Quit a few weeks ago Corax Games a new game with Dragon Dale. It is the publisher's most ambitious game to date and was developed in close work with game designer Peter Kuhn. The highly asymmetrical strategy game will be launched at Spieleschmiede on December 7th. We received a prototype of the highly anticipated expert game from Corax Games and are presenting it to you in our Crowdfunding preview .
INFO: We're covering the game's prototype here. The final product may therefore contain various changes. The prototype was available to us as an English version - therefore, individual terms in our article may differ from the German version of the game, which can be purchased at the Spieleschmiede.
In a land full of strange magic lives a powerful spirit dragon. He lives on magical trees that are spread across the country, but four peoples covet these trees. The Celts want to prepare for the coming winter and use the wood from these trees to build their huts and keep warm. The Viking ships, on the other hand, have crashed on the jagged rocks on the coast and have to be repaired with the wood of the trees. The dark fairy Maeve is held captive by the power of the trees. In order to gain freedom, she wants to put a curse on the trees. The Druids, once part of the Celts, want to protect the trees and bless them so that they can withstand any danger. Each people has their own goals, but the dragon dislikes the great interest in his magical trees...
Asymmetry at its best
As the story of Dragon Dale suggests, we can expect a highly asymmetrical strategy game here. Here each player takes on one of four factions, Vikings, Celts, Druids & the dark fairy Maeve, each of which has its own goal around the magical trees. In addition, they all have different units and skills and therefore play differently. The game is played until a faction has four victory points at the beginning of its turn and therefore leaves the game victorious. Alternatively, the game ends as soon as the dragon wandering through the land reaches the last space of the dominance track or there is no unaffected tree left on the board. The person with the most victory points at that point in time wins.
We receive victory points by fulfilling our goals through the trees (2 victory points per tree), by having the upper hand in areas with rune stones and by defeating the spirit dragon (1 victory point each). We only have the latter until our next turn, as the spirit dragon can never be finally defeated and always returns to the field. During the game, we try to move our units slowly inland and keep the dragon calm or aggressive towards us, depending on our wishes. We try to influence the trees as much as possible and secure the victory points we have collected.
However, this is not that simple. Since a faction only wins at the beginning of its turn with four victory points, Dragon Dale offers an interesting mix of strategies that requires a lot of advance planning. Our hard-earned points can easily be lost thanks to our opponents. If we have four victory points at the end of our turn, our opponents are happy to do everything they can to change this.
Covert movement
In general, Dragon Dale relies on a movement concept that has never been seen in combination before. All of our units always move face down until they are revealed. Our opponents therefore never know which units we may use to advance. Are they the strong leaders or just the weaker standard units. If we want to fight against someone else, it has to be carefully considered.
In addition, units cannot simply be moved from A to B. Each terrain has a specific terrain type that affects unit movement. For example, units in Mist Valley can only leave the area together with other units and they can only be placed in different areas. This means that our trains have to be planned even more precisely. What type of unit do you put where? What is the best way to achieve the goal I have set for myself? In Dragon Dale you have to face many mental puzzles, because even the smallest mistake could be punished.
Hard asymmetry, clearly designed
During our practice rounds, Root by Leder Games often came to mind. Sure, because Root also has different factions with different goals and abilities. But unlike Root, every stem follows the same basic structure. A turn is divided into 6 phases: Start of the round, main actions, racial effect, dragon movement, dragon reaction & new orders. The only difference here is the racial effect, which is always activated after the main actions. Since each step is indicated individually on the personal tableaus, you can get into the game a little quicker than with Root.
After just a few rounds you'll get the hang of it, also because the main actions are basically quite simple. In the main action phase we can choose two of four actions: explore, plan, play a card and use a power increase. While we can only choose Explore as a first action, we can only use Plan as a second action. The rest of the actions can be performed as either a first or second action. As we explore, we move our units around the map; When planning, we take all the cards from our discard pile into our hand; When increasing power, we draw the top two cards from the boost pile and choose a card - this goes into the discard pile; and when playing a card, we play a card from our hand.
Every action is clearly described and every card is well explained. The high complexity of Dragon Dale comes from the fact that you have to think carefully about how and when to use and combine these actions.
Great awe of the dragon
The dragon moves across the playing field once per round. The dragon is a powerful creature whose strength depends on how angry the dragon is with our people. This can be seen on the so-called “Fury bar”. Depending on which race we play, it may be an advantage for us to appease or anger the dragon. Because with his anger we increase our combat strength for certain command cards of our units.
Where he moves is decided based on cards. Depending on which card was drawn, he moves in the inner or outer ring - marked by the areas outlined in light blue - into the adjacent area. We should therefore coordinate our moves with the movement of the kite. Here we have to assess how likely it is that it will move into our area and trigger an encounter or fight against it. If we are prepared well enough, this can even be an advantage for us, because some people need the dragon to fulfill their goal.
Probably the most ambitious project from Corax Games
Dragon Dale is probably Corax Games' most ambitious project and was developed in close collaboration with author Peter Kuhn. In our test games we were really impressed by the innovative game design that none of us had ever experienced before. At first it was a little difficult to get used to the game and its peoples, but after the first rounds the game flowed well and was a lot of fun.
It should be mentioned that Dragon Dale is not for casual gamers or for people who aren't into hard-core strategy. You have to like getting into the game and developing strategies in advance during the game and reacting to setbacks with new ideas, because Dragon Dale is exactly that: a big strategy cracker in which good foresight and planning is essential and the one a lot of fun. The replay value is also enormous, as you can always try out new play styles with the four different factions.
The game starts on December 07th game forge. You can find more information about the game on the Corax Games Facebook page.
Information about Dragon Dale
| Number of players: 2 – 4 Age: from 14 years Playing time: 90 - 180 minutes Difficulty: Expert game Classification: Area Control, Hidden Movement, Hand Management Author: Peter Kuhn Illustrations: Esther Sanz, Gaston Santibanez Engemann, Mehdi Merrouche Publisher: Corax Games Official Website: Link Link to the campaign: game forge Campaign start: December 07, 2023 |
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