Wheel of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time® – Solo Mode

We’re approaching the final days of War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time^® on Kickstarter, and like all the best stories there are some twists at the end! Today we’re looking at the much-requested Solo Mode, and how you can go it alone in the Westlands.

During this Kickstarter campaign, we’ve heard so much from all of you about things you hope to see in the game. And clearly, a lot of you are interested in a solo game mode! We explored Solo Mode as a third game mode alongside Hero and Epic during the development process, but had shelved it for a while; War of the Dragon is a more complex game than some of Dire Wolf’s other titles, so automating a player – especially the only opponent a solo player would have – is a tricky proposition. But enough people have expressed interest during the Kickstarter that we decided to take another look, and over the past few weeks we’ve fleshed out a Solo mode including new components for those lone heroes out there to enjoy. Let’s take a look at how it works.

Good vs Evil

When playing Solo, the player always takes the side of the Light, guiding the heroes of the saga to thwart the Dark One and his evil forces. Solo play uses Hero Mode for its baseline rules; this means that you’ll spend three Chapters grappling with the Shadow across the Westlands, and then face final scoring to determine your fate.

In a Solo game, you will choose one of 13 cards to represent your “opponent” – each depicting one of the Forsaken, naturally! Each one has a special effect to start the game, shifting the starting conditions and giving you something different to grapple with or worry about. Each Forsaken also has a major ability to spend their resources on during the game, so watch out!

Let the Lord of Chaos Rule

Your turns as the Light work the same as in Hero Mode; you play your card, you take your action. But on the opponent’s turn, you’ll flip a card from a special deck which details where your opponent puts their action pawn, what actions they take and resources they gain – and most importantly, how they try to take over the world.

This core structure will be familiar to solo players of Dune: Imperium or Dune: Imperium – Uprising, which use a similar system to operate rival players via the House Hagal deck. This was a solid base to start from when tackling War of the Dragon, but it wasn’t the entire solution. While an automated opponent can collect crowns and allies easily enough, navigating the map presented a new kind of challenge. In order for the Shadow to play the same game as the player, we needed some new tactics.

Because your Forsaken opponent won’t have the strategic mind of a player, they instead have a new way of attacking the map, called a takeover. A takeover targets an entire region, snatching up any neutral territory there – and bringing in a leader to fight for more.

As long as the Shadow holds a region, any subsequent takeovers there will spill out into a neighboring region, spreading their influence across the map. You’ll have to maneuver to take back regions before things get out of hand – just like you would against a human opponent. And at the end of each Chapter, you’ll score the banners (and corruption) on the map for both sides, just like you do in a normal game.

In addition to takeovers, there are other points when the rules of Solo Mode will determine where your opponent acts – like when corrupting cities or recovering their characters. The map is a dynamic play space, and we want to make sure the Shadow uses it dynamically, so that you always have something new to react to.

Playing for Two

While your Forsaken opponent is fighting you on the map, they’ll also be gathering cards for their Pattern, building up leaders, and advancing their Wheel track – all the things that earn points in Hero Mode. They’ll accumulate crowns and Power cards, which they use to strengthen their attacks against you, gain bonuses on their actions, and to trigger the special ability on the Forsaken card. All of these things rely on you to manage their player board, but all the decisions and directions are provided by the cards.

All of this progress won’t just power up the Shadow’s play during the game. After the three Chapters are done, you will score the game using the actual points earned from your tracks and comparing your Patterns and leaders, just like you would against another player. Having the Shadow player score points in normal ways, rather than just including a VP target for the end of the game, means that a solo game will look and feel more like a standard game.

With 13 different Forsaken opponents, not to mention the variety that comes from the depth of cards that may be flipped and which actions may be taken, there’s a lot to experience when playing Solo. But if that’s not enough of a challenge, we’re also including extra difficulty modifiers to really turn up the heat. It might not always be fair, but nobody said the Forsaken were interested in fairness!

If you think you can handle one Forsaken, how about…two?!

Just One More Thing

Now, we said above that there will be 13 Forsaken opponent cards for you to play against. But the thing is, it’s fun to be able to provide backers who are here for the campaign to get a little something extra. All pledges will receive (one per each copy of War of the Dragon in your pledge) one extra rival card representing, arguably, the smartest opponent you could face… or at least he thinks so.

Narg: Exclusive to Kickstarter!

The Wheel Turns

Solo Mode is still in development, but it’s already a lot of fun to play! For those of you who are solo-first gamers or just want the option to relive The Wheel of Time in your own time, thanks for letting us know this was important to you. We hope that you’ll enjoy it just as much as you do the rest of War of the Dragon!