Eketorp

Eketorp is an iron-age fort in Sweden that still stands – partially – to this day. Eketorp the game imagines the players back at the time of its construction, fighting each other for building materials in order to construct their own fort.

The board shows the rural landscape the players – representing tribes – hope to build on. The footprints are ready and each fort site is accessible by both land and water. Players take command of a fort and begin building, by sending their Vikings to the material fields to collect ‘bricks’ – the bricks are made of grass (value 1), wood (2), clay (3), and stone (4). But where the Vikings go is decided secretly, so if more than one of them is after the same thing a fight breaks out. In fact, often you’ll be attempting to steal bricks directly from an opponent’s burgeoning fort, in which case there will certainly be a battle (even if they’ve left it unoccupied). The battles are fought using cards, and the cardplay has an interesting twist to it: both players choose a card secretly and reveal simultaneously. Cards are valued from 1-6. The winner is the higher number: if that’s the attacker, they get to steal a brick (or bricks) from the fort, equal to the value of the difference between the two cards (an empty fort still has a card played for it, but always scores a zero). The defeated Viking heads off to the hospital, temporarily out of commission.

But – having finished battle, the players now swap cards – the winner takes the loser’s card and vice versa, so picking and choosing your fights is absolutely key in Eketorp. Having resolved all battles, players carry their bricks back to their forts to add them to the construction, and a new round begins with more bricks being placed as dictated by a materials card – one is played at the start of every turn.

The game ends either after ten rounds, or sooner if anybody manages to complete their fort (that’s 18 bricks in place!)