by gert74
I love both Agricola and Dungeon Lords and I think DL can be quite punishing as well.Besides the pressure of being ready to deal with the adventurers at the end of the year, you will also need to have enough resources to pay your monsters on Pay Day as well as gold to pay taxes when it's time for that. If you can't do the former, you'll lose your monster and if you can't do the latter you'll get negative points (not unlike the beggar cards).
It's juggling all these requirements while also trying to build up your dungeon (or farm) - and thereby your score - that is part of what makes both games interesting for me.
That being said, the punishments in DL are not as devastating as Agricola, but on the other hand a bit more unpredictable.
Bagherra wrote:
Also it doesn't have infinitely many choices so you can't really "choose" yourself into a hole.
Maybe not to the degree where you've put yourself out of the game. But the fact that some of your actions will be inaccessible the turn after you use them can mean that you can easily put yourself in a position where it will be physically impossible for you to avoid a punishment no matter how much you may want to.