Gods War questions

[Trifletraxor]

Hi folk! 

I've recently played Gods War for the first time and enjoyed it much more than I expected. Some rule questions came up though:

1) Permission to leave Hell: Yelm starts the game in Hell. It is stated that he needs permission from a unit with higher combat rating to leave Hell. Can he get the permission from a couple of trolls (combat rating 1 x2), or must it be a single unit from an opponent with a combat rating of 2 or more? The wording on the rules on leaving hell would suggest the latter, but other text suggest the first. 

2) Temples and zigguraths add routes and kills, but do they have any defenses when they stand alone, or can a unit walk in and take over withtout a fight if no defender units are present?

3) The chaos empire seems like an integral part of play. Do somebody needs to play chaos everytime you play, or can f.ex. four non-chaos empire play against each other without chaos present?

 

Cheers, Sverre. 

[Joerg]

On 8/26/2019 at 8:39 PM, Trifletraxor said:

1) Permission to leave Hell: Yelm starts the game in Hell. It is stated that he needs permission from a unit with higher combat rating to leave Hell. Can he get the permission from a couple of trolls (combat rating 1 x2), or must it be a single unit from an opponent with a combat rating of 2 or more? The wording on the rules on leaving hell would suggest the latter, but other text suggest the first. 

Single unit, otherwise nothing would stop Yelm from building a shrine and summoning two archers to release himself.

On 8/26/2019 at 8:39 PM, Trifletraxor said:

2) Temples and zigguraths add routes and kills, but do they have any defenses when they stand alone, or can a unit walk in and take over withtout a fight if no defender units are present?

Yes, whenever a temple is taken over or gets destroyed, a unit gets routed, and a unit killed when capturing or destroying a ziggurat.

 

On 8/26/2019 at 8:39 PM, Trifletraxor said:

3) The chaos empire seems like an integral part of play. Do somebody needs to play chaos everytime you play, or can f.ex. four non-chaos empire play against each other without chaos present?

Absence of Chaos shortens the Chaos Rift phase. Otherwise it is possible to play without Chaos. Playing with Chaos creates a lot of free map space as Chaos prefers to parasite to existing buildings. Without Chaos, getting that many buildings onto the map may take some more military effort.

That said, someone on BGG created a "Chaos robot" doing stuff for Chaos without intelligent player control.