Pitchfork Math

You are the head of a small Polish village. You wrote to the king three times. He never answered, and the knights hid in their castles. Meanwhile geese took the fields, Vikings sailed in from the north, Baba Yaga woke up in the forest, a dragon moved into the royal castle, and on Bald Mountain a devil named Boruta counts souls into his sack. So the peasants pick up their pitchforks. HOW MANY PEASANTS DOES IT TAKE? Before every battle you decide how many to send. The devil's contract pays more the fewer heads you bring, but send too few and morale breaks. You place your party, the battle plays out on its own, and you step in with a few order cards. The sandbox mode will even run hundreds of battles and tell you how many it takes to win half the time. A VILLAGE THAT LIVES BETWEEN BATTLES Build cottages, a smithy, a tavern, a mill and a watchtower. Take in volunteers every Monday. Marry peasants off, watch their kids grow up, and decide who marches out and who stays home to work the fields and stand guard, because raiders don't wait for the party to come back. If the village falls, the game is over, and the next village hears about it. A WILD WORLD BEYOND THE FENCE March out through the gate onto a map of four lands. Your village sits in the middle and most of the world is hidden in fog. Pick a party leader, load the cart with food and count the days, because every day on the road is a day the village spends without you. Stock up in a hamlet, ambush a raid on the road before it reaches home, or storm a Viking village behind its palisade. When the food runs out, hunger takes courage first and people later. Three plague lords wait at the far ends of the map: the Jarl, Baba Yaga and the Wawel Dragon. Beat all three and the road to Bald Mountain opens. EVERY PEASANT HAS A NAME Pitchforkers, Grannies, Kids, Archers, Drummers and eight more types. They level up, earn nicknames, make friends and rivals, fall in love, and turn into new forms based on what they did in battle. When one falls, the hat stays behind. So does the last fart. When the game ends, it shows you the family trees of the whole village and who led each expedition. MONSTERS FROM OLD SLAVIC TALES The Noon Witch in the wheat, one-eyed Likho, child-stealing boginki, a leshy who heals among the trees, a werewolf, Baba Yaga flying in her mortar and a dragon wearing the king's crown. From the north come Vikings with a Valkyrie, and draugr who get up a second time. At the end waits Boruta, who fights you with the souls of your own fallen.