Towers of Conquest, Game Revisited

This is a follow-up to the review of Towers of Conquest I reviewed back on July 6, 2016.

I originally played Towers of Conquest at Salt Lake Gaming Convention as a prototype. When we played it then, the developers Troy Banks and Joshua Chinsky told us they figured it was still about a year out from production. This year, 2018, at SaltCon (website and Facebook page) Towers of Conquest was present some final play testing for the work they had put into it.

As a disclaimer, I would like to let you know that after SaltCon this year I was contacted by Troy Bank and was hired as an editor of the rule book. This has also given me more insight into the changes I noticed from playing Towers of Conquest.

The Original Review

I provided a link to the review I wrote in 2016 above. But, to summarize, I enjoyed the game. I’ve always enjoyed a good strategy game, and this is one.

Along with the written review, there was a film crew working on a documentary about artists at conventions who recorded an on-the-spot review from me and one of the other players, Zack Gardner (Tower’s website with video review). Zack is one of my “spies” at local conventions who steers me to games he’s enjoyed. He is also the person who got me to play Towers of Conquest.

The Differences I’m Seeing

Towers of Conquestplayed well before. The differences are polish.

Play has been expanded to include five players. This was something they were talking about doing, but they wanted to make sure to maintain the balance of the game. I didn’t sit in on a five player game, but I watched one. Troy and Josh succeeded in maintaining the balance.

They included a variant that was not originally part of the game in laying out the game board. In fact, we had talked about this before we played the game in 2016 and our group at the table was the first one to give that option a play-test. It seems to have worked out, since I saw that as part of the rules.

I don’t know if it was a difference, but the rules are still sleek. They allow for solid strategy play without constant referencing. I’ve mentioned before how I like strategy games with simple rules. The developers of Towers of Conquest told me originally, and recently again, they focused on keeping the rules simple instead of having a number of situational rules needed during game play.

Art

Towers of Conquest has great art and miniatures. Over the time they have been refining the game, they continued refining their artwork. I was shown how the figures were altered to give more durable pieces. They are stunning pieces and I heard more than one player at SaltCon mention how they would like to use the figures in their role-playing game.

Coming up

Troy and Josh are putting on the final touches on presentation. The game is a solid real time strategy game. They are publishing the game through BC Games and will be launching a Kickstarter campaign on May 5, 2018.

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