Fjordar is live (Claim the Norwegian throne)
Update: Fjordar is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 29 days. You may pledge for a copy of the game, and even arrange for local pickup if you happen to be in Bergen around this time next year.
Our preview post below was published on May 27.
Fjordar is a 1-4 player area control game in which you are vying for power and the succession of the throne during the medieval Norwegian civil war (1130-1240). It will launch on Kickstarter on May 28.
Your goal in the game is to score the most victory points by battling your opponents, retrieving your heirs from locations across the map, build churches and ships, and light beacons. Each turn consists of 5 phases: Playing a Movement card, Movement, Battle, Location Actions, and End of Turn.
All players start with the same 4 Movement cards, plus one leader movement card that is unique to each player. On your turn, you must play exactly one Movement card. The first two cards you play are free, but in subsequent turns, moving will cost you gold. Movement cards give you movement points that you can spend to move your units and ships from one location to another. Previously played cards are kept face-up on the table, and their movement points stack up. Their effect takes place in the Movement phase. If, during your movement, you come across an enemy unit, you must stop there and fight them.
Battles are resolved by comparing the strength of the units and playing battle cards. First, you check the rank of your soldiers (Hird are stronger than Leidang) and total up their strength. Then, you choose a battle card from your hand and play it against your opponent. The highest total battle strength wins, and the winner gets to place a cube on the location to mark its control.
After Movement and possibly Battle, you can do one Location Action per unit you have on the board. If you are in a forest, you can pay gold to build a ship. You remove the forest from the board, and place a ship in one of the sea areas closest to that forest. You may also found a village or build a church: you once again remove the forest, and either place a village there, or pay gold and place a church token. Both actions earn you VPs. Other possible actions are: receive tax from a village, light a beacon, and move an heir from a castle to another castle that you control. At the End of the Turn, you draw an Event card, and resolve it. When a player reaches 50 VPs, the game ends and final scoring takes place.
In the solo mode, you are playing against an AI with its own deck of cards. Your goal is to take back the land they have conquered. On the AI's turn, you draw one of its cards and perform its actions. The difficulty level can be adjusted.