Kingsburg Review by Count Zero

Kingsburg Review by Count Zero

The king is dying and the kingdom is going to be passed on to one of his loyal ambassadors, its up to you to prove that you are most worthy of the realm. You have to do this by building various buildings in the country and protecting the land from invading armies.

The artwork on the box of this game is amazing, it gives a good feel for what you are going to get when you open up the box. Inside you get one large board that depicts the 18 different advisors that you will influence in the game. 5 smaller board that each player uses to mark which buildings they have build. A large bag of coloured dice, three in each colour and some plain white ones. Various cardboard tokens to be used by the players to mark there buildings and to gain other dice rolling advantages. Some wooden tokens to mark victory points and times in the game, a small deck of cards to depict the various enemies that attack in the winter season. Finally a nice colour rulebook that explains the game very well with good use of examples. The components are all very well made and the main boards artwork is very nice. It's a slightly cartoonish fantasy theme that works really well.

The game is played over a period of 5 years, with each of the years broken down into 4 seasons. The game starts in Spring and all players roll there three coloured dice. The values are totaled and the playing order is adjusted with the lowest going fist.
Now comes the basis of the turns. The dice that you have rolled are placed on the advisors, the dice can be broken down or placed as one. So for example if you total was 9 (3+2+4)you could put all three dice on the master hunter who is advisor number 9. Or you could place two dice totaling 5 (3+2)onto the soldier. Once you have placed some or all of your dice the next player places his. He cannot at this point place his dice on an advisor who already has dice on them. Once everyone has placed on one advisor the starting player can then place any remaining dice. This goes on until everyone has placed there die.

Each of the 18 advisors helps the players in one of several ways. Mainly through giving them resources, either wood, stone or gold. They can also supply troops for your army, spy on the Winter enemy or give victory points.

The advisors are then played and players recieve there resources or abilities. Now comes the spring build phase, here players spend there resources to build the buildings on there build mat. The starting buildings are relatively cheap, a single wood for a palisade or a wood and a stone for a tower. Each building is worth a number of victory points and generally gives the player some abilities. The more expensive the building the more victory points it provides and the better its power. The tower gives +1 to your army, the Inn gives a +2 token each summer which can be added to a dices value. (A 6 could be used as an 8).

After this has happened its time for Summer, again the players roll there dice, adjust there starting order, influence there advisors and recieve there benefits. Building happens again and hopefully the players will start scoring some good points.

Autumn is played in the same way with an added phase. When Winter comes a random army is going to attack the realm, anyone who has used there spy ability will know the strength of the attacking army and will hopefully have prepared. Players can now buy armies at the cost of two goods for an army. Once everyone has bought there armies the king will send in reinforcments. A single dice is rolled and added to everyones army strength. The enemy card is now flipped and will display the enemy type, goblins, zombies etc. The card will display the stregth of the army and each player thats army is greater than that will defeat the enemy and recieve the cards bonus. This is usually victory points or resources. Anyone who doesn't defeat them as the bad effects of the card played. Usually loosing victory points, resources or in the worst case buildings.

The first year comes to an end and by now everyone should know what they are planning for the other 4. There are a couple of extra events in the turn order. At the end of Spring and Summer the king will help the loosing player and give the winning player extra victory points. This is a nice little bonus, being the loosing player gets the kings favour in Autumn. This allows them to influence an advisor who already has dice on them or to build twice in a build phase. This little bit of help can bring the loosing player back into the running.

The next 4 years are played exactly the same with the winter enemy getting harder and the players building effecting the game. By the third year some building that produce victory points should be in play and the defensive bonus of other buildings should take the edge off of the winter phase.

After the end of the 5 years whoever has the most victory points wins.

It all sounds easy enough but there are several things that effect the outcome of this game but mainly its a planning game. What buildings you build really effects your game, the buildings are in a basic technology tree. You have to build a statue before the church, and a church before a cathedral. The higher up the tree the better the building and victory point bonus. The winter attack is also a key point in the game, early in the game the kings help will generally be enough to defeat the enemy but by year 5 the winter phase can dramatically effect the players. If you haven't built up your army you may loose your most powerful building and the victory points that it was worth.

Kingsburg was better than I expected. It plays really well and once the first year is played everyone will know what the have to do. I really think that this game will be nominated for the SdJ as its a great gateway/family game.

If you are interested there is a java version available here http://mitglied.lycos.de/thunderfall/

There will also be an expansion out for the game towards the end of the year.

Summary

Presentation: The game looks great, its well put together and the components look the part. 9/10

Clarity of Rules: The rules are really well written, there are plenty of examples to help you play. 8/10

Game Length: The game takes about 90 minutes which will get shorter once everyone has played a couple of times. 9/10

Value: Good quality components that are well made 8/10

Overall: This is a great game that would be an ideal gateway game for friends or family. (8.5/10 not an average)