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The King is dead, and all are making their play for power. From the depths of the kingdom, armies are on the move, castles are being fortified, and war is in the air. The General and the Heir, the Fiend and the Vizier, the Barbarian and the Dark One — all prepare to take the land by force. Only the bold shall survive in this realm of heroes!
Realm of Heroes is a strategy game based in Western fantasy in which players build castles and recruit heroes to fight for their cause. Players not only move against each other, but also must deal with an evolving board that can derail the best laid plans. Using minimal luck, Realm of Heroes is a game in which a player on top can find himself in a rapidly collapsing position.
After the map is set up (either by scenario or at random), each player places his leader and a tower on the map. During a player's turn, existing plague may spread to nearby locations. Second, unsupported heroes die and are replaced by plague. Third, players may reinforce their position by placing or upgrading units on the map. Finally, players move some, none or all of their heroes around the map to capture more territory, destroy other heroes and capture the other players' leaders to win the game.
Do you have what it takes to emerge victorious in this Realm of Heroes?
GAMA 2015 - Mr. B Games
- Quick player elimination prevents long waits.
- No dice or luck involved, purely strategic.
- Interesting upgrade paths for characters and buildings.
- Zone of control mechanic adds strategic depth.
- Rival families ascending to the crown after the king's passing.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Controlling territories is key, with zones of control projected by buildings like towers and castles.
- combat resolution — Combat is resolved by comparing the strength numbers on characters; higher numbers win.
- Plague — Flipped characters become plague, which spreads in areas without characters or buildings and can be contained by moving into those spaces.
- Player Elimination — The objective is to take out all other leaders, leading to player elimination.
- Resource Management — Players need enough fields in their area to support their characters' strength, otherwise, they perish.
- Upgrade system — Players can upgrade buildings (to wizard keeps or castles) and recruit/train soldiers (path of magic or sword).
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we've got little green tiles and then I saw these Warriors and soldiers and I realized no no this is going to be a little more bloody than that
- everything is straight on your turn you get one upgrade and you get one action that's it
- if a character dies in the game let's say somebody had a peasant over here right and they weren't able to support and support means in their area you have to have enough Fields equal to their strength if you don't then they perish
- there's always player elimination you're not looking at sitting out for like another half an hour while the rest of people have fun and keep playing
- this is more of a work replacement game
- all the choices are really really good that's the pain is trying
- Foundry it makes one unit of Steel every turn for the rest of theame Perman production
References (from this video)
- Has a fan-created Steam version
- Designer still plays it and considers it a great game
- Did not do well commercially
- Does not have great ratings on Board Game Geek
- Was mismarketed
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It is probably everything you would hate in a game.
- It's an area control game where you're trying to accomplish the various goals.
- The app the app's I think's really good.
- It's just really really clever.
- My favorite push your luck game.
- And inevitably, your guys will starve to death on the way or freeze to death.
- Man, I just love this game.
- It's a worker placement game, but you build out all these rooms in this castle or whatever and each one has different abilities that can happen there.
- Ponzi scheme. I'll I'll be really quick on this one.
- It's a bluffing bidding game in that sense.
- There's lots of those what I call laugh out loud moments where you just where you you call your dear friend some horrible name for the insulting offer that you accept because you have to
- It's a system um for basically doing it's almost like uh DMless Dungeons and Dragons, you know, in a in a board game.
- The entirety of the rule set for this game is one page long.
- It adds official cooperative rules.
- this is my favorite expansion.
- It is a true 100% sandbox in that regard.
- The win condition is voting because you're trying to become the new headmaster of the school or whatever.