F@#$ Kingsburg

Kingsburg

Plot:  gain the Kings favor by building cool stuff and defeating his enemies.

Goal:  It's a game about victory points.

Mechanics:  Bear with me, going by memory of a game I played once a month ago. 

Rounds are seasonally based.  Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter.  I "think" that winter does not have a build phase and instead has an invasion phase.

A season has 2 parts. 

Part 1 is check status and maybe get a reward.  It's a most/least proposition.  Like if you have the most buildings you get a victory point in Summer, or if you have the least buildings you get more resources in spring.

Part 2 is gathering.  Roll 3D6 as a base (sometimes you can get extra dice via rewards or buildings previously bought)

There are 18 spots on the board, numbered from 1-18.  You claim a spot, and its rewards by placing a die or multiple dice onto it.  For example lets say you roll 2-5-6.  You have 7 spots you can place on. Play on the 2, 5, 6 with a single die.  Play on the 7, 8 and 11 with combinations of 2 dice, or on the 13 with all your dice.  Spots are claimed one at a time via a draft, so if you save dice you are running a risk of being shut out of a spot. 

The spots give benefits in various combinations.  Some give a single benefit only, some give you a choice and some give multiple benefits.  Things you can acquire are

Resources - wood, stone or gold.  Used to buy buildings.
Victory points - used to win the game.
Knights - used to defeat the invading horde in winter.
Clairvoyance - used to peak at what's coming in winter so you can plan accordingly.

All buildings score VP, and most provide some kind of rules exception.  The one that I bought that I liked the most was the market.  Once a turn, the market lets you adjust a numeric total by +/- 1.  Its pretty powerful, it makes it hard for your foes to block you.


Winter is Coming. 

at the end of the year, something invades.  The invader comes with a strength number.  This number can be approximated by anyone, and is known exactly by players who took a spot with a free peek benefit.  If you beat it, good things happen.  If it beats you, bad things happen.  If you push, nothing happens.  Generally speaking, you don't want to lose.  Pushing 'might' be acceptable, but the cost of losing can be crippling.  The exact consequences vary, but some invaders destroy your best building.  Your best building probably took several resource rolls to build.

Tactics:

Again, these are just my impressions from a game I played once a month ago.  Take these with a grain of salt.

- the way the board is set up, until you get to the really advanced spots (like 16+ or so), everything is near to a 1-1 resource per die ration.  What the hell does Darren mean by that?  Well, spots 1-6 get you 1 resource and spots 7-12 get you 2 (in general) and so on.  So the tactical advantage of going for these larger spots is the decreased chance of being shut out.
- the exception to this is the military spots.  right before the winter invasion you are allowed to spend 2 resources to get a knight.  The 1-6 range spot (I think its 5) gets you 1 military, so in a way that's worth 2 resources.  The 7-12 spot (I think its 8) gets you 2 military AND a peak at the invader.  These look like really efficient plays.
 

Expansions:

We played with a lot of these.  So many that I don't even know what components are in the core game.  I think the expansions inlcuded:

Alternate tech trees.  Buildings have a path along a row, and usually they are the same for everyone.  An expansion allows you to replace a building row.

Roles/Occupation.  Draw 3 cards with some kind of role on them.  Pick one, this gives you some kind of benefit to use during the game.  Like extra resources, moves or military.

Combat Tokens.  Everyone gets an identical hand of tokens.  These are numbered from 0-4.  During the invasion show down, you play a token and adjust your military up by the corresponding amount.  At the end of the game, you will have 1 token left.  You get matching victory points to that number.

Review:

The die roll/location draft is innovative and clever, and makes the tactical decisions fun.  The buildings provide plenty of rules exceptions, so this made strategic decisions fun.  This is absolutely worth playing again, 7.5/10.  Having said that, I kind of would like to see another designer take a crack at this mechanic.  Race for the Galaxy is a dramatic improvement over San Juan, and both use the same 'your hand is your currency mechanic'.  And while I like this game as is, I can't help but suspect that a fresh try would smooth a lot of things out.