I have not played any horde games and cannot find a lot of info on the site.

I get a general idea of how it works but I am not sure if the concept is applied the same across boards or is every board different.

Though there is no reason that it should have to, I am not aware a WarGear board that doesn't apply the 'hordes' production paradigm across the entire board.

Hordes Style Bonus is when you get a bonus (usually +1) for owning a territory, and all the territories connected to that one as well (or all the surrounding territories as well)

If you lose one of the surrounding territories, you no longer get the bonus. 

It's a simple mechanic that encourages the player to amass contiguous territories to create strength. 

As with all boards on this site, everyone is different.  But if a designer has claimed an area or board to have hordes! style bonuses the mechanic will work the same: Hold a territory and all it surrounding territories.

To m57:

Escherdiles uses the hordes mechanic but only for the lizards that are 2 dimensional (not the 3d ones), the rest of the board is continent style bonuses.

You indicated that you understood the mechanics of hordes, but in addition to ratsy's description, I'll offer that the wiki also has a detailed description..

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_tutorials:tutorials:other_continents:other_continents#hordes

Good to know about Escherdiles.. thanks ratsy

Damn. Nice job on that wiki page. 

Thanks to both of you, I did see the wiki page, but I was not certain, for example, if the bonus was always +1 or could it be different and how you would figure it out on the Board Explorer if it was not noted in the Description page.

Yeah - It pretty much originated as an ad hoc term and has since morphed into a general descriptor.  I'd say that both +1 and across board implementation is implied unless noted otherwise.

I can't think of any boards that don't have +1, but it doesn't *have* to be -

Yertle has a couple boards where the HORDES! is within continental boundaries - Asheron's gear and that Isreal board  and 7 kingdoms -

Realistically, if you have anything more than a +1 bonus the amount of armies you get each turn gets waaay out of hand really fast!

think there are a number of boards that do a partial and/or selective Hordes-style, a few off the top of my head: Escherdiles (already mentioned), Of Kings and Men, Pangea and Panth...

I think hordes of north america also does the hordes per area thing.

ratsy wrote:

Realistically, if you have anything more than a +1 bonus the amount of armies you get each turn gets waaay out of hand really fast!

 Throwing down the gauntlet are we?  ;)

You would think that the Anarchy production paradigm gets out of hand, but it just creates larger stacks all around the board.  It ends up playing very much like regular Risk with only a few tactical adjustments - that and it requires players to have a better handle on how to handle the probabilities involved with playing larger stacks.

M57 wrote:

ratsy wrote:

Realistically, if you have anything more than a +1 bonus the amount of armies you get each turn gets waaay out of hand really fast!

 Throwing down the gauntlet are we?  ;)

You would think that the Anarchy production paradigm gets out of hand, but it just creates larger stacks all around the board.  It ends up playing very much like regular Risk with only a few tactical adjustments - that and it requires players to have a better handle on how to handle the probabilities involved with playing larger stacks.

The key that makes Anarchy work is that production shows up through factories on territories with production.  If the same troop production showed up "in hand" to place as you wish, then the dynamics would be very different and much worse.

Most of the Hordes style boards give you production in hand.

M57 wrote: ...the probabilities involved with playing larger stacks...

And the important information is contained directly in the post.  The larger the stack, the more favorable for the attacker....

Anyhow... if you own one territory surrounded = +1.  Most times you own another terrirtory surrounded = +2 +1... then alot of territories surrounded = +3 +2+1.

I'm not mathelete, but some of these guys are. That gets really crazy with not alot of territories.

ratsy wrote:

M57 wrote: ...the probabilities involved with playing larger stacks...

And the important information is contained directly in the post.  The larger the stack, the more favorable for the attacker....

 

Anyhow... if you own one territory surrounded = +1.  Most times you own another terrirtory surrounded = +2 +1... then alot of territories surrounded = +3 +2+1.

I'm not mathelete, but some of these guys are. That gets really crazy with not alot of territories.

I'm not sure what you mean ratsy - In a 'standard' hordes game, there is only one way to surround a territory, hence only +1 per territory.  Yes, holding adjacent territories increases the chances that you will collect additional hordes bonuses, but they will never be more than +1 per territory

But your post has given me an idea for a hordes modification that should up the ante just a bit, but not as fast as making it a simple +2 per hordes territory.

M57 wrote:

ratsy wrote:

Anyhow... if you own one territory surrounded = +1.  Most times you own another terrirtory surrounded = +2 +1... then alot of territories surrounded = +3 +2+1.

I'm not sure what you mean ratsy

Yeah, I met with my Dad. We had a good time. ...I'm not sure I knew what I meant...  

I think the point was this: With hordes, You need to only take a small number of territories to increase your level of bonus, which makes them really powerful.  

ratsy wrote:

I think the point was this: With hordes, You need to only take a small number of territories to increase your level of bonus, which makes them really powerful.  

True.

But horde style bonusses are also hard to defend. The fastest way to accumulate armies is also the fastest way to lose them. A fine balance between growing and defending is key in winning horde-style games.

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Zombies

I use partial hordes on this map.  

The Riskiest Catch uses +2 hordes, and the ship territories are not required for hordes bonuses.

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/The+Riskiest+Catch