers and terrain rules are ambiguous

It isn’t clear if stones or terrain take precedent when it comes to movement. For example this creates ambiguity in the mountain rules:

• The example of moving onto the mountain is given even though it doesn’t seem to be a valid normal move.
• Other than the snake, the stone powers do not limit the movement onto a mountain so theoretically one could use their power to move onto a mountain.

The timing for terrain tile placement after moving onto a terrain space is ambiguous

In the rules if a players moves into a space with a terrain symbol on its space the must move a terrain tile with the same symbol. The timing isn’t very clear on when the related tile is moved. This creates an interesting scenario with rivers:

If the moves tiles prior to the resolution of river effect, one can move a river tile onto the space they are moving into and essentially resolve the river tiles effect twice, moving two additional spaces.

• The above makes sense because the rules state that if a river moves the druid onto a cloud they must resolve the cloud. Thus by analogy it makes sense to take that logic to rivers.

Clouds are really confusing

This compounds some ambiguities in the rules for clouds as well as the problems of tile movement and placement as above.

Clarifications needed for the setup:

• If a player places both or just one of the tiles at the start of the game. If it’s both, that is a powerful advantage to dictate their initial placement. if it is just one, the advantage of placing the cloud is less advantageous at the start of the game than the other pieces.
• The cloud placement rule implies that clouds are connected in the direction they face, but imply that they do not have choices to which cloud they move to.
• There probably needs to be more restrictions for cloud placement as it is to ambiguous to derive any semblance of order.am
• Going purely off the rules and observation it is intuitive to since place both cloud tiles are pointed in the same direction as the cloud spaces, thus clarification is needed to both define setup and terrain movement.

Clarifications are needed on moving the cloud tiles and the timing in which it happens: This assumes you can either place cloud tiles in the same direction as the cloud spaces either in setup or after movement.

• If you move onto a cloud space if you are able to move the tile and then proceed to move to that position. This is a considerable advantage and a situation that could potentially arise.

Clarifications needed for movement onto cloud tiles:

• When three or four clouds are pointing in the same direction: Which one do you move to?
• At anytime with the placement of the clouds a cloud tile is in a direction that is not shared by any of the clouds what happens when a player moves onto that cloud tile?

The rules get weirder: The rules mention a state in which players can capture two pieces when one moves onto clouds. I am not sure how this situation would arise.

• Normally to be able to capture a druid via cloud either the druid needs to be on the space moved into or a space that moves to due to the cloud rules.
• Since the cloud rules disavows a druid to move into a cloud space if a friendly druid occupies the connected space, from a normal game state one cannot capture two opposing druids be normal movement into a cloud space.
• Thus the elimination scenario either assumes that one or more clouds must be connected to the space a druid moves onto.
  • This seems to go against the implicit assumptions outlined by the cloud terrain rules.
  • From a mechanical standpoint capture makes sense when one moves into a space and then proceeds to move to the connected space, essentially moving twice. This makes sense with with the river rules too.
• Furthermore since two friendly druids cannot occupy clouds facing the same direction, it seems the double capture scenario would only work with terrain movement.
  • The rules explicitly prohibit the movement of a cloud tile underneath a druid.
  • This requires the ability to have a dangling cloud or all the clouds being pointed in the same direction, leading to the ambiguity outlines above.

Thus I believe either the board is a typo, or the rules are incorrect on how clouds work and do not provide adequate rules for them.

The Verdict

It is edging on the side of an elegant design. It doesn’t have the same elegance as Santorini or Tak, but it has a nice aesthetic and it plays into the theme that is provided by the aesthetic.

The rules are unpolished and there are parts of it that need a lot more thought and work into it. I backed the Kickstarter as I believe the game looked to have potential, but the rulebook really requires a few more revisions, especially if it will be undergoing translation.

The stone powers are pretty straightforward and there is only so many combinations for terrain placement. After a few hundred plays I’m definitely sure I’m going to get bored as the game is pretty straightforward with little room for psychological play.

An easy way to expand the game is to include more stones or terrain or different boards, however the extensibility of the game is diminished because I have the mdf exclusive version.

Other Games

• The Duke or The Jarl, for those who like to have a variety of different pieces to play with and create unique play combinations.
• Tak, would be great for those who are looking for an elegant abstract game.
• Santorini would be great for those who want a more elegant experience with greater emphasis on exploiting a specific unique mechanic.