Deep Dive December 2025: Hadrian's Wall

 

Back again this year with another report on participating in the Deep Dive December Solo Challenge. In previous years, I've played Lost Ruins of Arnak, Scythe, and Under Falling Skies. This year I selected Hadrian's Wall, a flip and write game about building a coast to coast wall in Britannia at the behest of Roman Emperor Hadrian Augustus to keep the savage Picts from attacking. I pledged to play the game 12 times in the month of December and had a great time doing so. After receiving the game last Christmas, I felt bad for neglecting it for so long. Thankfully, it turned out to be the perfect candidate for this challenge. I enjoyed it so much that it landed at #4 on my Top 10 New to Me Games of 2025 list.

Instead of attempting the campaign to start, which is longer than 12 games, I decided to just increase the difficulty as I went along. Starting on easy difficulty I did amazing in my first game, completing most the the left sheet that contains the wall. I ended with a score of 84 which is apparently very good, but on easy I should have done well. Saying that my second game saw a 20 point drop as I focused too much on the right sheet. Over the following 7 games I scored anywhere between 62 and 84 as I increased the difficulty to hard for the last two. With back to back 80+ games on hard, it's clear the wall should be the focus but using the citizen tracks that work best with the scoring cards each round is a good strategy for a high score.

For the final 3 games, I decided to start the campaign and was able to complete the first 3 missions with scores of 81, 91, and 92. Having to focus on specific objectives that are required to complete and move on to the next mission has been more enjoyable than just trying to score the best score possible. For the second time, I picked a game I had never played prior to the challenge and once again had a great time really spending time to understand how it plays. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get anymore games in after completing the 12 for the challenge but I'll definitely be finishing the campaign in the future.

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