{"id":3543,"date":"2004-11-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/11\/04\/chariot-lords\/"},"modified":"2004-11-04T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-04T11:00:00","slug":"chariot-lords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/11\/04\/chariot-lords\/","title":{"rendered":"Chariot Lords"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chariot Lords<\/a><\/h2>\n

reviewed by Peter Riedlberger<\/i><\/p>\n

Chariot Lords is a Britannia<\/a> clone situated in the
\nancient Middle East. Like all Britannia games, Chariot Lords has each player lead a
\n“team” of different peoples which do not actually belong or work together (at
\nleast not officially) but add up their victory points. So, the white player commands
\nHittites as well as Nubians, Hebrews and others.<\/p>\n

There are two rule sets for Chariot Lords (actually, there are even more, but those
\nare the most important): Those furnished with the game, which are in fact unplayable
\n(complicated battle system, complicated scoring conditions which are hard to keep track
\nof), and the so called short rules. We’ve always played the latter. You can download
\nthem from Web-Grognards<\/a> (beware, links to a doc). So everything I write is true for
\nthe short rules – not for those rules which come in the game box.<\/p>\n

Chariot Lords differs from other Britannia clones in three aspects: First, scoring is
\nquite straightforward. Every slain enemy unit is one point. Every country occupied at the
\nend of one’s turn is two points (most of the time, but there are a few exceptions,
\ne.g. mountain is one, and desert is zero). Every people has one (rarely two or even
\nthree) special deeds to accomplish. Once achieved, you’ve got the extra score. Those
\ndeeds can be very easy (Hittites: in any one turn control six hill areas north of Ugarit,
\nworth 20 points) or rather difficult (Assyria: in any one turn control Memphis, worth 30
\npoints). Of course, the game is balanced in so far as every colour has its easy and its
\nhard challenges. Overall this means much less looking up of victory point conditions
\ncompared to Birtannia or Hispania. This is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage – it
\nrather makes Chariot Lords different: Quicker and more straightforward, but less
\ncomplex.<\/p>\n

The other main difference is that there is no fixed turn order of the peoples. The
\nfixed turn order is an extremely important mechanism for Britannia: This guarantees for
\nexample that the Saxons move before the Normans, so Harold the Saxon loser is in play
\nwhen William arrives for the final showdown. The fixed turn order allows the game
\ndesigner to stake out the order of history (err… game play). In Chariot Lords it can
\nhappen that Assur (most powerful people of all) moves last. Assur gets lots of new
\ncounters in that particular turn and conquers half of the known world. Then, Assur count
\nvictory points. In the next turn, the oppressed neighbours might strike back together,
\ndismembering the Assyrian empire. But surprise, surprise: The Assur chit is drawn first,
\nAssur conquers some additional areas and, worst of all, counts victory points
\nagain<\/i>. If this happens, the game might be decided.<\/p>\n

\"ChariotIs this a design mistake? Many reviewers think so. I
\ndo not agree. If you want to win Britannia you must know the victory condition of your
\npeoples and those of your enemies by heart. Therefore it can be very frustrating to play
\nBritannia with seasoned players if you aren’t one yourself. The random turn order
\nmakes for different gameplay every time. Then, all Britannia clones allow for
\nunhistorical alliances (which are probably unintended by the designer). In Chariot Lords,
\nit’s not as easy as this. For example, Sumer needs the Babylon once as victory
\ncondition but is usually too weak to conquer it single-handed. So Assur (same colour and
\ntherefore player!) can do it for them. But if Assur conquers Babylon and withdraws, the
\nred player can’t be sure about the turn order. Perhaps the Elam chit is drawn first
\nand moves in …<\/p>\n

Last major difference: There is no area-based population growth in Chariot Lords. For
\neach two counters you lose, you may revive one (and kill the other for ever). This makes
\nfor much faster gameplay too.<\/p>\n

Chariot Lords plays different from other Britannia clones. It can be frustrating if
\none player just wins because he was once very lucky with the turn order. But the others
\ncan still gang up and stop him after all. The additional random element of Chariot Lords
\ndoes really have it advantages. I’ve played Chariot Lords more often than any other
\nBritannia clone in the last couple of years simply because it’s a new experience
\nevery time.<\/p>\n

Appendix: The Nubian problem<\/i><\/h5>\n

Please forget what you could read earlier on this web page. In fact, the
\nrules are quite clear about this case too. 9.4 states:<\/p>\n

“Certain nations
\nenter play by invading stated areas. Place the units in the chosen
\nareas and then move normally that turn (they are not required to leave
\ntwo units behind for every other nation’s unit in the area that they
\ninvaded). If all invading units cannot enter the map, then they may
\nwait off-map.”<\/i><\/p>\n

So the eight Nubians suddenly appear in Thebaid. They can move three
\nareas without hindrance, and so they threaten any Egyptian area
\n(Thebaid, Upper E., Lower E., Naucratis, On are all within 3 spaces
\nfrom Thebaid). If you take this rule litterally, only those units can
\nwait off-map which CANNOT enter. Therefore, no voluntary waiting for
\nPiye.<\/p>\n

We’ve obviously always played this wrong (with other invasions as
\nwell) but it’s probably mostly important for the Nubians. I do like
\nthis rule and can’t wait to see it live in our next game of Chariot
\nLords.<\/p>\n

And thanks to Charles Vasey for all his patience with me till I
\nfinally understood what he had clearly stated in the rules :-)<\/p>\n

\n
<\/form>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chariot Lords reviewed by Peter Riedlberger Chariot Lords is a Britannia clone situated in the ancient Middle East. Like all Britannia games, Chariot Lords has each player lead a “team” of different peoples which do not actually belong or work together (at least not officially) but add up their victory points. So, the white player … Chariot Lords<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":5,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}