{"id":3671,"date":"2004-09-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-15T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/09\/15\/vikingfury\/"},"modified":"2004-09-15T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-09-15T10:00:00","slug":"vikingfury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/09\/15\/vikingfury\/","title":{"rendered":"Viking\nFury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Viking
\nFury<\/a><\/h2>\n

The Ragnar Brothers designed many interesting games (among them one of my favourites:
\n“History of the World”) , so I immediately ordered a copy of “Viking
\nFury”, their newest release. As always in their more recent games, the game material
\nis unusual and includes their “trademark”, a “tablecloth” game map. I
\noften read negative comments about the latter feature of their games, but fact is that I
\npersonally find the “cloth” map very practical: It always lies flat, is easily
\nfolded and stored, weighs little, looks nice, and the best feature: The counters stay
\nwhere they are on the map because of the added friction of the cloth! With the cloth come
\nwooden cubes, two decks of cards, and one counter sheet (printed on reasonably heavy
\nstock).<\/p>\n

The players take on the role of Viking longship “captains” in this game of
\ntrade, plunder and colonization. The game mixes abstract and historical elements into an
\nappealing whole, without using cumbersome rules. Let’s go into detail: Basically this
\nis a game of “action point management” (action points being the moves of your
\nlongship). The more efficiently you plan your travels the more VP’s you make (yes,
\nthis is a game where – not really surprisingly – the player with the most VPs wins in the
\nend. Do I really have to say it?).<\/p>\n

Each player commands one (only) longship represented by a card with empty spaces,
\nstarting in a generic “Wintering space”. Each of the empty spaces of your ship
\ncan be filled with either men (cubes in your colour) or goods (there are three different
\ngoods). Men are good for raiding and colonization, goods can be sold for immediate
\nVP’s at the various ports of the (mostly European) world. When you have filled up
\nyour ship you move into one of the three “Viking starting ports”, where you can
\nspend additional actions to draw “Rune”-cards (more about the role of the cards
\nlater on). Game actions (of which you have seven each turn) are divided into
\n“preparation actions” (drawing cards, placing men or goods) or “movement
\nactions”. They can be combined in any way, but the sum should never be more than
\nseven. You are never forced to set sail, but once you do you can only return to the
\nwintering space when having only one man left on board (this can be forced as well). You
\ncan deliberately throw everything over board though anytime, but returning to the
\nwintering space always ends your turn.<\/p>\n

\"VikingThe map depicts Europe and various ports valued from 2-5
\n– the graphics are slightly abstract and confusing, at first you might think that the
\nmainland is the sea and vice versa. Another problem is that the port spaces always need
\nto be seen as the number they bear is always important, but most of the time this number
\nis covered up by the counters you place on the ports. We ended up placing the counters
\nslightly to the side of the ports, but that is not an ideal solution.<\/p>\n

Ports are either grouped in threes or are “independent”. Some ports also
\nhave treasure, which is placed secretly at the beginning of the game. There are three
\nlarge treasures (8, 10 and 12 VP) and several “small” treasures (ranging from
\n3-6).<\/p>\n

Entering or leaving a port costs one movement point, travelling on the seas uses an
\ningenious system: There are 4 “general” sea zones (N, W, E, S), which have a
\ndifferent maximum movement allowance. You can go beyond this allowance any time, but
\ndoing so costs you men or goods (you decide which). In addition there is a “wind
\nrose” which can be turned every time you play or discard a Rune card (a fiddly rule
\neasily overlooked in the rule book) which gives bonuses or minuses to each sea zone. The
\nwind rose certainly sees a lot of action in the game, so it is usually a good idea to
\ntravel where others travel too, as this means that other players will care for good wind
\nconditions, in their interest…<\/p>\n

If you are at a port, you have three options:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Raiding (only possible at ports with treasure). Here you roll the dice to roll higher
    \nthan the port value, up to a maximum of three times. Each failed roll costs a man, when
    \nyou win, you get the treasure.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
  2. Trading. You can simply place a goods counter from your ship on the port you are on,
    \nfor immediate VP’s equal to the value of the port. After a port is “filled”
    \nup, these guys don’t want to trade anymore, but they are more prone to raiding and
    \ncolonization (the die roll becomes one easier). Also groups of ports want
    \ndifferent<\/b> goods each, so you better schlep a selection around to be flexible…<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
  3. Colonization. This works similarly to raiding, but here you decide how many dice you
    \nwant to roll beforehand<\/b>, up to three. If you are successful you place a cube (man)
    \nfrom your ship for potential big VP’s at the end of the game.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Depending on your goals these activities often result in the funny situation that you
    \nfirst soften up the natives with your goods, making them lazy and more susceptible for
    \nyour raid attack where you steal their treasure, and then you hit again and colonize
    \nthem! It’s a wonder the inhabitants of Europe put up with this for so long \"smiley\"\/.<\/p>\n

    Another incentive is the “Saga” cards, which I have not mentioned yet. These
    \nare similar to “missions”, for example “colonize these three ports”
    \nor “trade with these three ports”. The player who fulfils one of these missions
    \nimmediately gets the card, no matter who else was involved. This means that somebody who
    \ncolonizes two ports will get nothing if another player colonizes the decisive third and
    \nlast port!<\/p>\n

    The Saga cards essentially drive the game forward as they give a LOT of VP’s at
    \nthe end- they also run through three stages – The longships get bigger if a new stage is
    \nreached, recreating the historically increasing seamanship of the Vikings. There are
    \nnever all Saga cards in play (some are randomly removed before play), so if you sneakily
    \ntrade with faraway port “triplets”, hoping to fulfil their mission later on,
    \nyour plan might be foiled by the simple fact that this specific mission never appears!
    \nPlayer interaction is mostly “racing” for specific ports or goals, direct
    \ncombat is normally not possible. The “Rune” cards bring some spice in the game,
    \nas they allow you specific rules bending actions which also might involve attacking
    \nalready occupied locations. Some of the cards are extremely strong though – There is one
    \ncard which can effectively cost another player up to 20 VP without the card-playing
    \nplayer having anything to do but play the card. This seems unfair and is certainly an
    \ninvitation for “kingmaking”, so we would recommend simply removing the cards
    \nthat seem to harsh or unfair from the game. The majority of the cards work well
    \nthough.<\/p>\n

    The game ends three turns after the three last possible missions have appeared or been
    \n“solved”. Now each player gets more VP’s: Each colonized port is worth
    \nit’s value, or double it’s value when two ports of a “triplet” are
    \noccupied, or triple value when three ports of a triplet are occupied. Each mission card
    \nis worth 10 if you have the most of a series (Denmark, Sweden or Norway). Finally owning
    \nthe most treasures gives an additional 3 points per treasure.<\/p>\n

    In our first gaming the scoring was wide off – the winner ended up with more than
    \ndouble the VP’s than the other players, but this is partly the “Rune”-cards
    \nfault. Future games might be closer…<\/p>\n

    We found this game to be a lot of fun – all 4 players felt totally absorbed by the
    \ngame. There was no feeling of “downtime” as everybody desperately tried to find
    \nthe best routes to fulfil the most goals in their head when it was not their turn. The
    \nrules are neither too simple nor too complicated, and the game plays astonishingly
    \n“epic” in a relatively short time (we played 2 \u00bd hours with 4 newbie players,
    \nan additional half hour was spent with explaining the rules). Don’t misunderstand me:
    \nThis is by no means a short, quick game, but if you compare it with monsters like
    \n“History of the World” or even the overrated “Mare Nostrum”
    \nyou’ll find this game a breeze. All testers were sure about wanting to play the game
    \nagain, which is usually a very good sign. I personally think it is one of the
    \nRagnar’s best designs to date, although the “Rune” cards remain a slight
    \ndisappointment. There is a luck element with the roll of the dice, but usually your
    \nchances are pretty calculable when playing carefully, so it didn’t disturb us that
    \nmuch.<\/p>\n

    Westpark-score: 7.75<\/p>\n

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

    Viking Fury The Ragnar Brothers designed many interesting games (among them one of my favourites: “History of the World”) , so I immediately ordered a copy of “Viking Fury”, their newest release. As always in their more recent games, the game material is unusual and includes their “trademark”, a “tablecloth” game map. I often read … Viking
    \nFury<\/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-3671","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\/3671","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=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}