I have technically played Pendragon before when I sat down to learn the game (which you can read about here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/learning-pendragon), but the first half of that game was with the aid of the playbook guiding all my actions and the second half was a fairly chaotic mess of indecision. I have since sat down and played the game for myself and I’m much more comfortable with playing it, but still feel a little out of my depth strategically. It is a real testament to the quality of the Pendragon playbook that I was able to complete my playthrough of the game without having read the rulebook. Sure, I referenced the rulebook fairly regularly – looking up specific rules and double checking how actions worked in specific situations – but I was able to play two entire Epochs without having to read the rules cover to cover. That’s impressive no matter what the game is, but doubly so with something as complicated as Pendragon. I intend to read the rules before tackling a full-length six Epoch game as there are definitely elements I still don’t fully understand, such as specifics of how the degradation of Roman rule functions, and over a long game those will probably come up more. I will also need to know the rules a lot better before tackling the enormous task of teaching Pendragon to other people, especially if they are relative COIN novices like myself. That all having been said, my experience playing a game of Pendragon was fascinating and I can’t wait to set it up again.
This time I situated the board so I wasn’t trying to constantly read it upside down, which helped a lot when I had to locate provinces for certain event effects. I am also slowly learning the names of the Roman regions.
I played four handed solitaire, meaning I played all four factions without the solo-play bots that come with the game. The bots add a whole extra layer of complexity and challenge that I didn’t need when I’m still coming to terms with the basics of how to play. When I finished my learning game, I felt relatively comfortable taking actions as the Scotti and Saxons but not comfortable implementing a winning strategy with anyone. Now having finished my first full game I think I have a better idea how to win those two factions, including the subtle differences in their respective goals – the Saxons want to actually settle in Britain while the Scotti mostly just want to plunder – but I’m still a bit adrift when it comes to the Civitates and Dux.
A lucky event early in the game gives the Saxons a foothold in the south-east of England, while a similar event for the Scotti gives them control of part of Wales. The barbarians have landed.
I have a much better idea how to stop the Civitates and Dux from winning – which is a very important part of the game. The Dux player begins the very first turn already winning the game and the Civitates aren’t far off winning themselves, if they can just switch to Civilian rule at the first Epoch they would win. However, both sides have to maintain that control through at least 9 rounds of play – assuming the Epoch is very early – and it is up to the other factions to find ways to tear them down. My learning game saw the Dux claim victory even though I had no idea how to effectively execute a strategy with the Dux – and I’m still not sure I could do that now – just based entirely on the strength of their opening position. This game I managed to effectively tear the Dux position to shreds but undermining the Civitates proved to be more troublesome.
Some amazing Saxon rolls put down a huge number of raiders…
…who promptly destroy two Civitates’ towns - greatly reducing their numbers but enriching them to capacity.
At the start of the game the Dux win if the total wealth on Britain plus their individual prestige is high enough. They start with no prestige and can only reliably gain it through glorious battle with the barbarians, but the island is plenty wealthy. Eroding this wealth is pretty straightforward, as the Saxons and Scotti will be launching raids and bringing their plunder home to boost their own renown. Thus, if you can effectively execute a decent raiding strategy with those two factions bringing the Dux low, at least initially, isn’t too hard. When Rome begins to crumble and the victory thresholds shift, things can get a little more complicated, but I haven’t gotten there yet. The Civitates on the other hand win if they rule a large enough population. This can be eroded in two main ways early in the game – founding rival settlements as Scotti or Saxons, or if the Saxons ravage regions and reduce their population.
The first Epoch card arrives - nobody has secured victory so play continues.
The challenge with the Civitates isn’t that in the long term you don’t want to undermine their rule. Instead, it’s in the balance between playing for a long strategy and ensuring that they can’t win in the short term. Early on the Dux are motivated away from attacking the Civitates so it’s really up to the two barbarian players to bring them low. However, the temptation exists to just raid early on and collect renown, and not really trying to set down permanent settlements that the Dux could attack. However, if they neglect settling – or at least destroying Civitates settlements – too much then they run the risk of not doing enough to prevent the Civitates from winning. In my game I did a tolerable job at undercutting Civitates rule, but in the end, they were still able to eek out a win on the end game scoring with a massive score of 5 points.
The dice for generating Saxon raiders were absolutely on fire this game - they once again established a huge presence in the southeast.
What I find fascinating about Pendragon is how it balances this need to undercut your enemies’ chance of winning with the desire to pursue your own goals. This is hardly the first game to require players to police their rivals victory conditions, but often other games that do this can get a bit petty and miserable. Towards the end of a round players sometimes find themselves discussing openly how to kneecap whoever is closest to winning. Now, I’m playing solo so obviously I’m not having those conversations anyway, but while I could see players discussing who is winning in Pendragon the random play of events and the limitations on how many actions you can take makes it much harder for everyone to construct a clear plan for an alliance all against one player.
The Saxons successfully settle an alarmingly high number of raiders, giving them control of their second region and fulfilling their victory condition for this scenario. The Dux are amassing at the border to deal with this problem. Meanwhile the Scotti have built a second settlement in the northwest.
Also, the victory conditions can turn on a dime, so any such alliance will barely last more than a turn or two. In my game the Saxons had a strong lead for almost the whole game, establishing an early foothold in the southeast thanks to a lucky event and then expanding rapidly with amazing rolls for numbers of raiders. They seemed unstoppable, but a strong alliance of Civitates and Dux crushed them near the end of the second Epoch. However, that alliance had caused them to neglect the Scotti who probably would have won – except that an early second Epoch card prevented them from fulfilling their strategy. Actions like kingmaking or ganging up on players seem like they can only last a few turns before the shifting state of the game throws up new challenges that everyone tries to turn to their advantage.
The second Epoch arrives, but not before the Civitates and Dux manage to crush one of the Saxon settlements. The Scotti were just about to return their raiders and very likely build a third settlement in the north possibly clinching a victory. As it is, no faction achieved its victory on their own merits but the Civitates achieve a final score of 5, just edging out the Scotti’s score of 2.
I’ve still only played the game as far as the second epoch from an early game start, so I have yet to even begin to really explore Pendragon’s most fascinating and noteworthy mechanic: how it models the decline and eventual collapse of Roman rule in Britain. For my next game I think I might try one of the scenarios that starts a bit later to see what a more fragmented Britain plays like, but to get the full experience I suspect I’ll need to somehow find the time to play a much longer game. The two epochs I played took me at least three hours, time I secured by being off work with my daughter in daycare. As I learn the game I’ll play faster, but I still expect it will be a while before I have the time to play a full six epoch game of Pendragon. In the meantime, I will keep chipping away at its strategic depths, and maybe by the time I play the full game I’ll finally understand how the hell to play the Dux.
Recommended Reading:
This area isn’t really my specialty, so I don’t have a list of recommendations, but I did recently review King Arthur: The Making of the Legend by Nicholas J. Higham which includes a lot of interesting detail about this period of British history while exploring the myth of a historic King Arthur. You can read my full review of it here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/king-arthur-the-making-of-a-legend