A diplomatic mission to the neighbors

Since my move I'm now pretty much in between the cities of Kuopio and Varkaus, which means I can extend my gaming to two cities comfortably. I've been around the same table with a group from Varkaus before on a couple of occasions so I contacted them and I went there to play a game and say hi.

The game was Warlords of Europe, which I have never heard of before. It's something between Risk and Axis & Allies loosely set in medieval Europe. In this game, the Rus, the Britons, the Hispanics and the Byzantines started off from the four corners of the map. The goal of the game is to initially gain ground by pillaging the countryside. Eventually the players' interests will conflict and your usual Axis & Allies type dicefest ensues. The winner is who gains control of more than half of the castles in the game.

It makes for an entertaining evening's worth of play, but there is one weakness which puts this game behind games like Risk 2210 AD. There is no turn limit to the game which combined with no resource exhaustion makes for a potentially infinite game. When one player gains a strong position, the others can gang up and put him in his place. In the end we decided to resolve the situation by agreeing to end the game at one point with the player with the most castles being declared the winner.  

Not an instant hit this one, but we had quite a few laughs and I had a great time.