Game Review: Lords of Waterdeep

We've been playing several new games lately, but the current one I'll be chatting about today is...Lords of Waterdeep.

It's a worker-placement game for 2-5 players put out by Wizards of the Coast. Yes - Wizards makes a non-roleplaying game, and it's a Euro-worker placement game. Two tastes that go...great together?

When I've been teaching this game, I've been offering several ways of learning. First, story. Second, mechanics. It's more about how your fellow players learn, opposed to being only one way to see the game.

The overall story is that you and your fellow players are Lords of Waterdeep. In the roleplaying game, the identities are hidden...in this game, it's basically a hidden bonus to make the end-game more exciting. You take a color for your agents - they've taken 5 different guild-like groups from the world...it doesn't have an impact on the game...just flavor.

Depending on the number of players, you start with 2-4 agents. There are 8 turns - each turn, the starting player places a single agent (worker) into a space...no one else can go there. It goes clockwise, with players continuing to place agents until they run out, at which point you collect the workers up again to play again next round.

The agents run around Waterdeep - picking up different assortments of adventurers (orange for fighters, black for rogues, purple for wizards, white for clerics)...as well as gathering money, quests, and Intrigue cards (aka chance cards). You can also purchase more buildings, so that there are more places to go in the game - the person who purchased the building gets some kind of perk when a different player puts an agent there.

The game is fine for 2 players - the intrigue cards are less powerful, but the flow is still good. The more players you add, the more value the intrigue cards have. (Do X, and everyone else does Y. When it just sabotages one player, not very tough. 4 others? quite good.)

It's not to say there aren't issues. Buildings are pretty good. Getting something from the bank every time another player uses your building is nice. One of the 11 different Lords you can draw gives you 6 bonus points for every building you control at game end...in a 2-player game, it's always a blowout. Even in 3-player, it was really good. The bonuses at the end of the game for the other Lords...lets say, Khelben Blackstaff. He gets 4 bonus points for each Arcana and Warfare sub-type quests he finishes. In practical terms, it's not that big of a difference. If you have the most points before counting bonuses, you'll probably keep your edge.

Recommended changes to balance your experience:
In 2-player, we drop the Mistress of the Buildings...whatever her name actually is. The person who draws her gets a bonus 2 points, and draws another Lord. We're thinking about dropping her bonus to 4-per-building for more than 2 players. We're also considering raising the bonuses for doing the quests that your Lord favors...6 bonus points per quest! This makes the game a lot more interesting - if you think Alice is getting bonuses for Skullduggery and Commerce, it's worth a little more effort to block her from getting them.

My girlfriend and I have probably played about 20 games of 2-player, and another 3-4 as 3-player games. 4-player...played once, I can kind of imagine 5 players. The game itself takes us 45 minutes, with the 4-player game being 75 minutes with 3 new players.