presentation

Defense Three Kingdoms

strategy in conflict

As strategist of the Shu, you defend your country against Wei and Wu factions. Cards in the game are Enemy cards and various Ally cards - character, formation, stratagem and base cards. Base cards are on display, enemy cards are stacked and your marker on the National Power track begins at value 20. Allies Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei plus two allies drawn from the stack are your starting hand.

In a turn, you play five phases: 1. Enemy - you draw three enemy cards, one by one, and place them next to a base card. 2. Placement - you play characters or formation from your hand next to a base, also stratagem cards for the round. If you want to exchange cards from your hand, you discard x cards, reduce your national power by one and draw x cards. 3. Movement - you move characters from bases to another base, by one base to the left or to the right. 4. Combat at all bases with enemies, by comparison of enemy and ally cards at the base; damage caused by enemies reduces your national power. 5. End of turn with discarding and drawing of cards for your hand.

When there are enemy cards left at bases, a new turn starts; if not, you have won the game. However, if your national power drops to zero during the game, you have lost immediately.

In a 2-player game one player plays the allies, the other the enemies and begins with five cards from the enemy stack.

Defense Three Kingdoms is more a tactical than a strategic game, and tactic is influenced strongly by the luck of the draw for distribution of enemy strength - all the same this is an interesting solitaire game; in a game of two players, the enemy player is rather passive.

Players: 1-2

Age: 10+

Time: 15+

Designer: Yoshiyuki Arai

Artist: hidepp

Price: ca. 12 Euro

Publisher: Kakinotane Firm / Japon Brand 2016

Web: www.japonbrand.com

Genre: Cards, conflict

Users: With friends

Special: 1 player

Special: 2 players

Version: en

Rules: en + de fr jp

In-game text: no

Comments:

Good solitaire game

Tactic heavily influenced by luck of the draw

Each game is different

Enemy player not sufficiently challenged

Compares to:

Asymmetrical defense games

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 0

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0