The Dummy Player Is Either Fine or the Whole Problem

Never read the books, haven’t seen the newer movies all the way through, so I came into this purely on hype and the promise of worker placement smashed into deckbuilding, two mechanics I already love separately. It delivers. Every agent placement is a real decision, hold this card for the reveal phase or play it now, and the tension of not knowing what everyone else is going to do to the board before your next turn actually lands.

Here’s my whole hangup though, and it’s a two player problem specifically, you need a dummy player to fill out the board at that count, and the internet is split down the middle on it. Some people say the dummy is fine, minimal upkeep, keeps the intensity up. Plenty of others flat out say they hate dummy players in general and this one doesn’t change their mind, one review I saw put it bluntly, the bot doesn’t feel like an opponent, it feels like a blocking mechanism. I land somewhere in between, it’s not offensive, but I noticed the game gets meaningfully better once you add a third real person, the AI event deck just can’t replace an actual rival scheming against you.

Now the kingmaker angle, because with combat this direct somebody eventually gets to decide who wins just by picking which fight to pile into near the end. I’ve seen it happen, a player who’s mathematically out of it throws their last troops behind whoever they like better, and that’s basically unavoidable once conflicts get contested this hard down the stretch. It never ruined a game for me, but it’s there, especially in longer four hour sessions where grudges have had time to form.

Price stings a little too, I paid close to fifty bucks and there’s a fair amount of empty space rattling around in that box for what you get. Still, the mechanics are tight enough and the replay value high enough that I don’t regret it, this is one I’d happily play again at three or four before I’d set it up as a two player night.