Liege Lords: Seasons

Inspired by the 1968 film The Lion in Winter and the biblical story of David and Bathsheba, we've added a progression of seasons to Liege Lords. Ok, so we really were just looking for a way to slow down the turn order so players wouldn't be reassigning turn order every five minutes, but there's still some truth to it.

The problem: as it stands, each player moves only a small number of armies each round, which ends up making rounds pass rather quickly, which makes rolling for turn order a repetitive nuisance. The solution? Break down a round into phases that allow a player several different options at each phase and that also allow for more combat in each round.

The game "year" starts with a roll-off for turn order. You can spend your resources in various ways to give yourself an advantage in the pecking order--we don't want it to be completely random, and you'll need to spend those shiny Gold pieces on something. Once turn order is assigned, we begin in Spring. The ground thawing. Fields being plowed. Green growing things. Armies preparing for the coming season of war! In Spring you can levee new armies and/or send them off for a round or two of combat. Most likely there will be at least one more option for Spring activities, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

Summer is the season of war. All players will be allowed to move more armies than they can normally. In short, you can attack some in Spring, but Summer is the primary attack phase.

With Autumn comes the harvest. Any lands that have not levee'd an Army will produce their goods, thereby supplying our players with the Gold they'll need for their further exploits. Autumn also gives players one last round of combat before the snows fall and Armies rest, although moving Armies is Autumn will come at a cost to goods production.

With little to do in Winter but wait for the thaw, players will be able to spend their saved and newly aquired Gold to purchase upgrades to their war capabilities, to purchase a chance at extra Nobility points by throwing a gala ball and seeing who shows up, or to save their Gold in preparation for the coming initiative rolls of the next "year."