Is it possible for the game to never end? In order for the game to end, the Moonlight Board has to be filled up to the Full Moon scoring stage. But this means that if players purposefully avoid taking actions that cause the Moonlight Board to be filled then the game never actually ends.
I think it's possible for some players to make the game last forever, even if one player is trying to end the game, and as far as I can tell there's no mechanism in the game to prevent it. The only actions you can take that put a piece on the Moonlight Board are Howl, Dominate, and Upgrade Den. There are limits to how many times a player can take these actions though because you're counter-limited to 4 Lairs and 8 additional wolves. Once you have all 4 Lairs you can't take the Upgrade Den action anymore, and once you have all 8 additional wolves you can't Howl and you can't Dominate other wolves, only other dens. This means that if no one lets you Dominate a den, then the most that one player can fill on the Moonlight Board is 12 spaces, but this isn't enough to end the game on your own.
In 2-player, for example, the game ends once there are 18 pieces on the Moonlight Board. So if I can only put 12 pieces on (such as 8 lone wolves by Howling and 4 dens by Upgrading Dens), then I'm not able to end the game by myself. This means that if the other player never takes an action that puts a piece on the Moonlight Board (so, they never Howl, Dominate, or Upgrade Den) and that if they never let me Dominate one of their dens (by never taking the Build Den action) then they can stop the game from ever ending. This means that in 2-player, if you only ever take the Move action, then there's no way for you to lose because the other player will never be able to end the game. I could see a scenario in 2-player where if one player doesn't like their starting position then they can force the game into a never-ending draw state by only ever taking the Move action (please no one actually try to use this strategy).
In larger player counts it wouldn't be possible for one player to force the game to last forever, but if every player except one conspired to do it by only taking the Move action, then they would also be able to force the game to last forever. In any case it's probably unlikely that anyone ever tries to do this, but I feel like the game should probably have some way of preventing it from happening, in 2-player especially but even with more players. For example, one token could be added to the Moonlight Board automatically every 10 turns or something, or the game could automatically end after a certain number of turns (say, 100 turns) if it doesn't end before then, or an alternate game-end condition could be if any one player builds everything on their board.
It does seem like the game was designed so that it will eventually end if everyone follows a normal strategy (not only taking the Move action forever) because even if everyone defended all of their pieces by making sure every Pack Wolf and every den was always on a tile with another piece, so that no one could ever take the Dominate action, the game will still end once all the Lone Wolves are recruited and all the Lairs have been built because that would put enough pieces on the Moonlight Board to end the game. Again, with 2-player as an example, there are 10 Lone Wolves and each player has 4 Lairs, so once the Lone Wolves were all recruited and the Lairs were all built there would be 18 pieces on the Moonlight Board, which is exactly enough to end the game- although the game could still be impossible to end without someone having a piece Dominated if someone built too many Dens on places where they couldn't be upgraded into Lairs.
What do other people who have played the game more think? I've only played 6 times so far so I could be missing something. Has anyone actually had a game last forever because they were unable to fill the Moonlight Board? I am slightly concerned that refusing to take any action other than Move so that the game never ends could be a legitimate strategy in 2-player if one player doesn't like their starting position, but hopefully this doesn't actually become a problem.
I think it's possible for some players to make the game last forever, even if one player is trying to end the game, and as far as I can tell there's no mechanism in the game to prevent it. The only actions you can take that put a piece on the Moonlight Board are Howl, Dominate, and Upgrade Den. There are limits to how many times a player can take these actions though because you're counter-limited to 4 Lairs and 8 additional wolves. Once you have all 4 Lairs you can't take the Upgrade Den action anymore, and once you have all 8 additional wolves you can't Howl and you can't Dominate other wolves, only other dens. This means that if no one lets you Dominate a den, then the most that one player can fill on the Moonlight Board is 12 spaces, but this isn't enough to end the game on your own.
In 2-player, for example, the game ends once there are 18 pieces on the Moonlight Board. So if I can only put 12 pieces on (such as 8 lone wolves by Howling and 4 dens by Upgrading Dens), then I'm not able to end the game by myself. This means that if the other player never takes an action that puts a piece on the Moonlight Board (so, they never Howl, Dominate, or Upgrade Den) and that if they never let me Dominate one of their dens (by never taking the Build Den action) then they can stop the game from ever ending. This means that in 2-player, if you only ever take the Move action, then there's no way for you to lose because the other player will never be able to end the game. I could see a scenario in 2-player where if one player doesn't like their starting position then they can force the game into a never-ending draw state by only ever taking the Move action (please no one actually try to use this strategy).
In larger player counts it wouldn't be possible for one player to force the game to last forever, but if every player except one conspired to do it by only taking the Move action, then they would also be able to force the game to last forever. In any case it's probably unlikely that anyone ever tries to do this, but I feel like the game should probably have some way of preventing it from happening, in 2-player especially but even with more players. For example, one token could be added to the Moonlight Board automatically every 10 turns or something, or the game could automatically end after a certain number of turns (say, 100 turns) if it doesn't end before then, or an alternate game-end condition could be if any one player builds everything on their board.
It does seem like the game was designed so that it will eventually end if everyone follows a normal strategy (not only taking the Move action forever) because even if everyone defended all of their pieces by making sure every Pack Wolf and every den was always on a tile with another piece, so that no one could ever take the Dominate action, the game will still end once all the Lone Wolves are recruited and all the Lairs have been built because that would put enough pieces on the Moonlight Board to end the game. Again, with 2-player as an example, there are 10 Lone Wolves and each player has 4 Lairs, so once the Lone Wolves were all recruited and the Lairs were all built there would be 18 pieces on the Moonlight Board, which is exactly enough to end the game- although the game could still be impossible to end without someone having a piece Dominated if someone built too many Dens on places where they couldn't be upgraded into Lairs.
What do other people who have played the game more think? I've only played 6 times so far so I could be missing something. Has anyone actually had a game last forever because they were unable to fill the Moonlight Board? I am slightly concerned that refusing to take any action other than Move so that the game never ends could be a legitimate strategy in 2-player if one player doesn't like their starting position, but hopefully this doesn't actually become a problem.
