by Budgernaut
My experience is still limited. I only have 2 completed and 3 interrupted games, but here are my thoughts. The first game I played (2 player) was without the Road to Victory rules, but we still both had a good idea about how many runes because we used our Heroes wisely to scout out each other's runes. It was very tense at the end with a lot of battles over the last runes, which is different from what many people said about the game just diffusing after a lot of buildup of tension (read 'armies') as someone reveals their 6 runes. So I think playing without Road to Victory can still be very fun.In another game, I got to 6 runes in year 5 as the Latari, the Uthuk had 4, and the two other factions each had 2 runes. Because we were short on time, I revealed even though I wanted to wait to reveal until I had 7 dragon runes. Because I had focused on influence, heroes, and titles to get my dragon runes, I didn't have a strong enough army to defend my dragon runes and my 5th and 6th runes were taken before we called the game quits. So in my experience, the first to declare 6 runes is far from secure as the victor.
I'm still new, so I guess I'll stick with 6 for now, but I don't really mind the game going to time.