Legacy from alea

The Rise of Queensdale

a spoiler-free review

Even before it’s official publication date of April 2018, The Rise of Queensdale was talked about everywhere. More than once I was accosted by gaming friends and also designers about how intensely the Legacy Game by Inka and Markus Brand was promoted. Their reputation preceded the designer duo, as it had already clearly shown their talent for challenging and innovative game art with very good games for experts, for instance with the award-winning Village. So then why not also try their hand at the Legacy concept which at that point had made its successful debut in the marked but had not yet appeared in the Euro Games range.

The box of The Rise of Queensdale is a lot bigger than the boxes for the games in the other series of alea games and begins, declared by the One on the box, its own series. A very nice detail in my opinion, not only for collectors of alea/Ravensburger games.

Praise also is due to Michael Menzel, who has once again surpassed himself in the creation of the box cover illustration. The cover shows the valley of Queensdale where all is supposed to begin. His Majesty, King Nepomuk II., wants to have a castle built in Queensdale to further a quicker recovery of his Queen and is assigning the task to us. The valley is quickly divided into four fiefdoms for us four stalwarts and the game can begin.

The construction of the castle spans several epochs (games) and those epochs are divided into rounds. Each player commands five dice for such a round, the sides of which show once each resources – wood, stone, guilders and loam - and twice a symbol for action. At the start of round, all players roll their dice simultaneously and then are active in turn, beginning with the starting player. If you are active, you may place one and only one of your dice. For resources results, the board offers up to two resources of the respective type. Resources are needed for nearly all placement cases of the action board and are therefore intensely contested. If for instance, you want to extend your fief with a new building, you need minimum four building materials and often also a handful of guilders. A cost that really pays for itself, as, besides advantages for the game flow, you also earn fame points towards the meeting of the epoch goal.

Helpful support also provided by the Scout action for collecting herb tiles. When you place a die showing the action symbol, the good man moves up to four court cases and on the way collects all herbs known to him as well as that many bonuses. At the begin he is a bit clumsy and inexperienced, but ability and knowledge of this diligent helper grow with every herb hut, as does your standing with the king.

In accordance with mother Nature and with the the successfully passed builder exam in our pocket, we should, as the last point on our agenda, jolly along the king’s people, because building a castle is no bed of roses and if you cooperate you achieve your goals more quickly. So, this is reason enough for spending an action for and to improve our standing in society in exchange for food (bread). For a reward, we receive fame points and further resources from production buildings.

When all players have placed their dice, a round ends, and the next one can begin. Play continues until at least one player has achieved his epoch goal via the fame points track. Whoever achieves this, his assigned new tasks at that point, but the path to resolve them is long and stone. The rise of Queensdale can begin.

Already in playing the introductory game for this legacy game from alea, you quickly realize that it is a race for resources and buildings. There would be time enough to complete all tasks if not for all those fellow players standing in the way on the best action cases. As regards to resources, in each round you have a new chance for double revenue, but the situation is different with buildings. Dawdlers pay additional costs there or must come up with an entirely new plan.

This provides a good measure of challenge and interaction, both of which are often lacking in many Euro games. Graphics and background story, too, invite you for more and provide absolutely interesting changes in the game. I am, however, less enamored with the narrative structure and its upbuild that goes along with it. In our games, I did not manage to learn all aspects in the tale of Queensdale. Of course, you can simply add their new mechanics after playing through, but this, for me, takes away too much of the legacy flair. In this context, I also think it is a pity that the game cannot be reset completely.

All in all, I do like the game very well and I like it even better than Charterstone. I would especially recommend it to players who like strategy games in the expert range, but you should be prepared to meet regularly to tell the story to its end and to get to know as many new aspects as possible. For me, as one who prefers heavy artillery games, The Rise of Queensdale is a bit to generic, but yet a nice experience! I could be persuaded to play again!

Dennis Rappel

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 60+

Designer: Inka & Markus Brand

Artist: Michael Menzel

Price: ca. 68 Euro

Publisher: alea / Ravensburger 2018

Web: www.ravensburger.de

Genre: Legacy, strategy

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Beautiful graphics

Interesting story

Well-tried mechanisms

Good rules

Generic topic

Compares to:

Charterstone

Other editions:

Ravensburger (en)

My rating: 5

Dennis Rappel:

An interesting experience with a competitive Euro and Legacy game, with a solid concept and enough interaction; for me, however, it is not generic enough for a perennial, and, unfortunately, you do not play the whole story, either.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0